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in which Addison is introduced under the name of Maro.] It seems to me as if she had about two thousand epithets and fine words packed up in a bag; and that she pulled them out by handfuls, and strewed them on her paper, where about once in five hundred times they happen to be right."

In the same letter to Addison, Swift says: "I do not desire to hear from you till you are out of [the] hurry at Malmesbury [his election]. I long till you have some good account of your Indian affairs, so as to make public business depend upon you and not you upon that."

Addison wrote on the fly-leaf of a copy of his Remarks on Italy, which he presented to Swift, the following brief but emphatic testimony:

"To Dr. Jonathan Swift, The most Agreeable Companion, The Truest Friend, And the Greatest Genius of his Age, This Book is presented by his most Humble Servant the Author." This precious autograph is in the collection of Mr. George Daniel, of Canonbury.

SWIFT AND DR. JOHNSON.

Boswell notes: "Johnson seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift, for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had personally offended him, and he said he had not. He said to-day, 'Swift is clear, but he is shallow. In coarse humour he is inferior to Arbuthnot; in delicate humour, he is inferior to Addison. So he is inferior to his contemporaries, without putting him against the whole world. I doubt if the Tale of a Tub was his; it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was impar sibi.' ” To which Mr. Croker adds, "There probably was no opportunity for what could be, in strictness, called personal offence, as there was no personal intercourse between Swift and Johnson, but the editor agrees with Mr. Boswell in suspecting there was some such cause for Johnson's otherwise unaccountable prejudice.' ... What could Johnson mean by calling Swift' shallow ? If he be shallow, who in his department of literature is profound ?"

POPE, SWIFT, AND BYRON.

When Pope, at the age of five-and-twenty, complained of being weary of the world, he was told by Swift that he “had

not yet acted or suffered enough in the world to have become weary of it." But far different was the youth of Pope and of Byron ;-what the former had but anticipated in thought, the latter had drunk deep in reality; at an age when the one was but looking forth on the sea of life, the other had plunged in, and tried its depths. Swift himself, in whom early disappointments and wrongs had opened a vein of bitterness that never again closed, affords a far closer parallel to the fate of our noble poet, as well in the untimeliness of the trials he had been doomed to encounter, as in the traces of the havoc which they left in his character.-Moore's Life of Byron, vol. i. p. 265.

HAZARDING A CRITICISM.

Scott, following the example of Dr. Wharton, says :-"To the drama, Swift was so indifferent, that he never once alludes to the writings of Shakspeare; nor does he appear to have possessed a copy of his works." The best reply to this haphazard annotation is:

In the following places Swift refers to Shakspeare, and doubtless there are many others.-In vol. iii., page 11, he alludes to Henry VIII.—In vol. vii., page 233, to Julius Cæsar.-In vol. ix., page 227, to Hamlet.-In vol. xiv., page 252, to Macbeth.-In vol. xv., page 257, to Henry V.-In vol. xvi., page 57, where he advises Mr. Drapier to use translation as a bridle to his genius, which employment, he says, will teach him to write like a modest man, he manifestly alludes to the following passage of the Merchant of Venice :

'pray thee, take pains,

To allay with some cold drops of modesty
Thy skipping spirit."

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In vol. ix., page 396, he calls him "the great Shakspeare," and afterwards, in the same passage, says he was an excellent poet.' These passages prove sufficiently that Swift was not only well acquainted with the works of the sublime British bard, but likewise that he greatly admired him, which, to use Fluellen's language, is "a phrase a little variations" from Scott's. The same editor relates, what is indeed ". wonderful to be told," that Swift was not possessed of a copy of Shakspeare's Works. The only foundation, however, for this assertion, is, that there does not appear one among his books sold after his decease,

ODD BLUNDER.

The following oddity is attributed both to Swift and Lockier:-" In the coffee-house yesterday I received a letter, in which there was one word which consisted of but one

syllable, and that syllable of but one letter, and yet the fellow had contrived to have three false spellings in it." The solution is Eye instead of I.

THE DEAN'S CONVERSATION.

The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a Sheriff's feast, who, amongst other toasts, called out to him, "Mr. Dean, the trade of Ireland!" He answered quickly: "Sir, I drink no memories !"

Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided himself on saying pert things. . . and who cried out "You must know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit!" "Do you so," says the Dean, "take my advice, and sit down again!"

Dr. Young says: "Swift had a mixture of insolence in his conversation."

THE DEAN'S VERISIMILITUDE.

Swift seems, like the Persian dervise, to have possessed the faculty of transfusing his own soul into the body of any one whom he selected ;-of seeing with his eyes, employing every organ of his sense, and even becoming master of the powers of his judgment. Lemuel Gulliver the traveller, Isaac Bickerstaff the astrologer, the Frenchman who writes the new journey to Paris, Mrs. Harris, Mary the cook-maid, the grave projector who proposes a plan for relieving the poor by eating their children, and the vehement Whig politician who remonstrates against the enormities of the Dublin signs, are all persons as distinct from each other as they are in appearance from the Dean of St. Patrick's. Each maintains his own character, moves in his own sphere, and is struck with those circumstances which his situation in life, or habits of thinking, have rendered most interesting to him as an individual. Scott's Life.

SWIFT'S WEEKLY RHYME.

The Dean, in a letter to Dr. Thomas Sheridan, says: "Here is a very ingenious observation upon the days of the week, and in rhyme, worth your observation, and very proper for the information of boys and girls, that they may not forget to reckon them!

Sunday's a pun day:

Monday's a dun day:
Tuesday's a news day:

Wednesday's a friend's day:
Thursday's a cursed day:
Friday's a dry day:

Saturday's the latter day."

SWIFT'S BROADSIDES-PUNCH.

Mr.

Some of the Dean's best pieces appeared in the form of broadsides, and were originally printed for private distribution; many of them, particularly the satirical and political poems, were given into the hands of ballad-singers, hawkers, and newsvenders, and were sung through the streets of London and Dublin. Others were posted on the walls. Wilde possesses a large collection of these broadsides. One relates to a personage who has acquired great literary celebrity since Swift's time-namely, Punch-his "Petition to the Ladies ;" and underneath the heading, in the Dean's handwriting, we find this sentence, "Written upon Secretary Hopkins refusing to let Stretch act without a large sum of money." This broadside concludes with "Punch cum sociis."

GRUB-STREET.

Swift delighted in "Grub-street." Thus, in his Journal to Stella: "I have this morning sent out another Grubstreet." "Grub-street has but ten days to run, then an Act of Parliament takes place that ruins it, by taxing every sheet a halfpenny." "Do you know that Grub-street is dead and gone last week? No more ghosts or murders now for love or money." Swift also wrote some homely "Advice to the Grub-street Verse-writers;" but it has been significantly hinted that had it not been for Jack the Giant-killer and Tom Thumb, of Grub-street parentage, it is believed we should never have heard either of the Brobdingnagians or Lilliputians.

"HOSPITAL FOR INCURABLES."

Swift proposed to clear the world of some of its greatest nuisances by confining them in one vast receptable, for which purpose he devised his "Scheme to make an Hospital for Incurables," wherein he says, by a plain computation, it is evident that two hundred thousand persons will be daily provided for; and the allowance for maintaining this collection of incurables may be seen in the following account :

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amount to such a sum as, in 365 days, comes to £3,650,000

WRITING ENGLISH.

Swift laid down several rules for writing our language; Pope considered them the best he had ever heard, although three in four of them were not thoroughly well grounded. The Dean in a letter to Mr. Hooke, observes: one of the greatest difficulties in our language lies in the use of the relatives, and the making it always evident to what antecedents they refer." This is strangely neglected in the present day.

The following (says Hooke) is an instance of what Swift used to call the Parson's style: "That were not of it." growth, or at least, made free of Rome." It should be-"That were not of the growth of Rome, or, at least, made free of it."

Swift was out of humour with many words coined in his own time;" a common foible with elderly men, who seem to think that everything was in perfection when they entered the world, and could not be altered but for the worse.' -Walpole.

ON PSYCHE.

Mrs. Sican (or Sycon), one of Swift's female wits, had her name transformed by the Dean into Psyche, in the following verses:

At two afternoon, for our Psyche inquire,

Her tea-kettle's on, and her smock at the fire;

So loitering, so active; so busy, so idle;

Which has she most need of, a spur or a bridle?

Thus a greyhound outruns a whole pack in a race,

Yet would rather be hang'd than he'd leave a warm place.

She gives you such plenty, it puts you in pain;

But ever with prudence takes care of the main.

To please you, she knows how to choose a nice bit,
For her taste is almost as refined as her wit.

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