firmed by that of Mr. Theophilus Swift, who expresses his conviction, that, in consequence of his share in the academical satires upon the Fellows of Trinity College, Swift was in danger of losing the testimonium of his degree, without which he could not have been admitted ad eundum at Oxford.

Nevertheless, a Correspondent of Sir Walter Scott alleges reasons, to prove that speciali gratiâ must mean that Swift got his degree by interest or merit; and that there is nothing to warrant the assertion that he begged pardon on his knees; while "that Swift had a scholarship appears from his remaining in Commons, and being, according to Dr. Barrett, suspended from Commons, by way of punishment, after graduating, which could be no punishment at all to him if his Commons were not at the charge of the University."

66

Swift held his uncle Godwin's remembrance neither in love nor veneration. His grandson, Theophilus Swift, relates that at a visitation dinner, at college, Archdeacon Whittingham being placed nearly opposite Swift at table, suddenly asked, Pray, Mr. Dean, was it not your uncle Godwin who educated you ?"-Swift affected not to hear this offensive question. At length it was twice repeated, with a loud and bitter accent, when the Dean answered abruptly, "Yes! He gave me the education of a dog."-" Then,' answered Whittingham, grinning, and clenching his hand, "you have not the gratitude of a dog." The instant interposition of the Bishop prevented the personal violence which was likely to follow on this colloquy. Notwithstanding the violence of the altercation, the Dean and Archdeacon Whittingham were reconciled by the interference of the Bishop, and became afterwards close friends.

SWIFT IS INTRODUCED TO SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

Swift remained at college till 1688, when on the breaking out of the war in Ireland, he bent his course to England, and travelled on foot to Leicester, where his mother had been residing for some time in a state of precarious dependence on her relations, one of whom was the wife of Sir William Temple, whose seat was at Moor Park, near Farnham, in Surrey.

Young Swift now solicited the patronage of Sir William Temple, who hired Jonathan to read to him, and sometimes to be his amanuensis, at the rate of 201. a year and his board. At first, he was neither treated with confidence nor affection;

neither did Sir William favour him with his conversation, nor allow him to sit at table with him. Temple, an accomplished statesman and polite scholar, could scarcely tolerate the irritable habits and imperfect learning of the new inmate; but Sir William's prejudices became gradually weaker as Swift's careless and idle habits were abandoned; he studied eight hours a day, and became useful to his patron as his private secretary. A surfeit of stone-fruit,* to which Swift always ascribed the giddiness with which he was afterwards so severely afflicted, brought on an ill state of health, for the removal of which, after he had been about two years with Sir William, he went to Ireland, but soon returned. He was now treated with greater kindness than before: Temple permitted him to be present at his confidential interviews with King William, who was a frequent guest at Moor Park; and when Temple was laid up with the gout, the duty of attending the King devolved upon Swift, who won so much in his majesty's favour, that he not only taught him how to eat asparagus in the Dutch manner, but offered to make him captain of a troop of horse, which however Swift declined. Sir William employed him to endeavour to persuade the king to consent to the bill for triennial parliaments, and Swift's vanity was much hurt when he found that his reasoning was not sufficiently strong to overcome the king's obstinacy.

ECONOMY IN ASPARAGUS.

A characteristic anecdote is related of Swift's lesson in economy which he learned from royalty. Alderman Faulkner, the Dean's printer and publisher, one day being detained late at the Deanery, in correcting some proof-sheets, Swift made the Alderman stay to dinner. Amongst other vegetables, asparagus formed one of the dishes. The Dean helped his guest, who shortly again called upon his host to be helped a second time; when Swift, pointing to the Alderman's plate, said, “Sir, first finish what you have upon your plate." -“What, sir, eat my stalks ?""Aye, sir! King William always eats the stalks!" This story was told by Faulkner to Dr. Leland, who asked, " And George, what, were you blockhead enough to obey ?"-" Yes, doctor, and if you had dined with Dean Swift tête-à-tête, faith, you would have been obliged to eat your stalks!"

* Also, stated to have been twelve “Shene pippins.”

SWIFT AT OXFORD-HIS FIRST VERSES.

Swift went to Oxford in 1692, and entered himself of Hart's Hall, for the purpose of taking his degree of M.A., to which he was admitted on the 5th of July in that year. He was much pleased with the civilities he met at Oxford, and professed himself more obliged, in a few weeks, to strangers, than ever he was, in seven years, to Dublin College.

Swift had already, (in 1691,) " written and burned, and written again upon all manner of subjects, more than, perhaps, any man in England;" and at Oxford he produced his first verses, (reserving only his claim to any of those contained in the Tripos of Jones.) It is a version of Horace, book ii. ode 18:

'Tis true, my cottage, mean and low,

Not built for grandeur, but for ease,
No ivory cornices can show,

Nor ceilings rough with gold displays.
No cedar beams for pomp and state,
(To nature names confest unknown,)
Repose their great and precious weight
On pillars of the Parian stone.

Not dropt an accidental heir

To some old kinless miser's means;
No wealthy vassal's gifts I wear,

Rich purple vests, and sweeping trains;

But virtue and a little sense,

Have so endeared me to the great,
That, thanks to bounteous Providence,
Nor have, nor want I, an estate.

Blest in my little Sabine field,

I'll neither gods above implore,

Nor, since in sneaking arts unskill'd,

Hang on my wealthy friends for more, &c. &c.

SWIFT AND DRYDEN.

Swift attempted Pindaric odes, but failed: he showed these poetical exercises to Dryden, whose concise reply-" Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet,"-he neither forgot nor pardoned. He has indulged the utmost licentiousness of personal rancour he places Dryden by the side of the lowest of poets; he even puns miserably on his name to degrade him as the emptiest of writers; and for that spirited translation of Virgil, which was admired even by Pope, he employs the most gro

:

tesque sarcastic images to mark his diminutive genius-" for this version-maker is so lost in Virgil, that he is like the lady in a lobster; a mouse under a canopy of state; a shrivelled beau within the penthouse of a full-bottomed periwig." He never was generous enough to contradict his opinion, and persisted to the last.-(D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors.)

DEATH OF SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

Some time after his return to Moor Park, finding that no provision was made for him beyond subsistence in Sir William's family, Swift became tired of his state of dependence, and in some degree dissatisfied with his patron. Swift preferred going to Ireland and endeavouring to obtain preferment in the church. They were both displeased, and so parted. Swift went to Ireland; was admitted to deacon's orders, October 18, 1694, and to priest's orders, January 13, 1695. Soon afterwards Lord Capel, then Lord-Deputy of Ireland, bestowed upon him the prebend of Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, worth about 1007. a year, whither he immediately went to perform the duties of a country clergyman.

Sir William Temple appears to have soon felt the want of Swift's services, and it was not long before he sent him a kind letter, with an invitation to return to Moor Park. Swift, on the other hand, however fond of independence, must have felt strongly the contrast between the dull life of a clergyman in a remote town in Ireland and the refined society of Moor Park. He returned thither in 1695, when he was treated by Sir William Temple rather as a friend than as a mere secretary, and they continued to live together till Sir William's death, scarce a cloud intervening to disturb the harmony of their friendship. A cold look from his patron, such was the veneration with which Swift regarded Temple, made him unhappy for days; his faculties were devoted to his service, and, during his last decline, Swift registered, with pious fidelity, every change in Temple's disorder; and concluded the Journal, "He died at one o'clock, this morning, (27th January, 1698-9,) and with him all that was good and amiable among men.'

Swift's connexion with Sir William may be thus summed

* In the Journal to Stella, he says: "Don't you remember how I used to be in pain, when Sir William Temple would look cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons? I have plucked up my spirit since then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentleman."

up. He was twenty-one years of age (in 1688,) when he began his connexion with Temple, whose wife was a relation of his mother's; whose father had known his family in Ireland; and who engaged him at " 207. per annum, and board." In 1693, Swift left him; on which occasion Temple was extremely angry," as he found him useful. In 1695, he returned, and remained with him till his death in 1698. "I was at his death," says Swift, in 1726, "as far to seek as ever." "Madam," to Temple's sister, in 1709, "I pretend not to have had the least share in Sir William Temple's confidence above his relatives, or his commonest friends:-I have but too good reasons to think otherwise."-(Courtenay's Memoirs of Temple.) Lord Orrery somewhat exaggerates, in saying "Swift was employed not trusted" by Temple, whom, however, even Sir Walter Scott calls "selfish and cold-hearted."

"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS."

During the latter part of his residence at Moor Park, Swift wrote the Battle of the Books in St. James's Library, in support of Sir William Temple, and in opposition to Dr. William Wotton and Dr. Bentley. A dispute had arisen in France as to the superiority of ancient or of modern writers; the contest passed over to England, when the cause of the moderns was supported by Wotton, in his Reflections on Antient and Modern Learning. Temple took the part of the ancients, but unfortunately praised the Epistles of Phalaris, which Bentley, in an Appendix to the second edition of Wotton's Reflections, proved to be spurious. Swift's work is a well-constructed allegory, abounding in wit and humour. The idea is said to have been taken from a work by Courtray; but Monck Mason maintains that Swift's Battle is a burlesque imitation of Homer.

SWIFT'S FIRST SATIRE.

The first specimen of that peculiar talent which Swift possessed, of ridiculing the vain, frivolous, and commonplace topics of general society, was a set of verses written "in a lady's ivory table-book," soon after the writer was relieved from his dependence upon Temple. The lines are:

"Peruse my leaves through every part,
And think thou see'st my owner's heart,
Scrawl'd o'er with trifles thus, and quite
As hard, as senseless, and as light;