The Age of Pope Part 13

'Poor Pope will grieve a month; and Gay A week; and Arbuthnot a day.

St. John himself will scarce forbear To bite his pen and drop a tear.

The rest will give a shrug, and cry, "I'm sorry--but we all must die."'

Why grieve, indeed, at the death of friends, since no loss is more easy to supply, and in a year the Dean will be forgotten, and his wit be out of date.

'Some country squire to Lintot goes, Inquires for "Swift in Verse and Prose."

Says Lintot, "I have heard the name; He died a year ago." "The same."

He searches all the shop in vain.

"Sir, you may find them in Duck Lane, I sent them with a load of books Last Monday to the pastrycook's.

To fancy they could live a year!

I find you're but a stranger here.

The Dean was famous in his time, And had a kind of knack at rhyme.

His way of writing now is past, The town has got a better taste."'

Enough has been transcribed to show Swift's art in this poem, which is of considerable, but not of wearisome length. Perhaps ten or twelve pieces, in addition to those already mentioned, will repay the student's attention. One of the worthiest is a _Rhapsody on Poetry_. _Baucis and Philemon_, too, is a lively piece that pleased Goldsmith, and will please every reader. It was much altered from the original draught at Addison's suggestion; but the alterations are not improvements.[43] _The City Shower_ is a piece of Dutch painting, reminding us of Crabbe. _Mrs.

Harris's Pet.i.tion_ is an admirable bit of fooling; _Mary the Cook-Maid's Letter_, is in its way inimitable; and so, too, is the amusing talk of 'my lady's waiting-woman' in _The Grand Question Debated_.

It is difficult, unhappily, to pursue one's way through Swift's poems, without being repelled again and again by the filth in which it pleases him to wade. _The Beast's Confession_, which has been reprinted in the _Selections from Swift_ (Clarendon Press), is not obscene, like _The Lady's Dressing-Room_, _Strephon and Chloe_, and other poems of the cla.s.s; but it has the inhumanity which deforms the description of the Houyhnhnms. Strange to say, in private life Swift appears to have been not only moral in conduct, but refined in conversation, and he is even said to have rebuked Stella on one occasion for a slightly coa.r.s.e remark. His imagination was diseased, and he was himself always apprehensive of the calamity under which he became at last 'a driveller and a show.' 'I shall be like that tree,' he said once to the poet Young, 'I shall die at the top.'

It has been already said that _The Tale of a Tub_ was written at Moor Park. It appeared in 1704, and although published anonymously and never owned, the book effectually stood in the way of Swift's high preferment in the Church. Queen Anne declined, and not without reason, to make its author a bishop.

It is a satire of amazing power, written by a man who takes, as Swift took throughout life, a misanthropical view of human nature, and who agrees with the cynical judgment of Carlyle, that men are mostly fools.

Swift, however, did not consider fools useless, but observes that they 'are as necessary for a good writer as pen, ink, and paper.' Never was volume written which betrayed in larger characters the opinions and disposition of its author. Swift was consistent in defending the National Church as a political inst.i.tution; but in the _Tale of a Tub_ he does so with weapons an atheist might use if he possessed the skill.

The author maintains that in his ridicule of the Church of Rome and of Protestant dissenters, he is only displaying the abuses which deform the Christian Church; but no defence can be urged for his wild and irreverent method of turning subjects into ridicule which by a vast number of people are regarded as sacred. In judging of Swift's satire from a moral standing-point, one test, as Mr. Leslie Stephen observes, may be supposed to guide our decision. 'Imagine the _Tale of a Tub_ to be read by Bishop Butler and by Voltaire, who called Swift a _Rabelais perfectionne_. Can anyone doubt that the believer would be scandalized, and the scoffer find himself in a thoroughly congenial element? Would not any believer shrink from the use of such weapons, even though directed against his enemies?'[44]

Although the wit poured out with such profusion in the _Tale of a Tub_, in so far as it offends the moral sense, fails to give pleasure, the reader is astonished, as Swift in later life was himself, at the genius displayed in this allegory, the argument of which may be told in a few words.

A man is supposed to have three sons by one wife, and all at a birth. On his deathbed he leaves to each of them a new coat, which he says will grow with their growth, and last as long as they live. In his will he leaves directions, saying how the coats are to be used, and warning them against neglecting his instructions. For some years all goes well, the will is studied and followed, and the brothers, Peter (the Church of Rome), Martin (the Church of England), and Jack (the Calvinist), live in unity. How by degrees they misinterpret their father's will, how Peter begins by adding topknots to his coat, and afterwards grows so scandalous that his brothers resolve to leave him, and then fall out between themselves, is told with abundant wit. A great part of the volume consists of digressions written in Swift's most vigorous style, and with the cynical humour in which he has no compet.i.tor.

It is always interesting to observe the influence of a work of genius on other minds, and in connection with the _Tale of a Tub_ a story told of his boyhood by William Cobbett is worth recording:

'I was trudging through Richmond,' he writes, 'in my blue smock-frock, and my red garters tied under my knees, when, staring about me, my eyes fell upon a little book in a bookseller's window, on the outside of which was written, "_Tale of a Tub_, price threepence." The t.i.tle was so odd that my curiosity was excited.... It was something so new to my mind that though I could not at all understand some of it, it delighted me beyond description; and it produced what I have always considered a sort of birth of intellect. I read on till it was dark, without any thought of supper or bed.' Cobbett adds, that having read till he could see no longer, he put the volume in his pocket, and 'tumbled down' by the side of a haystack, 'where I slept till the birds in Kew Gardens awakened me in the morning; when off I started to Kew, reading my little book.'

One of the greatest masters of prose in the language has also recorded the impression made upon him by this wonderful book. At the age of eighty-three Landor wrote: 'I am reading once more the work I have read oftener than any other prose work in our language.... What a writer! Not the most imaginative or the most simple, not Bacon or Goldsmith had the power of saying more forcibly or completely whatever he meant to say.'

'Simplicity,' said Swift, 'is the best and truest ornament of most things in human life;' and Landor, commenting on Swift's style, observes that 'he never attempted to round his sentences by redundant words, aware that from the simplest and the fewest arise the secret springs of genuine harmony.'

The volume containing the _Tale of a Tub_ had also within its covers the _Battle of the Books_, which was suggested by a controversy that originated in France, and had been carried on by Sir W. Temple in England, as to the relative merits of the Ancients and the Moderns. Out of this, too, arose a discussion by some _savants_, with Richard Bentley (1662-1742), the greatest scholar of the age, at their head, with regard to the genuineness of the _Epistles of Phalaris_, a subject discussed in Macaulay's essay on Temple in his usually brilliant style. Swift, in the _Battle of the Books_ sides with Temple and with Charles Boyle, the nominal editor of the _Epistles_, who, in the famous _Reply to Bentley_, fought behind the s.h.i.+eld of Atterbury. In a combat, which takes place in the Homeric style, the enemies of the Ancients, Bentley and Wotton, are slain by one lance upon the field. The mighty deed was achieved by Boyle. 'As when a slender cook has trussed a brace of woodc.o.c.ks, he with iron skewer pierces the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to their ribs, so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell joined in their lives, joined in their deaths; so closely joined, that Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them over Styx for half his fare.' The humour of the piece is delightful, and it matters not a whit for the enjoyment of it, that the wrong heroes gain the victory.

In 1708 Swift produced several pamphlets or tracts, and in one of them, the _Argument against Abolis.h.i.+ng Christianity_, he found ample scope for the irony of which he was so consummate a master.

'Great wits,' he writes, 'love to be free with the highest objects; and if they cannot be allowed a G.o.d to revile or renounce, they will speak evil of dignities, abuse the Government, and reflect upon the ministry; which I am sure few will deny to be of much more pernicious consequence;' and he observes, in concluding the argument: 'Whatever some may think of the great advantages to trade by this favourite scheme, I do very much apprehend that in six months' time the Bank and East India Stock may fall at least one _per cent._ And since that is fifty times more than ever the wisdom of our age thought fit to venture for the preservation of Christianity, there is no reason we should be at so great a loss merely for the sake of destroying it.'

An amusing piece which appeared also at this time from Swift's pen, is of literary interest. Under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff he predicted the death, upon a certain day, of Partridge, a notorious astrologer and almanac maker. When the day arrived his decease was announced, and he was afterwards decently buried by Swift, despite a loud protest from the poor man that he was not only alive, but well and hearty. The town took up the joke, all the wits joined in it, and Steele, who started the _Tatler_ in the following year (1709), found it of advantage to a.s.sume the name of Bickerstaff, which these squibs had made so popular. Swift loved practical jokes, and sometimes yielded to a license that bordered on buffoonery. He was now in London, charged with a mission from the Irish Church, and hoping for Church preferment himself. With the latter object in view he published the _Sentiments of a Church of England Man_ (1708). Two years later, vexed at heart at being unable to gain for the Irish clergy privileges enjoyed by their English brethren, and foiled, too, in his ambition, Swift forsook the Whig party, which he had never loved, and going over to the Tories, fought their battle for some years with so masterly a pen, as to become a great power in the country.

Some time before his return to London in 1710, a weekly Tory paper had been started by Bolingbroke and Prior called _The Examiner_, and in opposition to it, upon September 14th in that year, Addison produced the _Whig Examiner_ which lived a brief life of five numbers and died on the 8th of October. Three weeks later, on the 2nd November, after thirteen numbers of the _Examiner_ had been published, Swift took up the pen, and from that date to June 14th, 1711, every paper was from his hand. Never before had a political journal exercised such power. In his change of party Swift was sincere in purpose, but unscrupulous in his methods of pursuing it, and to gain his ends told lies with a vigour that has rarely been surpa.s.sed. He is never delicate in his treatment of opponents, and when finer weapons would be useless, strikes with a sledge hammer. That such a writer, a master of every method most effective in controversy, should have been valued by the statesmen of the day is not surprising. When he forsook the Whig camp there was no opponent to pit against him, for neither Addison with his delicate humour, nor Steele with his brightness and versatility, could grapple with an enemy like this.

Swift's arrogance in these days of his power was that of a despot. He was doing great things for ministers, and took care that they should know it. He was proud of his self-a.s.sertion, proud of being rude. Great men, and great ladies too, who wished for his acquaintance, had to make the first advances. He caused Lady Burlington to burst into tears by rudely ordering her to sing. 'She should sing or he would make her.' 'I was at court and church to-day,' he tells Stella, 'I generally am acquainted with about thirty in the drawing-room, and am so proud I make all the lords come up to me.' On one occasion he sent the Lord Treasurer into the House of Commons to call out the princ.i.p.al Secretary of State in order to say that he would not dine with him if he intended to dine late. He relates, too, how he warned St. John not to appear cold to him, for he would not be treated like a school-boy, and if he heard or saw anything to his disadvantage to let him know in plain words, and not to put him in pain by the change of his behaviour, for it was what he would hardly bear from a crowned head. 'If we let these great ministers pretend too much,' he says, 'there will be no governing them.' And in a letter to Pope he makes the following confession: 'All my endeavours from a boy to distinguish myself were only for want of a great t.i.tle and fortune that I might be treated like a lord ... whether right or wrong it is no great matter; and so the reputation of great learning does the work of a blue ribbon, and of a coach and six horses.'

It would be out of place in this volume to dwell on Swift's feats as a political writer; for us the most interesting fact connected with the years 1710-14 is that during that eventful period of Swift's life, in which he was hobn.o.bbing with Ministers of State and doing them infinite service by his pen, he was writing at odd moments his inimitable _Journal to Stella_, and gaining the love which ended so tragically, of Hester Vanhomrigh. This strange chapter in Swift's life is closely bound up with his literary history, and must therefore be briefly noticed.

At Moor Park Swift, who was more than twenty years her senior, had seen Esther Johnson growing up into womanhood. He had been to her as a master, a position he always liked to a.s.sume towards women.[45] When he settled in Ireland it was arranged that Esther and her companion, Mrs.

Dingley, should also live there. Her preceptor, in his regard for propriety, appears never to have seen Esther apart from the useful Dingley, and his letters are apparently addressed to both of them, but Esther knew, as we know, that all the tenderness and affectionate humour they contain was meant for her alone. Swift never writes as a lover, but the kind of love he gave to 'Stella' sufficed to bind her to him for life. If there were moments when she wished to escape from his power, the wish was hopeless. Having once submitted to his fascination, she was held by it to the end. Hester Vanhomrigh, who was about ten years younger than Stella, felt the same spell, and having a far less restrained nature than Miss Johnson, gave free expression to the pa.s.sion which devoured her. Between his two admirers, for such they were, Swift had a difficult course to steer. To Stella he was linked by strong ties of companions.h.i.+p, and to her, according to some authorities, he was secretly married. Whether this were the case or not she had the larger claims upon him, and if one of the twain had to be sacrificed, Vanessa must be the victim.

In _Cadenus and Vanessa_ (1713) a poem which every student of Swift will read, the author strove to achieve an impossibility. His aim was to ignore the lover and to a.s.sume the character of a master to an intelligent and favourite pupil, or of a father to a daughter. His dignity and age, he says, forbade the thought of warmer feelings.

'But friends.h.i.+p in its greatest height, A constant rational delight, On Virtue's basis fixed to last When love's allurements long are past, Which gently warms but cannot burn, He gladly offers in return; His want of pa.s.sion will redeem With grat.i.tude, respect, esteem; With that devotion we bestow When G.o.ddesses appear below.'

And this was Swift's method of dealing with a woman who confessed the 'inexpressible pa.s.sion' she had for him, and that his 'dear image' was always before her eyes. 'Sometimes,' she wrote, 'you strike me with that prodigious awe, I tremble with fear; at other times a charming compa.s.sion s.h.i.+nes through your countenance which moves my soul.' Swift had acted far more than indiscreetly in encouraging a friends.h.i.+p with Vanessa, and when she followed him to Dublin, in the neighbourhood of which she had some property, he knew not how to escape from the snare his own folly had laid. To Stella he had given 'friends.h.i.+p and esteem,'

but, as he is careful to add, 'ne'er admitted love a guest;' the same cold gift was offered to Vanessa, but in vain. According to a report, the authority of which is doubtful, Miss Vanhomrigh wrote to Stella, in 1723, asking if she was Swift's wife. She replied that she was, and sent the letter she had received to Swift. In a towering pa.s.sion he rode to Vanessa's house, threw the letter on the table, and left again without saying a word. The blow was fatal, and Vanessa died soon afterwards, revoking her will in Swift's favour and leaving to him the legacy of remorse. Having told in outline this episode in Swift's story, I return to the _Journal to Stella_, which dates from September 2nd, 1710, to June 6th, 1713.

Little did Swift imagine that the chit-chat he was writing every day for Esther Johnson's sake would be read and enjoyed by thousands who care little or nothing for the party questions upon which the strenuous efforts of his intellect were expended. The early years of the eighteenth century contain nothing more delightful than this _Journal_.

Its gossip, its nonsense, its freshness and ease of style, the tenderness concealed, or half-revealed, in its 'little language,' and the ill.u.s.trations it supplies incidentally of the manners of the court and town, these are some of the charms that make us turn again and again to its pages with ever-increasing pleasure. We enjoy Swift's egotism and trivialities, as we enjoy the egotism of Pepys or Montaigne, and can imagine the eagerness with which the _Letters_ were read by the lovely woman whose destiny it was to receive everything from Swift save the love which has its consummation in marriage. The style of the _Journal_ is not that of an author composing, but of a companion talking; and it is all the more interesting since it reveals Swift's character under a pleasanter aspect than any of his formal writings. We see in it what a warm heart he had for the friends whom he had once learnt to love, and with what zeal he exerted himself in a.s.sisting brother-authors, while receiving little beyond empty praise from ministers himself.

In the winter of 1713-14 Swift joined the Scriblerus Club, an a.s.sociation of such wits as Pope, Parnell, Arbuthnot, and Gay, and it was about this time that his friends.h.i.+p with Pope began. The members proposed writing a satire between them, and when Swift was exiled to Dublin as Dean of St. Patrick's, he pursued indirectly the suggestion of the Scriblerus wits by writing _Gulliver's Travels_ (1726), a book that has made his name known throughout Europe, and in all the lands where English literature is read. Although Swift did not hesitate to make use of hints and descriptions which he had met with in the course of his reading, this is one of the most original works of fiction ever written, and one of the wittiest. Yet like almost everything that Swift wrote, it is deformed by grossness of expression, and in the latter portion by a malignant contempt for human nature which betrays a diseased imagination. The stories of the Lilliputians and Brobdingnags, purified from coa.r.s.e allusions, are the delight of children; but the description of the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos excites disgust and indignation. He said that his object in writing the satire was to vex the world, and he has succeeded.

'It cannot be denied,' says Sir Walter Scott, one of the sanest and healthiest of imaginative writers, 'that even a moral purpose will not justify the nakedness with which Swift has sketched this horrible outline of mankind degraded to a b.e.s.t.i.a.l state; since a moralist ought to hold with the Romans that crimes of atrocity should be exposed when punished, but those of flagitious impurity concealed. In point of probability, too--for there are degrees of probability, proper even to the wildest fiction--the fourth part of _Gulliver_ is inferior to the three others.... The mind rejects, as utterly impossible, the supposition of a nation of horses, placed in houses which they could not build, fed with corn which they could neither sow, reap, nor save, possessing cows which they could not milk, depositing that milk in vessels which they could not make, and, in short, performing a hundred purposes of rational and social life for which their external structure altogether unfits them.'[46]

Neither morality, nor a regard for probability are so outraged in the story of the Lilliputians and Brobdingnags.

Having once accepted Swift's a.s.sumption of the existence of little people not six inches high, and of a country in which the inhabitants 'appeared as tall as an ordinary spire-steeple,' the exactness and verisimilitude of the narrative, with its minute geographical details, make it appear so reasonable that a young reader may feel inclined to resent the criticism of an Irish bishop who said that 'the book was full of improbable lies, and for his part he hardly believed a word of it.'

It is curious to note that Swift, who made a strange vow in early life 'not to be fond of children, or let them come near me hardly,' should have done more to delight them than any author of his century, with the exception, perhaps, of Defoe. Gay and Pope wrote a joint letter to Swift on the appearance of the _Travels_, pretending that they did not know the author, and advising him to get the book if it had not yet reached Ireland. 'From the highest to the lowest,' they declare, 'it is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery.... It has pa.s.sed Lords and Commons _nemine contradicente_, and the whole town, men, women, and children, are quite full of it.' A book which attained in the author's lifetime a wellnigh unprecedented popularity should have yielded him a large profit. What it did yield we do not know, but in a letter dated 1735, in which, perhaps, he alludes to the _Travels_, Swift says, 'I never got a farthing for anything I writ, except once, about eight years ago, and that by Mr. Pope's prudent management for me.'

The injustice done to Ireland in the last century, as short-sighted as it was cruel, is described at large in the second volume of Mr. Lecky's _History_. Swift, who hated Ireland, felt a righteous indignation at the misgovernment which threatened the country with ruin, and some of his most powerful phillipics were secretly written in her defence.

In 1720 he issued a pamphlet urging the Irish to use only Irish manufactures: 'I heard the late Archbishop of Tuam,' he writes, 'mention a pleasant observation of somebody's, that Ireland would never be happy till a law were made for burning everything that came from England, except their people and their coals. I must confess, that as to the former, I should not be sorry if they would stay at home; and for the latter, I hope, in a little time we shall have no occasion for them

"Non tanti mitra est, non tanti judicis ostrum--"

but I should rejoice to see a staylace from England be thought scandalous, and become a topic for censure at visits and tea-tables.'

The pamphlet is a forcible attack on the oppression under which Ireland laboured, and the Government answered it by prosecuting the printer.

Nine times the jury were sent back by the Chief Justice before they consented to bring in a 'special verdict,' and ultimately the prosecution was dropped.

Two years later the English Government granted a patent to a man of the name of Wood to issue a new copper coinage for Ireland to an extravagant amount, out of which, in return for bribes to the d.u.c.h.ess of Kendal, it was supposed that the speculator would make a considerable profit at Ireland's expense. The country was aroused, and Swift, by the issue of the _Drapier's Letters_, purporting to come from a Dublin draper, roused the pa.s.sions of the people to a white heat. It was known perfectly well from whom the _Letters_ came, but no one would betray Swift, and when the printer was thrown into prison the jury refused to convict. The battle was fought with vigour, Swift conquered, and the patent was withdrawn. A brief pa.s.sage from the fourth and final letter 'To the Whole People of Ireland' shall be quoted. It will be seen that the writer is not afraid of plain speaking. After saying that the king cannot compel the subject to take any money except it be sterling gold or silver, he adds:

'Now here you may see that the vile accusation of Wood and his accomplices, charging us with disputing the King's prerogative by refusing his bra.s.s, can have no place--because compelling the subject to take any coin which is not sterling is no part of the King's prerogative, and I am very confident, if it were so, we should be the last of his people to dispute it, as well from that inviolable loyalty we have always paid to his Majesty, as from the treatment we might in such a case justly expect from some, who seem to think we have neither common sense nor common senses. But, G.o.d be thanked, the best of them are only our fellow-subjects, and not our masters. One great merit I am sure we have which those of English birth can have no pretence to--that our ancestors reduced this kingdom to the obedience of England; for which we have been rewarded with a worse climate--the privilege of being governed by laws to which we do not consent--a ruined trade--a House of Peers without jurisdiction--almost an incapacity for all employments--and the dread of Wood's halfpence. But we are so far from disputing the king's prerogative in coining, that we own he has power to give a patent to any man for setting his royal image and superscription upon whatever materials he pleases, and liberty to the patentee to offer them in any country from England to j.a.pan; only attended with one small limitation--that n.o.body alive is obliged to take them.'

With much humour, in the last paragraph of the letter, Swift undertakes to show that Walpole is against Wood's project 'by this one invincible argument, that he has the universal opinion of being a wise man, an able minister, and in all his proceedings pursuing the true interest of the King his master; and that as his integrity is above all corruption, so is his fortune above all temptation.'

Swift's arguments in the _Drapier's Letters_ are sophistical, his statements grossly exaggerated, and his advice sometimes shameless, as, for instance, in recommending what is now but too well known as 'boycotting.' The end, however, was gained, and the Dean was treated with the honours of a conqueror. On his return from England in 1726, a guard of honour conducted him through the streets, and the city bells sounded a joyful peal. Wherever he went he was received with something like royal honours, and when Walpole talked of arresting him, he was told that 10,000 soldiers would be needed to make the attempt successful. The Dean's hatred of oppression and injustice had its limits. He defended the Test Act, and a.s.sailed all dissenters with ungovernable fury. It was his aim to exclude them from every kind of power.

In 1729, with a pa.s.sion outwardly calm and in a moderate style, which makes his amazing satire the more appalling, Swift published _A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country and for making them Beneficial to the Public_. A more hideous piece of irony was never written; it is the fruit of an indignation that tore his heart. The _Proposal_ is, that considering the great misery of Ireland, young children should be used for food. 'I grant,' he says,'this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best t.i.tle to the children. 'A very worthy person, he says, considers that young lads and maidens over twelve would supply the want of venison, but 'it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice (although, indeed, very unjustly), as a little bordering upon cruelty; which I confess has always been with me the strongest objection against any project, how well soever intended.' The business-like way in which the argument is conducted throughout, adds greatly to its force. Swift has written nothing so terrible as this satire, and nothing that surpa.s.ses it in power.

The Dean was fretting away his life when he wrote this pamphlet. Two years before he had paid his last visit to the country where, as he said in a letter to Gay, he had made his friends.h.i.+ps and left his desires. On the death of George I. he visited England, vainly hoping to gain some preferment there through the aid of Mrs. Howard, the mistress of George II., and returned to 'wretched Dublin,' to lose the woman he had loved so well and treated so strangely, and to 'die in a rage like a poisoned rat in a hole.' After Stella's death, in 1728, Swift's burden of misanthropy was never destined to be lightened. His rage and gloom increased as the years moved on, and in penning his lines of savage invective against the Irish House of Commons, the Dean had a fit and wrote no more verse. Here is a specimen of his _saeva indignatio_:

'Could I from the building's top Hear the rattling thunder drop, While the devil upon the roof (If the devil be thunder-proof) Should with poker fiery red Crack the stones and melt the lead; Drive them down on every skull, While the den of thieves is full; Quite destroy that harpies' nest, How might then our isle be blest!'

It should be observed at the same time that even in his declining days, when his heart was heavy with bitterness, Swift indulged in practical jokes and in the most trivial pursuits. _Vive la bagatelle_ was his cry, but it was the cry of a man who had as deep a contempt for the wiser pursuits of life as for its frivolities. Of the mirth that is the natural outcome of a cheerful nature, the Dean knew nothing. His hilarity was but a vain attempt to escape from despair. In 1740 he writes of being very miserable, extremely deaf, and full of pain.

Sometimes he gave way to furious bursts of temper, and for several years before the end came, he fell into a state resembling idiocy. Swift died on October 19th, 1745, leaving his money to a hospital for lunatics,