Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets Part 11

"This hall lets you, up and down over a very high threshold, into the great parlor. It is furnished with historical tapestry, whose marginal fringes do confess the moisture of the air. The other contents of this room are a broken-bellied virginal, a couple of crippled velvet chairs, with two or three moldered pictures of moldy ancestors, who look as dismally as if they came fresh from h.e.l.l with all their brimstone about them. These are carefully set at the further corner, for the windows being every where broken, make it so convenient a place to dry poppies and mustard-seed in, that the room is appropriated to that purpose.

"Next to this parlor lies, as I said before, the pigeon-house, by the side of which runs an entry that leads, on one hand and on the other, into a bed-chamber, a b.u.t.tery, and a small hole called the chaplain's study. Then follow the brew-house, a little green and gilt parlor, and the great stairs, under which is the dairy. A little further on the right, the servants' hall; and, by the side of it, up six steps, the old lady's closet for her private devotions, which has a lattice into the said hall, that, while she said her prayers, she might cast an eye on the men and maids. There are, upon the ground floor, in all, twenty-six apartments, hard to be distinguished by particular names, among which I must not forget a chamber that has in it a huge antiquity of timber, which seems to have been either a bedstead or a cider-press.

"The kitchen is built in form of the Rotunda, being one vast vault to the top of the house, where one aperture serves to let out the smoke and let in light. By the blackness of the walls, the circular fires, vast caldrons, yawning mouths of ovens and furnaces, you would think it either the forge of Vulcan, the cave of Polyphemus, or the temple of Moloch. The horror of this place has made such an impression on the country people, that they believe the witches keep their Sabbath here, and that once a year the devil treats them with infernal venison, a roasted tiger stuffed with tenpenny nails.

"Above stairs we have a number of rooms: you never pa.s.s out of one into another but by the ascent and descent of two or three stairs. Our best room is very long and low, of the exact proportions of a bandbox. In most of these rooms there are hangings of the finest work in the world; that is to say, those which Arachne spins from her own bowels. Were it not for this only furniture, the whole would be a miserable scene of naked walls, flawed ceilings, broken windows, and rusty locks. Its roof is so decayed, that after a favorable shower we may, with G.o.d's blessing, expect a crop of mushrooms between the c.h.i.n.ks of the floors.

"All the doors are as little and low as those to the cabins of packet-boats; and the rooms have, for many years, had no other inhabitants than certain rats, whose very age renders them worthy of this venerable mansion, for the very rats of this ancient seat are gray.

Since these have not yet quitted it, we hope, at least, that this house may stand during the small remnant of days these poor animals have to live, who are too infirm to remove to another. They have still a small subsistence left them in the few remaining books of the library.

"We had never seen half what I have described but for an old, starched, gray-headed steward, who is as much an antiquity as any in the place, and looks like an old family picture walked out of its frame. He failed not, as we pa.s.sed from room to room, to entertain us with several relations of the family; but his observations were particularly curious when he came to the cellar. He showed where stood the triple rows of b.u.t.ts of sack, and where now ranged the bottles of tent for toasts in a morning. He pointed to the stands that supported the iron-hooped hogsheads of strong beer; then, stepping to a corner, he lugged out the tattered fragments of an unframed picture. 'This,' says he, with tears in his eyes, 'was poor Sir Thomas, once master of all this drink! He had two sons, poor young masters! who never arrived to the age of this beer; they both fell ill in this very cellar, and never went out upon their own legs.' He could not pa.s.s by a heap of broken bottles without taking up a piece, to show us the arms of the family upon it. He then led us up the tower by dark, winding stone steps, which landed us into several little rooms, one above another. One of these was nailed up; and our guide whispered to us a secret occasion of it. It seems the course of this n.o.ble blood was a little interrupted, about two centuries ago, by a freak of the Lady Frances with a neighboring priest, since which the room has been nailed up, and branded as the Adultery Chamber. The ghost of Lady Frances is supposed to walk there, and some prying maids of the family report that they have seen a lady in a farthingale through the keyhole; but this matter is hushed up, and the servants are forbid to talk of it.

"I must needs have tired you by this long description; but what engaged me in it was a generous principle to preserve the memory of that which must itself soon fall into dust; nay, perhaps, part of it, before this letter reaches your hands. Indeed, I owe this old house the same grat.i.tude that we do to an old friend, who harbors us in his declining condition, nay, even in his last extremities. I have found this an excellent place for retirement and study, where no one who pa.s.ses by can dream there is one inhabitant; and even any body that could visit me does not venture under my roof. You will not wonder that I have translated a great deal of Homer in this retreat; any one that sees it will own that I could not have chosen a fitter or more likely place to converse with the dead."

No one, after reading this, can doubt that Pope possessed that rare talent of painting in words which Thomson called so truly "the portrait painting of Nature," and which, in a letter to Doddington from Italy, he justly laments as so rare a faculty. "There are scarcely any to be met with who have given a landscape of the country through which they traveled, seen thus with the mind's eye, though that is the first thing which strikes, and what all readers of travels demand." "We must lament," says Warton, "that we have no more letters of Bishop Berkeley, who, we see by this before us (from Naples), possessed the uncommon talent of describing _places_ in the most _lively_ and _graphical_ manner, a talent in which he has only been equaled or excelled by _Gray_, in many of those lively and interesting letters published by Mason; those especially written during his travels." The want continues to the present hour; the want of the art of bringing the things you speak of livingly before the reader. It is this want, which can only be supplied by the same principles of study in the writer as in the painter, which first suggested to me the necessity of "Visits to Remarkable Places." No one could have made such visits more effectual than Pope. This is a merit for which he yet has received little or no praise; and yet no talent is rarer, and few more delightful. In his letters, especially those addressed to his two lovely, charming, and life-long friends, Martha and Teresa Blount, such living portraitures of places abound. His description of Sir Walter Raleigh's old mansion and gardens at Sherbourne is a master-piece of the kind. You are now at Letcombe, in Berks.h.i.+re, with Swift, where the author of Gulliver used to run up a hill every morning before breakfast; now at Bevis Mount, near Southampton, with his friend Lord Peterborough, the conqueror of Spain; and in his journeys to Bath, or to Lord Cobham's at Stowe, you peep in at a number of country houses, and rich peeps they are. Bath and London society is sketched with great vivacity and gusto; but such sketches are more common than these peeps into aristocratic country life. Thus you have him rolling along slowly from Cobham toward Bath, drawn by the very horse on which Lord Derwent.w.a.ter rode in the Rebellion, but then employed by Lord Cobham in rolling the garden. He looks in at Lord Deloraine's on the Downs. He lies one night at Rowsham, the seat of Colonel Cotterell, near Oxford; "the prettiest place for water-falls, jets, ponds inclosed with beautiful scenes of green and hanging wood, ever seen." Then at Mr. Howe's in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, "as fine a thing of another kind, where Nature has done every thing, and luckily, for the master has ten children." Then he calls at Sir William Codrington's, at Durhams, eight miles from Bath, where he thus describes his entertainment: "My reception there will be matter for a letter to Mr.

Bethel. It was perfectly in his spirit. All his sisters, in the first place, insisted that I should take physic preparatory to the waters, and truly I made use of the time, place, and persons to that end. My Lady c.o.x, the first night I lay there, mixed my electuary; Lady Codrington pounded sulphur; Mrs. Bridget Bethel ordered broth; Lady c.o.x mounted first up stairs with the physic in a gallipot; Lady Codrington next, with the vial of oil; Mrs. Bridget third, with pills; the fourth sister with spoons and tea-cups. It would have rejoiced the ghost of Dr.

Woodward to have beheld this procession." But two years before his death he was again at Stowe, when he says, "All the mornings we breakfast and dispute; after dinner and at night, music and harmony; in the garden fis.h.i.+ng; no politics, and no cards nor novel reading. This agrees exactly with me, for the want of cards sends us early to bed."

This was the way he describes spending the latter part of his life: "Lord Bathurst is still my constant friend, but his country seat is now always in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, not in this neighborhood. Mr. Pulteney has no country seat; and in town I see him seldom. In the summer I generally ramble for a month to Lord Cobham's, or to Bath, or elsewhere."

Such were the homes and haunts of Pope. In his life, one thing is very striking. How much the literary men of the time and the n.o.bility a.s.sociated; how little do they now. Are our n.o.bility grown less literary, or our authors less aristocratic? It may be said that authors now are more independent, and can not flatter aristocracy. But no man was more independent, and proud of his independence, than Pope. But I leave this question to wind up this article with a glance at Twickenham as it is.

Pope was anxious that some of his friends should have the lease of his house and grounds, and prevent their being pulled to pieces; but it was never done. Since his day they have gone through various hands. His house has long been pulled down; his willow has fallen down in utter decay; his quincunx has been destroyed. Two new tenements, having the appearance of one house, with a portico opening into the highway, have for some years been built at the further extremity of Pope's grounds next to the Thames. The house itself was stripped, immediately after his death, of all mementoes of him, by the operation of his own will. To Lord Bolingbroke he left his own copy of his Translation of Homer, and his other works. To Lord Marchmont, other books, with the portrait of Bolingbroke by Richardson. To Lord Bathurst, the three statues of the Hercules of Farnese, the Venus de Medici, and the Apollo in chiaro oscuro, by Kneller. To Mr. Murray, the marble head of Homer, by Bernini, and Sir Isaac Newton, by Guelfi. To Dr. Arbuthnot, another picture of Bolingbroke. He left to Lord Littleton the busts in marble of Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, presented to him by the Prince of Wales. His library went among his friends; the pictures of his mother, father, and aunts, to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Rackett. Of that of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, by Kneller, there is no mention; but all the furniture of his grotto, with the urns for his garden, given by the Prince of Wales, he left to Martha Blount. Thus flew abroad those precious relics, then; and what changes in the place itself! A new house is at this moment rising on a part of the Thames bank, so that there are actually three tenements on the spot, and it is cut up and divided accordingly. With all this havoc, there are still, however, more traces of Pope left than might have been expected. The Thames is there; nothing can remove or cut up that. The scene across the river is woody, rich, and agreeable as ever. The sloping bank from the road to the river, once Pope's garden, is a pretty garden still. There is even at the end nearest to London a conservatory still standing, which has all the characteristics of another age, and probably was Pope's. It has Tuscan columns, and large panes of gla.s.s fit for sash windows. But a fine, fantastic sort of Swiss villa is rapidly rising, called by the people about Elizabethan. It has deep, depending eaves, full of wooden ornament, and a lofty tower. It is the property of a Mr. Young, a wholesale tea-dealer. Around were lying heaps of lime and other building materials, when I visited it a few weeks ago, and troops of work-people were busily employed where the lords, ladies, and literati of George II.'s reign resorted.

The subterranean pa.s.sage, or grotto, still runs under the road, spite of Bowles telling us that all these things were pulled down and done away with. It is secured by iron gates at each end, and far more of the original spar and sh.e.l.l-work remains than you could have believed. Near the opening facing the Thames, under some ivied rockwork, stands the figure of a nun in stone, which, no doubt, has been placed there by some occupant subsequent to Pope.

On the opposite side of the road there is a field of some half dozen acres, still bearing traces of its former character. This was Pope's larger garden and wilderness, where he used to plant and replant, contrive and recontrive, pull down and build up, to his heart's content.

Around it still are traces of shrubberies, and over all are scattered many of those trees which, upward of a hundred years ago, Pope said he was busy planting for posterity. They are now stupendous in size--Spanish chestnuts, elms, and cedars. No doubt many of them have been felled, but what remain are lofty and magnificent trees. The walks and shrubberies are to a great extent annihilated; the center of the field was planted with potatoes. In the midst of a clump of old laurels, near the road, there is a remains of a large tree, hewn out into the shape of a seat, not unlike a watchman's box, which is said to have been Pope's, but is doubtful. At the top of the grounds is another grotto, that which was erected by Sir William Stanhope, who purchased the estate, or the lease of it, at Pope's death. This grotto seems to have formed the pa.s.sage to still further grounds; for we are informed that Sir William Stanhope not only built two wings to Pope's house, but extended his grounds. There was placed over the entrance of this grotto a bust of Pope in white marble, and on a white marble slab the following inscription:

"The humble roof, the garden's scanty line, Ill spoke the genius of a bard divine: But fancy now displays a fairer scope, And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope."--_Clare._

These vaunting lines, which represent the addition of another grotto and another field as unfolding the soul of Pope, and Sir William Stanhope as somebody capable of far greater things than the poet himself, still remain, the monument of the writer's and the erector's folly. The bust, of course, is gone. The grotto is lined with spars; pieces of basalt, perhaps the very joints of the Giant's Causeway sent to Pope by Sir Hans Sloane in 1742, but two years before Pope's death; some huge pieces of glazed and striped jars of pottery; and ma.s.ses of stalact.i.tes and of stone worn by the action of the waters, evidently brought from some cavernous sh.o.r.e or bed of a torrent, perhaps from a great distance, and no doubt at a great expense. As this, however, was the work of Sir William Stanhope, and not of Pope, the whole possesses little interest.

Every trace of the temple of which Pope speaks, as being in full view from his grotto, is annihilated; and if the small obelisk, having a funeral urn on each side, said to have been placed in a retired part of the grounds, remain, it escaped my observation. It had this inscription in memory of his mother:

Ah! Editha, Matrum Optima, Mulierum Amantissima, Vale!

Lord Mendip, who married Sir William Stanhope's daughter, is said to have been particularly anxious to retain every trace of Pope. Yet in his care to maintain, he must have very much altered. He stuccoed the house, and adorned it, says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, in an elegant style. He inclosed the lawn, and propped with uncommon care the far-famed weeping willow, supposed to be the parent stock of the willows in Twickenham Park. Yes, Pope is said to have been the introducer of the weeping willow into England; that, seeing some twigs around the wrapping of an article of _vertu_ sent to Lady Sylvius from abroad, he planted these, saying they might belong to some kind of tree yet unknown in England. From one of these sprung Pope's willow, and from Pope's willow thousands. Slips of his tree were anxiously sought after; they were even transmitted to distant climes; and in 1789, the Empress of Russia had some planted in her garden at Petersburgh. Notwithstanding every care, old age overcame this willow, and in spite of all props, it perished, and fell to the ground in 1801.

On the decease of Lord Mendip in 1802, the property was sold to Sir John Briscoe, Bart.; after whose death it was again sold to the Baroness Howe. This lady and her husband, Sir J. Waller Wathen, with a tasteless Vandalism, leveled the house of Pope to the ground; extirpated ruthlessly almost every trace of him in the gardens, and erected that house already mentioned at the extremity of Pope's property, now occupied as two tenements. This house of the unpoetical Lady Howe was also erected on the site of an elegant little villa, belonging to Hudson, the painter, the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Such are the revolutions which have pa.s.sed over Pope's villa and its grounds. Where he, and such celebrated gardeners as Swift, Bolingbroke, and Gay labored, I found potatoes, black with the disease of 1846, growing. The giant trees planted by his hands, which still lift aloft their n.o.ble heads, we know not how long may escape some fresh change.

The whole of the larger garden of Pope in which they grow, bears the evidences of neglect on its face. Laurels grow wild under the lofty hedges. The stones of Stanhope's grotto lie scattered about; and vast quant.i.ties of the deadly nightshade, as if undisturbed for years, displayed to my notice its dark purple and burnished berries of death.

The remains of Pope rest, with those of his parents, in Twickenham church. In the middle aisle, the s.e.xton shows you a P in one of the stones, which marks the place of their interment. To see the monuments to their memory, you must ascend into the north gallery, where at the east end, on the wall, you see a tablet, with a Latin inscription, which was placed there by Pope in honor of his parents; and on the side wall of the gallery nearest the west is a tablet of gray marble, in a pyramidal form, with a medallion profile of the poet. This was placed here by Bishop Warburton, and bears the following inscription:

ALEXANDRO POPE, M. H. Gulielmus Episcopus, Glocestriensis, Amicitiae causa fac: cur: 1761.

_Poeta loquitur._

FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Heroes and kings, your distance keep; In peace let one poor poet sleep, Who never flattered folks like you: Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

By one of those acts which neither science nor curiosity can excuse, the skull of Pope is now in the private collection of a phrenologist. The manner in which it was obtained is said to have been this. On some occasion of alteration in the church, or burial of some one in the same spot, the coffin of Pope was disinterred, and opened to see the state of the remains; that by a bribe to the s.e.xton of the time, possession of the skull was obtained for a night, and _another_ skull returned instead of it. I have heard that fifty pounds were paid to manage and carry through this transaction. Be that as it may, the skull of Pope figures in a private museum.

DEAN SWIFT.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The princ.i.p.al scenes of residence of Dean Swift lie in Ireland. Johnson, in his life of the dean, makes it doubtful whether he was really an Englishman or an Irishman by birth. He says: "Jonathan Swift was, according to an account said to be written by himself, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin on St. Andrew's day, 1667; according to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman, who was minister of a parish in Herefords.h.i.+re. During his life the place of his birth was undetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the Irish, but would occasionally call himself an Englishman. The question may, without much regret, be left in the obscurity in which he delighted to involve it."

There has long ceased to be any obscurity about the matter. His relations, justly proud of the connection, have set that fully in the light which Swift himself characteristically wrapped in mystification.

He was of an English family, originally of Yorks.h.i.+re, but his grandfather Thomas Swift was vicar of Goodrich in Herefords.h.i.+re. Taking an active part with Charles I. against the Parliament, he was expelled from his living; yet he died at Goodrich, and was buried under the altar there. The account of the plundering of his parsonage by the Parliament army, given in the appendix to Scott's life of the dean, is so lively a description of such an affair, that I will transcribe it:

"When the Earl of Stamford was in Herefords.h.i.+re, in October, 1642, and pillaged all that kept faith and allegiance to the king, information was given to Mrs. Swift, wife of Thomas Swift, parson of Goodrich, that her house was designed to be plundered. To prevent so great a danger, she instantly repaired to Hereford, where the earl then was, some ten miles from her own home, to pet.i.tion him that no violence might be offered to her house or goods. He most n.o.bly, and according to the goodness of his disposition, threw the pet.i.tion away, and swore no small oaths that she should be plundered to-morrow. The good gentlewoman, being out of hope to prevail, and seeing that there was no good to be done by pet.i.tioning him, speeds home as fast as she could, and that night removed as much of her goods as the shortness of the time would permit. Next morning, to make good the Earl of Stamford's word, Captain Kirle's troop, consisting of seventy horse and thirty foot, which were hangers on--birds of prey, came to Mr. Swift's house. There they took away all his provision of victuals, corn, household stuff, which was not conveyed away. They empty his beds, and fill the ticks with malt; they rob him of his cart and six horses, and make this part of their theft the means to convey away the rest. Mrs. Swift, much affrighted to see such a sight as this, thought it best to save herself, though she lost her goods; therefore, taking up a young child in her arms, began to secure herself by flight, which one of the troopers perceiving, he commanded her to stay, or, holding a pistol to her breast, threatened to shoot her dead. She, good woman, fearing death whether she went or returned, at last, shunning that death which was next unto her, she retires back to her house, where she saw herself undone, and yet durst not oppose, or ask why they did so. Having thus rifled the house and gone, next morning early she goes again to Hereford, and there again pet.i.tions the earl to show some compa.s.sion to her and her ten children, and that he would be pleased to cause her horses and some part of her goods to be restored to her. The good earl was so far from granting her pet.i.tion, that he would not vouchsafe so much as to read it. When she could not prevail herself, she makes use of the mediation of friends. These have the repulse also, his lords.h.i.+p remaining inexorable, without any inclination to mercy. At last, hoping that all men's hearts were not adamant relentless, she leaves the earl, and makes her addresses to Captain Kirle, who, upon her earnest entreaty, grants her a protection for what was left; but for rest.i.tution, there was no hope of that. This protection cost her no less than thirty s.h.i.+llings. It seems paper and ink are dear in those parts.

And now, thinking herself secure in his protection, she returns home, in hope that what was left she might enjoy in peace and quietness. She had not been long at home ere Captain Kirle sends her word that, if it pleased her, she might buy four of her own six horses again, a.s.suring her, by her father's servant and tenant, that she should not fear being plundered any more by the Earl of Stamford's forces while they were in those parts. Encouraged by these promises, she was content to buy her own, and deposited eight pounds ten s.h.i.+llings for four of her horses.

And now, conceiving the storm to be blown over, and all danger past, and placing much confidence in her purchased protection, she causes all her goods secured in her neighbor's houses to be brought home; and since it could not be better, rejoiced that she had not lost all. She had not enjoyed these thoughts long ere Captain Kirle sent unto her for some vessels of cider, whereof having tasted, but not liking it, since he could not have drink for himself he would have provender for his horses, and therefore, instead of cider, he demands ten bushels of oats. Mrs.

Swift, seeing that the denial might give some ground for a quarrel, sent him word that her husband had not two bushels of oats in a year for t.i.thes, nor did they grow any on their glebe, both of which were most true. Yet, to show how willing she was, to her power, to comply with him, that the messengers might not return empty, she sent him forty s.h.i.+llings to buy oats. Suddenly after, the captain of Goodridge castle sends to Mr. Swift's house for victual and corn. Mrs. Swift instantly shows him her protection. He, to answer show with show, shows her his warrant; and so, without any regard to her protection, seizeth upon that provision which was in the house, together with the cider which Captain Kirle had refused. Hereupon Mrs. Swift writes to Captain Kirle, complaining of this injury, and the affront done to him in slighting his protection; but before the messenger could return with an answer to her letter, some from the castle came a second time to plunder the house, and they did what they came for. Presently after comes a letter from Captain Kirle in answer to Mrs. Swift's, that the Earl of Stamford did by no means approve of the injuries done to her, and withal, by word of mouth, sends to her for more oats. She, perceiving that as long as she gave they would never leave asking, resolved to be drilled no more. The return not answering expectation, on the third of December, Captain Kirle's lieutenant, attended by a considerable number of dragoons, comes to Mr. Swift's house and demands entrance; but the doors being kept shut against them, and not being able to force them, they broke down two iron bars in a stone window, and so, with swords drawn and pistols c.o.c.ked, they enter the house. Being entered, they take all Master Swift's and his wife's apparel, his books and his children's clothes, they being in bed; and these poor children that hung by their clothes, they being unwilling to part with them, they swung them about until, their hold-fast failing, they dashed them against the walls. They took away all his servants' clothes, and made so clean work with one that they left him not a s.h.i.+rt to cover his nakedness. There was one of the children, an infant, lying in the cradle; they robbed that, and left not the poor soul a rag to defend it from the cold. They took away all the iron, pewter, and bra.s.s; and a very fair cupboard of gla.s.ses, which they could not carry away, they broke to pieces; and the four horses lately redeemed are with them lawful prize again, and nothing left of all the goods but a few stools, for his wife, children, and servants to sit down and bemoan their distressed condition. Having taken away all, and being gone, Mrs. Swift, in compa.s.sion to her poor infant in the cradle, took it up, almost starved with cold, and wrapped it in a petticoat which she took off from herself; and now hoped that having nothing to lose would be a better protection for their persons than that which they purchased of Captain Kirle for thirty s.h.i.+llings. But, as if Job's messenger would never make an end, her three maid-servants, whom they in the castle had compelled to carry the poultry to the castle, return and tell their mistress that they in the castle said they had a warrant to seize upon Mrs. Swift and bring her into the castle, and they would make her three maid-servants wait on her there, and added things not fit for them to speak nor us to write. Hereupon Mrs. Swift fled to the place where her husband, for fear of the rebels, had withdrawn himself. She had not been gone two hours before they come from the castle, and bring with them three teams to carry away what was before designed for plunder, but wanted means of conveyance. When they came there was a batch of bread hot in the oven. This they seize on; her children, on their knees, entreat but for one loaf, and at last, with much importunity, obtained it; but before the children had eaten it, they took even that one loaf away, and left them dest.i.tute of a morsel of bread among ten children.

Ransacking every corner of the house that nothing might be left behind, they find a small pewter dish in which the dry-nurse had put pap to feed the poor infant, the mother who gave it suck being fled to save her life. This they seize on too. The nurse entreats, for G.o.d's sake, that they would spare that, pleading that, in the mother's absence, it was all the substance which was or could be provided to sustain the life of the child, that 'knew not the right hand from the left,' a motive which prevailed with G.o.d himself, though justly incensed against Nineveh.

"Master Swift's eldest son, a youth, seeing this barbarous cruelty, demanded of them a reason for this so hard usage. They replied that his father was a traitor to the king and Parliament, and added, that they would keep them so short that they would eat the very flesh from their arms; and to make good their word, they threaten the miller, that if he ground any corn for these children, they would grind him in his own mill; and not contented with this, they go to Mr. Swift's next neighbor, whose daughter was his servant, and take him prisoner: they examine him on oath what goods of Mr. Swift's he had in his custody. He professing that he had none, they charge him to take his daughter away from Mr.

Swift's service, or else they threaten to plunder him; and to make sure work, they make him give them security to obey all their commands.

Terrified with this, the neighbors stand afar off, and pity the distressed condition of these persecuted children, but dare not come or send to their relief. By this means the children and servants had no sustenance, hardly any thing to cover them, from Friday, six o'clock at night, until Sat.u.r.day, twelve at night, until at last, the neighbors, moved with the lamentable cries and complaints of the children and servants, one of the neighbors, overlooking all difficulties, and showing that he durst be charitable in despite of these monsters, ventured in, and brought them some provision. And if the world would know what it was that so exasperated these rebels against this gentleman, the Earl of Stamford, a man that is not bound to give an account of all his actions, gave two reasons for it: first, because he had bought arms and conveyed them into Monmouths.h.i.+re, which, under his lords.h.i.+p's good favor, was not so; and, secondly, because, not long before, he preached a sermon in Rosse upon that text, 'Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,' in which his lords.h.i.+p said he had spoken treason in endeavoring to give Caesar more than his due. These two crimes cost Mr. Swift no less than 300."[8]

With the memory of such things as these in the family, there need be no wonder at the dean's decided tendency to Toryism. His father and three uncles, that is, four out of ten sons, and three or four daughters of the persecuted clergyman, fled to Ireland, where the eldest son, G.o.dwin Swift, a barrister, married a relative of the Marchioness of Ormond, and was made, by the Marquis of Ormond, his attorney-general in the palatinate of Tipperary. This G.o.dwin married the co-heiress of Admiral Deane; the second son, a daughter of Sir William Davenant. Another was Mr. Dryden Swift, so called after his mother, who was a Dryden, and a near relation of the poet's. Thus Swift was of good family and alliance.

He was the only son of Jonathan Swift, the eighth son of Thomas Swift, the vicar of Goodrich, who was so plundered. His mother was Abigail Erick, of Leicesters.h.i.+re, descended from the most ancient family of the Ericks, who derive their lineage from Erick the Forester, a great commander, who raised an army to oppose the invasion of William the Conqueror, by whom he was vanquished, but afterward employed to command that prince's forces. In his old age he retired to his house in Leicesters.h.i.+re, where his family has continued ever since, has produced many eminent men, and is still represented by the Heyricks of Leicester town, and the Herricks of Beaumanor.

Swift's father was a solicitor, and steward to the Society of the King's Inn, Dublin; but he died before Swift was born, and left his mother in such poverty that she was not able to defray the expenses of her husband's funeral. He was born on the 30th of November, 1667, St.

Andrew's Day, in a small house, now called No. 7, in Hoey's Court, Dublin, which is still pointed out by the inhabitants of that quarter, and, by the antiquity of its appearance, seems to vindicate the truth of the tradition. Here a circ.u.mstance occurred to him as singular as the case of his father, who, as a child in the cradle, had his clothes stripped from him by the troopers of Captain Kirle. His nurse was a woman of Whitehaven, and being obliged to go thither in order to see a dying relative, from whom she expected a legacy, out of sheer affection for the child, she stole on s.h.i.+pboard, unknown to his mother and uncle, and carried him with her to Whitehaven, where he continued for almost three years; for, when the matter was discovered, his mother sent orders by all means not to hazard a second voyage till he could better bear it.

The nurse was so careful of him, that before he returned he had learned to spell, and by the time that he was five years old he could read any chapter in the Bible.

After his return to Ireland he was sent, at six years old, to Kilkenny school, and thence, at fourteen, he was transferred to the University at Dublin. At Kilkenny, it is said that his name is still shown to strangers at the school, cut, boy fas.h.i.+on, upon his desk or form. At the University, like Goldsmith, he was more addicted to general reading and poetry than to the cla.s.sics and mathematics. He was poor, and the sense of his poverty on his proud spirit made him reckless, and almost desperate. He got into dissipation to drown his mortification. Between the 14th of November, 1685, and the 8th of October, 1687, he incurred no less than seventy penalties for non-attendance at chapel, for neglecting lectures, for being absent at the evening roll-call, and for town-haunting, the academical phrase for absence from college without license. These brought censures, suspension of his degree; and, on his part, satirical sallies against the college authorities. He finally received his degree of bachelor of arts by _special grace_, that is, not by his own fair acquisition. His uncles, G.o.dwin, and, after his death, Dryden, had borne the cost of his education; his mother had gone over to her native Leicester and friends, and, on obtaining his degree, he pa.s.sed over to England to her. His mother was related to the wife of Sir William Temple, and, through her, Swift was received into Sir William's house as his private secretary. This brings us to the first _home_ which Jonathan Swift may almost be said to have had.

Sir William, according to some authorities, was residing at this time at Sheen, near Richmond; according to others, he had retired to his favorite residence of Moorpark, near Farnham, in Surrey. Whichever place it was originally, it soon became Moorpark. Here William III. used to visit Temple; and here, as at Sheen, it was that the Dutch monarch, as is related as a most important fact, taught Swift to cut asparagus the Dutch way. The fact is Dutch and economical, and worthy to be known to all gardeners, and all other people who undertake this useful operation.

It consists in cutting with a short and circular stroke, not with a wide, sweeping one. In the first case, you cut off only the head of asparagus you want; in the other, you most probably cut off half a dozen heads that have not yet appeared above the soil. Still, this was only half the advantage derived from the royal gardener: he taught Swift how to eat the asparagus when cut; and Swift used always to tell his guests that King William ate the stalks as well as the heads. If he taught him how to make them eatable, it is a great pity that the secret is lost.

William is said, also, to have offered Swift a troop of horse, which might naturally arise out of their cutting _horse_radish for dinner at the same time, though of this the biographers do not inform us. Certain it is, that Swift must have become a great favorite with William, or have thought so; for, though he respectfully declined becoming a trooper, he gave the king to understand that he had no objection to become a _canon_; and the king, as Swift wrote his uncle, desired him not to take orders till he gave him a prebend. Such was the opinion entertained by both Sir William Temple and Swift of his standing in the monarch's estimation, that he was employed by Sir William, who was himself laid up with the gout, to lay before the king reasons why his majesty ought to a.s.sent to the bill for triennial Parliaments. Swift could strengthen Sir William's opinion by several arguments drawn from English history; but all his arguments had no effect on William III., who knew how to cut triennial Parliaments as cleverly as asparagus. This was Swift's first dip into politics, and, though he said it helped to cure him of vanity, it did not of addicting himself to the same unsatisfactory pursuit in after life.

Swift's residence at Moorpark is marked by all the characteristics of his after life, and by two of those events which are mixed up with its great mystery, and which brought after them its melancholy ending. He was so morose, bitter, and satirical, that Mr. Temple, nephew to Sir William, stated that Sir William for a long time very much disliked him "for his ill qualities, nor would allow him to sit down at table with him." Though related to Lady Temple, Sir William had engaged him only in the capacity of reader and amanuensis, at a salary of 20 a year and his board, and looked upon him as "a young fellow taken into a low office who was inclined to forget himself." We can well believe that the proud and unbending spirit which, through life, never deserted Swift, made him feel that he was thus regarded, and excited his most hostile and disagreeable qualities. He was also very defective in his education, and the consciousness of this in a towering spirit like Swift's, while it mortified him, could not make him humble. Yet his better qualities at length prevailed. He took to study; was commended by Sir William; and this, on his part, induced a more respectful deportment toward Sir William, whose fine mind and n.o.ble character no one could better estimate than Swift, and it ended, notwithstanding an occasional jar, and a parting at one time, with Swift's becoming the most zealous, attentive, and affectionate friend of Sir William, who admitted him to his most entire and cordial confidence.

The whole period of Swift's residence at Moorpark was two years. During this time he went for a while to Oxford to take his degree, and he was absent twice in Ireland; once a few months on account of his health, and the second time when Swift, anxious for some means of independence, and Temple only offering him an employment worth a hundred a year in the office of the rolls in Ireland, they parted with mutual displeasure.

Swift then went to Ireland, where, the heat of their difference having abated on both sides, through Sir William's influence, he obtained the prebend of Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, worth about a hundred pounds a year. To this small living he retired, and a.s.sumed the character of a country clergyman. But this life of obscurity and seclusion was not likely long to suit the reckless, aspiring nature of Swift. He sighed to return to the intellectual pleasures and persons who resorted to Moorpark, and Sir William had not the less sensibly felt the absence of Swift, than Swift the absence of Moorpark. He returned within the year, and was welcomed back with warmth and respect, and thenceforward stood in a new position. With his abrupt departure from Kilroot, two very different stories have been connected: one which, if true, would sink his character forever; the other, which has never been questioned, evidencing the n.o.blest qualities in that character. The first of these stories is that he attempted violence on the daughter of a farmer, one of his paris.h.i.+oners. Of this it is enough to quote the words of Sir Walter Scott, which, after giving the particulars of the refutation of this calumny, are: "It is sufficient for Swift's vindication to observe, that he returned to Kilroot after his resignation, and inducted his successor in face of the church and of the public; that he returned to Sir William Temple with as fair a character as when he left him; that during all his public life in England and Ireland, when he was the b.u.t.t of a whole faction, this charge was never heard of; that when adduced so many years after his death, it was unsupported by aught but st.u.r.dy and general averment; and that the chief propagator of the calumny first retracted his a.s.sertions, and finally died insane."

That there might be _something_ on which this charge was founded is by no means improbable, and that Swift, as alleged, was brought before a magistrate of the name of Dobbs; for it is confessed that in his youth he was of a dissipated habit, and it is far more likely that these habits induced that const.i.tutional affection, with giddiness, deafness, and ultimate insanity, which made his future life wretched, than that it was owing to eating an over quant.i.ty of stone-fruit. In this point of view, the life of Swift presents a deep moral lesson; for no man, if that were the case, ever drew down upon himself a severer chastis.e.m.e.nt; but, as regards this particular fact, it could by possibility be nothing so flagrant as was endeavored to be propagated by the report. The second statement one is unwilling to weaken, because, in itself, it is so beautiful; yet in the dean's life there are so many proofs of his making professions of patriotism and generosity to cover and screen his private purposes, that one is equally tempted to suspect a certain share of policy. The fact is thus stated:

"In an excursion from his habitation, he met with a clergyman, with whom he formed an acquaintance, which proved him to be learned, modest, well-principled, the father of eight children, and a curate at the rate of forty pounds a year. Without explaining his purpose, Swift borrowed this gentleman's black mare--having no horse of his own--rode to Dublin, resigned the prebend of Kilroot, and obtained a grant of it for this new friend. When he gave the presentation to the poor clergyman, he kept his eyes steadily fixed on the old man's face, which, at first, only expressed pleasure at finding himself preferred to a living; but when he found that it was that of his benefactor, who had resigned in his favor, his joy a.s.sumed so touching an expression of surprise and grat.i.tude, that Swift, himself deeply affected, declared he had never experienced so much pleasure as at that moment. The poor clergyman, at Swift's departure, pressed upon him the black mare, which he did not choose to hurt him by refusing; and thus mounted for the first time on a horse of his own, with fourscore pounds in his purse, Swift again rode to Dublin, and there embarked for England, and resumed his situation at Moorpark as Sir William Temple's confidential secretary."