SWIFT (Dr Jonathan), an eminent divine, politician, and wit, was descended from an ancient family; and born at Dublin in 1667, seven months after his father's death. He was educated at Trinity college, Dublin: but minding history and poetry more than academic learning, he was refused his bachelor's degree for insufficiency, though he was at last admitted speciali gratia, by favour rather than merit; a circumstance that served as a spur to his future studies. In 1688, being then without support, he was patronized by Sir William Temple, who had married a relation of his mother, by whose means he was introduced to the notice of king William, who offered to make him a captain of horse; but Swift had determined on a clerical life, and after Sir William's death the king took no farther notice of him. He met with several disappointments in his endeavours at preferment, obtaining only two small livings, Laracor and Rathbigger, in the county of Meath, when he became eminent as a political writer.
While Swift resided at Laracor, he invited to Ireland a lady, whom he has celebrated by the name of Stella. He became acquainted with her while he lived with Sir William Temple. She was the daughter of his steward, whose name was Johnson; and Sir William, in consideration of her father's faithful services, left her at his death 1000l. She was now about eighteen: and was accompanied by Mrs Dingley, a lady who was fifteen years older, and, though related to Sir William, had only an annuity of 27l. But whatever was Swift's attachment to Mrs Johnson, every precaution was taken to prevent scandal: they never lived in the same house; nor were they ever known to meet but in the presence of a third person. Swift made frequent excursions; but Mrs Johnson was buried in solitude and obscurity; she was personally known only to a few of Swift's most intimate acquaintance, and Mrs Dingley was her only female companion.
In 1701 Swift took his degree of doctor of divinity. He had been educated among the Whigs; and the same year published a Discourse of the contests and dissensions between the nobles and commons of Athens and Rome: this was in behalf of king William and his ministers, against the violent proceedings of the house of commons. But soon after, he attached himself to the Tories; because, as he said, the Whigs had renounced their old principles.
In 1710, being then in England, he was commissioned by the primate of Ireland to solicit the queen to release the clergy from paying the 20th part and first-fruits; and this brought him acquainted with Mr Harley, who, with the rest of the ministers, appears to have cared for him with uncommon affability. From this time he supported his new friends with all his power, in pamphlets, poems, and periodical papers; yet
yet received no gratuity or reward until the year 1713, when he accepted the deanery of St Patrick's, Dublin. A bishopric had been intended for him by the queen; but archbishop Sharp, and a certain great lady, having represented him as a man whose religious sincerity was very doubtful, it was given to another.
It is here proper to observe, that among other persons with whom he became intimately acquainted while in England, was Mrs Vanhomrigh. She was born in Ireland; and had been married to Mr Vanhomrigh, first a merchant of Amsterdam, then of Dublin, where king William gave him very great places: but he dying, left two sons and two daughters; and his sons dying soon after, his whole fortune, which was very considerable, fell to the daughters. The widow and the two young ladies came to England in 1709, where they were visited by persons of the first quality; and Swift living near them, used to be much there. During this familiarity, he insensibly became a kind of preceptor to the young ladies, particularly to the eldest, who was then about 20, and was fond of reading, and a great lover of poetry. Hence admiring such a character as that of Swift, she passed from admiration to love, and ventured to make him a proposal of marriage. He at first affected to believe her in jest, then to rally her on so whimsical a choice, and at last gave her an absolute refusal. While he was in this situation he wrote his Cadenus and Vanessa; and then returned to the place of his exile, as he usually called it. Soon after Mrs Vanhomrigh died, and left some debts; which it not being convenient for her daughters, who had debts of their own, to pay at present, to avoid an arrest they followed the dean into Ireland.
The first remarkable event of his life after his settlement at the deanery, was his marriage with Mrs Johnson, the daughter of Sir William Temple's steward, the celebrated Stella, after an intimate friendship of more than 16 years; but whatever were the motives to a marriage that was never avowed, the dean and the lady continued to live in the same Platonic manner they had done before. He had hitherto continued to visit Miss Vanhomrigh, but now his visits were less frequent. Soon after, her sister died; and the remains of the family-fortune centering in her, she retired to Selbridge, a small house and estate about 12 miles from Dublin. From thence she frequently wrote to the dean, and pressed him to marry her, but he rallied and still avoided a positive refusal. She pressed him either to accept or refuse her as a wife; upon which he wrote an answer, and delivered it with his own hand, and probably let her into the fatal secret of his being already married: this the unhappy lady did not survive many weeks; however, before her death, she cancelled a will she had made in the dean's favour.
From 1716 to 1720, is a chasm in the dean's life, which it has been found difficult to fill up. Lord Orrery thinks, with great reason, that he employed this time upon Gulliver's Travels. The truth is, that Swift's disappointments had rendered him splenetic; and he frequently indulged himself in an intolerable misanthropy, that, in the midst of all his wit and imagination, is disgustful in several parts of this work.
About the year 1720, the dean distinguished himself
as a patriot, in his Proposal for the Use of Irish Manufactures, and by his Drapier's Letters in opposition to Wood's patent for a copper coinage; which, he clearly showed, was calculated to procure the patentee an exorbitant gain, to the impoverishment of Ireland. These letters rendered him amazingly popular, and from this time the dean's influence in that island was almost without bounds; for he was consulted in whatever related to domestic policy, and particularly to trade.
In 1727, died his wife, the amiable Stella, in the 44th year of her age; a lady possessed of an enchanting beauty, a musical voice, unbounded wit, mingled with sweetness of manners, and a mind adorned with every virtue. She had been declining ever since the year 1724; and it is generally believed that her immature death was occasioned by the peculiarity of the dean's conduct towards her. It is said the dean did at length earnestly desire that she might be publicly owned as his wife; but as her health was then declining, she said it was too late, and insisted that they should continue to live as they had lived before. To this the dean in his turn consented, and suffered her to dispose entirely of her own fortune, by her own name, to a public charity, when she died.
From the death of Stella his life became much retired; the austerity of his temper also increased, and he could not enjoy his public days: these entertainments were therefore discontinued, and he sometimes avoided the company of his most intimate friends; but in time he grew more desirous of company. In 1732, he complains, in a letter to Mr Gay, that "he had a large house, and should hardly find one visitor if he was not able to hire him with a bottle of wine;" and, in another to Mr Pope, "that he was in danger of dying poor and friendless, even his female friends having forsaken him; which," as he says, " vexed him most." These complaints were afterwards repeated in a strain of yet greater sensibility and self-pity: "All my friends have forsaken me.
"Vertiginosus, inops, surdus, male gratus amicis.
"Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone,
"To all my friends a burden grown."
It is very remarkable, however, that although his mind was greatly depressed, and his principal enjoyment at an end when Mrs Johnson died, yet there is an air of levity and trifling in some of the pieces he wrote afterwards, that is not to be found in any other; such, in particular, are his Directions to Servants, and several of his letters to his friend Dr Sheridan.
The fits of giddiness and deafness, to which he had been subjected from a surfeit before he was 20 years old, became more frequent and violent as he grew in years. A prescient which he had long entertained of that wretchedness which would inevitably overtake him towards the close of life, by the failure of his intellects, clouded his mind with the most melancholy ideas, and tinged every object around him. How far this gloomy sentiment prevailed, we may learn from the following remarkable anecdote mentioned by Mr Faulkner in his letter to lord Chesterfield. "One time, in a journey from Drogheda to Navan, the dean rode before the company, made a sudden stop, dismounted his horse, fell on his knees, lifted up his hands, and prayed in the most devout manner. When
his friends came up, he desired and insisted on their alighting; which they did, and asked him the meaning. "Gentlemen," said he, "pray, join your hearts in fervent prayers with mine, that I may never be like this oak-tree, which is decayed and withered at top, while the other parts are sound." In 1736, while he was writing a satire on the Irish parliament, called the Legion Club, he was seized with so dreadful a fit of his malady, that he left the poem unfinished; and never after attempted a composition that required a course of thinking. From this time his memory gradually declined; his passions perverted his understanding; and, in 1741, he became utterly incapable of conversation.
The concluding scene of his life was truly affecting, and afforded a striking lesson to check the pride of human genius. Mr Faulkner's account of it is well worth notice: "Swift never was very outrageous; but his memory failed him by degrees for several years together, insomuch that he forgot all his friends and domestics. He could not call any of them by their names; nor for cloaths, food, or any necessaries that he wanted. In short, his forgetfulness grew so much upon him, he could not remember any one passage of his life, nor read, nor even tell his letters, for near two years before his death. He likewise lost the use of his speech, excepting now and then uttering some incoherent rambling words, being incapable of asking any questions, or of returning answers; nor could he ask for one necessary of life. During this melancholy situation great care was taken of his person and his food, as he was incapable of dressing, undressing, or helping himself to cloaths or victuals; and so totally was he deprived of all rational faculties, that he was treated like a new-born infant, being taken out of bed, undressed, and put into bed like the youngest child; and had the actions of one, being fond of gold and silver toys, which he would play with or put into his mouth." In this deplorable state of insensibility he lingered until 1745, when the dissolution of his bodily frame followed the extinction of his mental powers. Upon opening the skull, after his death, much water was found in the brain. By his will, which is dated May 1740, he left about 1200l. in legacies; and the rest of his fortune, which was about 11,000l. to erect and endow an hospital for idiots and lunatics. His works have been often printed, and of various forms.
Swift undoubtedly was a man of native genius. His fancy was inexhaustible. His conceptions were lively and comprehensive; and he had the peculiar felicity of conveying them in language equally correct, free, and perspicuous. His penetration was as quick as intuition; and he was indeed the critic of nature.
As his genius was of the first class, so were some of his virtues.—The following anecdote will illustrate his filial piety. His mother died in 1710, as appears by a memorandum in one of the account-books, which Dr Swift always made up yearly, and on each page entered minutely all his receipts and expences in every month, beginning his year from November 1. He observed the same method all his lifetime till his last illness. At the foot of that page which includes his expences of the month of May 1710, at the glebe-house of Laracor in the county of Meath, where he was then resident, are these remarkable words, which
show at the same time, his filial piety and the religious use which he thought it his duty to make of that melancholy event. "Memo. On Wednesday, between seven and eight in the evening, May 10. 1710, I received a letter in my chamber at Laracor (Mr Percival and Jo. Beaumont being by) from Mrs F—, dated May 9, with one inclosed, sent by Mrs Worrall at Leicester to Mrs F—, giving an account that my dear mother, Mrs Abigail Swift, died that morning, Monday April 24. 1710, about ten o'clock, after a long sickness: being ill all winter, and lame; and extremely ill about a month or six weeks before her death. I have now lost my barrier between me and death. God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to heaven be through piety, truth, justice, and charity, she is there. J. S." He always treated his mother, during her life, with the utmost duty and affection; and she sometimes came to Ireland to visit him after his settlement at Laracor. She lodged at Mr Brent's, the printer, in George's lane, Dublin. She asked Mrs Brent, the landlady, "Whether she could keep a secret?" She replied, "She could very well." Upon which she enjoined her not to make the matter public, which she was now going to communicate to her. "I have a spark in this town, that I carried on a correspondence with whilst I was in England. He will be here presently to pay his addresses, for he hath heard by this time of my arrival. But I would not have the matter known." Soon after this a rap was heard at the door, and Dr Swift walked up stairs. Mrs Brent retired: but after a little time she was called, and then Mrs Swift introduced her to her son, and said, "This is my spark I was telling you of. This is my lover; and indeed the only one I shall ever admit to pay their addresses to me." The doctor smiled at his mother's humour, and afterwards paid his duty to her every day, unsuspected by Mrs Brent, whom he invited some years afterwards to take care of his family-affairs, when he became dean of St Patrick's: and when Mrs Brent died, he continued her daughter, a poor widow, in the same office.
The liberality of the dean hath been a topic of just encomium with all his admirers: nor could his enemies deny him this praise. In his domestic affairs, he always acted with strict economy. He kept the most regular accounts: and he seems to have done this chiefly with a view to increase his power of being useful. Mr Faulkner informs us, that "his income was 900l. per annum, which he endeavoured to divide into three parts, for the following purposes. First, to live upon one-third of it. Secondly, to give another third in pensions and charities, according to the manner in which persons who received them had lived; and the other third he laid by, to build an hospital for the reception of idiots and lunatics." "What is remarkable in this generous man, is this, (says Mr F.) that when he lent money upon bond or mortgage, he would not take the legal interest, but one per cent. below it."
Fires have sometimes happened in Dublin, by which people of all denominations have been sufferers: upon which melancholy occasions the dean always exerted himself, not only in person, by going from house to house to make collections for them, but wrote and recommended.
Swift. mended their melancholy cases to the public. He would go to the afflicted sufferers, offer them his service, and would be the first to subscribe in a most princely and generous manner to their relief; which worthy example of his the benevolent citizens of Dublin would imitate.
His charity appears to have been a settled principle of duty, more than an instinctive effort of good-nature: but as it was thus founded and supported, it had extraordinary merit, and seldom failed to exert itself in a manner that contributed most to render it beneficial. He did not lavish his money on the idle and the worthless. He nicely discriminated characters, and was seldom the dupe of imposition. Hence his generosity always turned to a useful account: while it relieved distress, it encouraged industry, and rewarded virtue.
We dwell with great pleasure on this truly excellent and distinguishing part of the dean's character: and for the sake of his charity we can overlook his oddities, and almost forgive his faults. He was a very peculiar man in every respect. Some have said, "What a man he would have been, had he been without those whims and infirmities which shaded both his genius and his character!" But perhaps the peculiarities complained of were inseparable from his genius. The vigour and fertility of the root could not fail now and then of throwing out superfluous suckers. What produced these, produced also the more beautiful branches, and gave the fruit all its richness.
It must be acknowledged, that the dean's fancy hurried him into great absurdities and inconsistencies, for which nothing but his extraordinary talents and noble virtues, discovered in other instances, could have atoned. The rancour he discovered on all occasions towards the dissenters, is totally unjustifiable. No sect could have merited it in the degree in which he always showed it to them; for, in some instances, it bordered on downright persecution. He doubtless had his reasons for exposing their principles to ridicule; and might perhaps have sufficient grounds for some of his accusations against their principal leaders in Ireland: but nothing could justify his virulence against the whole body.
It must likewise be admitted, that when Swift's resentment was excited, it generally arose to indignation. Amidst the constellation of virtues which shed a distinguishing lustre on his character, he wanted one that a minister of Christianity ought to be ambitious of numbering amongst the chief ornaments of his profession, and that was forgiveness. This is a virtue that requires a great share of humility; and Swift seemed to consider himself as having a prescriptive right to haughtiness. His pride gave a dignity indeed to some parts of his conduct; but it frequently transgressed all the bounds of common civility and Christian condescension. His pride was not gratified with lowering on those he hated with a supercilious brow; it must trample them under his feet. He could not laugh away his resentment. "It stuck to his last sand;" and gained strength by its duration.
Of Dr Sharp the archbishop of York, who hindered his promotion in the church by insinuating something to the prejudice of his religion, he never spoke but with a tone of indignation that marked a settled rancour. Dr Tenison the archbishop of Canterbury, he
calls, for the same good reason, "the most good-for-nothing prelate that ever lived." Mr Nicols, the editor of a late Supplement to Swift's works, hath transcribed, from an authentic MS. in the possession of Thomas Aisle, Esq; a sort of a counter-part to Macky's Characters, annexed to the Memoirs of Secret Services, in which the dean hath discovered his keenness of observation and severity of resentment against some of the most distinguished characters of the court of George I. The following are a few instances.
Lord Wharton (A).—"He is one of the completest gentlemen in England: hath a very clear understanding and manly expression; with abundance of wit." MACKY.—"The most universal villain I ever saw." SWIFT, MS.
Earl of Galway.—"He is one of the finest gentlemen in the army, with a head fitted for the cabinet as well as the camp: is very modest, vigilant, and sincere: a man of honour and honesty: without pride or affectation." MACKY.—"In all directly otherwise. A deceitful, hypocritical, factious knave: a damnable hypocrite: of no religion." SWIFT, MS.
Of John duke of Argyle, Swift says in his MS. "Ambitious, covetous, cunning Scot: has no principles but his own interest and greatness: a true Scot in his whole deportment."—Of the earl of Derby: "As arrant a scoundrel as his brother."—Of the duke of Grafton: "Almost a slobberer: without one good quality."—Lord Cholmondeley: "Good for nothing, as far as ever I knew."—Lord Guildford: "A mighty silly fellow."—Duke of Marlborough: "Detestably covetous."—Earl of Sandwich: "As much a puppy as ever I saw; very ugly, and a fop."—Speaker of the house of commons: "A heavy man."
The natural acrimony of Swift's temper, as already observed, had been increased by repeated disappointments. This gave a splenic tincture to his writings; and amidst the duties of private and domestic life, it too frequently appeared to shade the lustre of his more eminent virtues.—The dean hath been accused of avarice, but with the same truth as he hath been accused of infidelity. In detached views, no man was more liable to be mistaken. Even his genius and good sense might be questioned, if we were only to read some passages of his writings. To judge fairly and pronounce justly of him, as a man and as an author, we should examine the uniform tenor of his disposition and conduct, and the general nature and design of his productions. In the latter, he will appear great; and in the former, good; notwithstanding the puns and peculiarities of the one, and the absurdities and inconsistencies of the other.