DEAN SWIFT'S DISEASE. 813 



housekeeper removing a knife from him as he was going to catch at 

 it, he shrugged his shoulders, and rocking himself, he said, ' I am 

 what I am. I am what I am'; and ahout six minutes afterward 

 repeated the same words two or three times over. Sometimes he will 

 not utter a syllable, at other times he will speak incoherent words ; 

 but he never yet, as far as I could hear, talked nonsense, or said a 

 foolish thing. About four months ago he gave me great trouble. lie 

 seemed to have a mind to talk to me. In order to try what he would 

 say, I told him I came to dine with him, and immediately his house- 

 keeper, Mrs. Ridgeway, said, ' Won't you give Mr. Swift a glass of 

 wine, sir ? ' he shrugged his shoulders, just as he used to do when he 

 had a mind that a friend should not spend the evening with him. 

 Shrugging his shoulders, your lordship may remember, was as much 

 as to say, ' You'll ruin me in wine.' I own I was scarce able to bear 

 the sight. Soon after he again endeavored, with a good deal of pain, 

 to find words to speak to me ; at last, not being able, after many 

 efforts, be gave a heavy sigh, and I think was afterward silent. This 

 puts me in mind of what he said about five days ago. He endeavored 

 several times to speak to his servant [now and then he calls him by 

 his name] ; at last, not finding words to express what he would be at, 

 he said, ' I am a fool.' Not long ago the servant took up his watch 

 that lay upon the table, to see what o'clock it was ; he said, Bring it 

 here,' and when it was brought, he looked very attentively at it. 

 Some time ago the servant was breaking a large, stubborn coal, he 

 said, ' That's a stone, you blockhead.' In a few days, or some very 

 short time after guardians had been appointed for him, I went into 

 his dining-room, where he was walking ; I said something to him very 

 insignificant, I know not what, but, instead of making any kind of 

 answer to it, he said, ' Go, go,' pointing with his hand to the door, 

 and immediately afterward, raising his hand to his head, he said, ' My 

 best understanding,' and so broke off abruptly, and walked away." 



These two letters are stated by Sir William Wilde to be the only 

 account of the last three years of Swift's life that has come down to 

 us. He died October 19, 1745, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. 

 His death, according to Lord Orrery, being easy, without the least 

 pang or convulsion ; but according to Faulkner, being one of " great 

 agony, with strong convulsive fits " for thirty-six hours before. The 

 only record of the autopsy which was made is that Mr. Whiteway 

 " opened the skull, and found much water in the brain." A more in- 

 teresting record, however, remains in the plaster cast of Swift's head. 

 Of this Sir Walter Scott says that " the expression is most unequivo- 

 cally maniacal, and one side of the mouth horribly contorted down- 

 ward as if in pain." But Sir William Wilde, whose observation we 

 greatly prefer in such a matter, says : " The expression is remarkably 

 placid, but there is an evident drag on the left side of the mouth, ex- 

 hibiting a paralysis of the facial muscles to the right side. Upon the 



