816 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cheek shown in a very admirable bust, probably the last ever taken." 

 But as Wilde admits, the " six well-known busts of Swift, undoubtedly 

 taken about the same time, exhibit six different forms of head bearing 

 but little resemblance to each other," the much-glossed-over appear- 

 ance can, therefore, scarcely be admitted as evidence. Probably the 

 stroke of palsy recorded in the plaster-cast had taken place unob- 

 served at or about the time of the actual outbreak of the mental 

 disorder, which might have masked the physical symptoms from ob- 

 servation. 



When " the Yandal desecration of monuments " in 1835 exposed 

 Swift's skull to the phrenologists, the great Dublin aurist might pos- 

 sibly have found in the bones of the ear traces of the cause of his gid- 

 diness. When Mr. Whiteway examined the brain he might have found 

 the cause of Swift's right-sided hemiplegia and his aphasia. It is 

 enough now that we can diagnose his life-long disease as labyrinthine 

 vertigo, and his insanity as dementia with aphasia ; the dementia aris- 

 ing from general decay of the brain from age and disease, the paralysis 

 and aphasia from disease of one particular part of the brain. 



With all the tortures of the life-long disease from which he suffered 

 and its obvious effect upon his temper in his later years, it is wonder- 

 ful that Swift did retain his reason until, in the seventy-fourth year of 

 his age, he was in all probability struck down by a new disease in the 

 form of a localized left-side apoplexy or cerebral softening, which de- 

 termined the symptoms of his insanity. 



That Swift's works contain no indications of insanity appears to 

 me certain. As w T ell say that Shakespeare was mad because he wrote 

 a good deal which we think nasty. In the fashion of the day, Swift 

 was too prone to make what may be called excrementitious jokes and 

 gibes. But that perfect gentleman Antonio voided his rheum upon 

 Shylock's beard ; and the same kind of thing runs through our litera- 

 ture, no one objecting, until we rather recently began to become less 

 natural and more nice. Some of our smaller humorists and men of 

 letters have criticised this great king of humor as if he were both bad 

 and mad, not perceiving that if he were really insane he must be pitied 

 and not cursed. But it is the weakest of arguments to say, with Fes- 

 tus, for want of argument, "Much learning doth make thee mad." 

 There is always weakness in madness, but there is little sign of this in 

 Swift's works. There is always some inconsequentness or incoherency 

 in madness, but there is none of this in Swift. Down to that last 

 letter to Mrs. Whiteway he is most wretched, but he is still collected 

 and wholly himself. 



One final consideration is that the oppressive and disabling nature 

 of Swift's life-long disease has been greatly underrated in the more se- 

 vere of the criticisms which have been made with regard to his con- 

 duct to Esther Johnstone. I do not know that labyrinthine vertigo 

 would necessarily incapacitate a man for the performance of marital 



