855 



SWIFT, JONATHAN, D.D. 



SWIFT, JONATHAN, D.D. 



nurse, who went there to receive a legacy ; he remained with her in 

 that town nearly three years, aud she h-id taught him to spell before 

 lie was taken back to his mother in Dublin. Mrs. Swift's meana 

 of support for herself and her two children were derived chiefly 

 from her brother-in-law Godwin, who was a lawyer, and was 

 supposed to be rich. Jonathan, when six years old, was S"nt to the 

 school of Kilkenny, whence he was removed to Trinity College, 

 Dublin, where he was received as a pensioner, April 24, 1682. The 

 cost of his education and maintenance was defrayed by his uncle 

 Godwin, who however supplied him. with the means of subsistence in so 

 niggardly and ungracious a manner, that Swift ever afterwards spoke 

 of him with great asperity. Before Swift's education was completed, 

 Godwin died, and it was then discovered that he had for some time 

 been in embarrassed circumstances, the result of unsuccessful specu- 

 lations. The charge of Swift's education now devolved chiefly upon his 

 uncle William, of whom, he always spoke with affectionate gratitude as 

 "the best of his relations;" not that he was much more liberally 

 supplied with money thau he had be-n by Godwin, for William also 

 was in difficulties, but for the kindness with which it was bestowed. 

 The degree of B.A. was conferred on Swift, February 15, 1685: this 

 was done, as he himself says, speciali gratid, which, he informs us, 

 was, in Trinity College, a discreditable intimation of scholastic insuffi- 

 ciency. Indeed there is abundant evidence that he had not only 

 neglected the study of the school logic which was then required in 

 order to qualify him for taking a degree, but that, after he had taken 

 his degi'ee, as well as before, his conduct generally was careless, irre- 

 gular, and reckless, and that he had incurred frequent penalties and 

 censures. It is probable however that he had a scholarship in Trinity 

 College, for he remained there till 1688, when, on the breaking out of 

 the war in Ireland, he passed over into England, aud travelled on foot 

 to Leicester, where his mother had been residing for some years in a 

 state of precarious dependence on her relations, one of whom was the 

 wife of Sir William Temple, whose seat was Moor Park, near Farnham, 

 in Surrey. 



Swift, after residing some months with his mother, waited upon Sir 

 William Temple, by whom he was received with kindness, and was 

 admitted into his family. From this time Swift's careless and idle 

 habits were entirely abandoned; he studied eight hours a day, and 

 became useful to his pat.ron as his private secretary. A surfeit of 

 stone-fruit, to which Swift always ascribed the giddiness with which 

 he was afterwards so severely afflicted, brought on an ill-state of 

 health, for the removal of which, after he had been about two years 

 with Sir William, he went to Ireland, but soon returned. He was 

 now treated with greater kindness than before : he occasionally 

 atte'nded King William, who was a frequent guest at Moor Park, in 

 his walks in the garden, while Temple was laid up with the gout, and 

 won so much on his majesty's favour, that he not only taught him 

 how to cut asparagus in the Dutch manner, but offered to make him 

 captain of a troop of horse, which however Swift declined. Sir 

 William employed him to endeavour to persuade the king to consent 

 to the bill for triennial parliaments, and Swift's vanity was much hurt 

 when he found that his reasoning was not sufficiently strong to over- 

 come the king's obstinacy. 



Swift went to Oxford iu 1692, and entered himself of Hart Hall, for 

 the purpose of taking his degree of M.A., to which he was admitted on 

 the 4th of July iu that year, together with Thomaa Swift (the son of 

 his uncle Thomas), who had studied with Jonathan at Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and was afterwards rector of Puttenham in Surrey. Some 

 time after his return to Moor Park, finding that no provision was 

 made for him beyond subsistence in Sir William's family, Swift became 

 tired of his state of dependence, and in some degree dissatisfied with 

 his patron. He made his complaint to Sir William, who then offered 

 him a situation worth lOOi. a year in the Rolls in Ireland, of which 

 Sir William was Master. Swift declined the offer, and said he pre- 

 ferred going to Ireland and endeavouring to obtain preferment in the 

 church. They were both displeased, and so parted. Swift went to 

 Ireland, but was deeply mortified when he found that he could not 

 obtain orders without a certificate from Sir William, which he was 

 therefore compelled to soliciffrom his offended patron. The certificate 

 was given; Swift was admitted to deacon's orders, October 18, 1694, 

 and to priest's orders, January 13, 1695. Soon afterwards Lord Capel, 

 then Lord-Deputy of Ireland, bestowed upon him the prebend o: 

 Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, worth about 100. a year, whither 

 he immediately went to perform the duties of a country clergyman. 



Sir William Temple appears to have soon felt the want of Swift' 

 services, and it was not long before he sent him a kind letter, with an 

 invitation to return to Moor Park. Swift, on the other hand, however 

 fond of independence, must have felt strongly the contrast between 

 the dull life of a clergyman in a remote town in Ireland and thi 

 refined society of Moor Park. He did not hesitate long to accept Si 

 William's invitation ; and having become acquainted with a learnec 

 and worthy curate in his neighbourhood, who had a family of tigh 

 children, and only 401. a year, he rode to Dublin, resigned his prebend 

 and obtained a grant of it for his poor friend. 



Swift, on his return to Moor Park in 1695, was treated by Si 

 William Temple rather as a friend than as a mere secretary, and the- 

 continued to live together till Sir William's death, January 27, 1G98 

 Some time before his death, Temple had obtained from King William 



promise that Swift should have a prebend of Canterbury or West- 

 minster : Sir William also left him a legacy, with the task of editing 

 is posthumous works, and any benefit which might arise from the 

 ublication of them. 



During the the early part of his residence at Moor Park, Swift wrote 

 ome Pindaric Odes, which he is said to have shown to Drydeu, who, 

 fter having read them, said, " Cousin Swift, you will never be a 

 oet ; " a remark which is supposed to have occasioned that feeling of 

 islike which Swift always manifested towards Dryden. These Odes 

 re written in the style of the Pindaric Odes of Cowley, and are 

 ndeed bad imitations of a bad model. Swift also wrote, as he himself 

 as stated, a great number of other things, nearly all of which he 

 estroyed. During the latter part of his residence at Moor Park ho 

 vrote the ' Battle of the- Books in St. James's Library,' in support of 

 ir William Temple, and in opposition to Dr. William Wotton and 

 )r. Bentley. A dispute had arisen in France as to the superiority of 

 cient or of modern writers : the dispute passed over to England, and 

 he cause of the moderns was supported by Wotton, iu his ' Reflections 

 in Antient and Modern Learning." Temple took the part of the 

 ncients, but unfortunately praised the ' Epistles of Phalaris,' which 

 Jentley, in an Appendix to the second edition of Wotton's ' Reflections,' 

 iroved to be spurious. Swift's work is a well-constructed allegory, 

 abounding in wit and humour. It was not published however till 

 .fter Sir William's death. Swift is supposed to have likewise finished 

 .bout this time his ' Tale of a Tub,' a satirical allegory, in ridicule of 

 he corruptions of the Church of Rome aud the errors of the Dis- 

 enters, and in favour of the Church of England, though not without 

 in occasional touch at her faults also. This is one of his most 

 aboured and most perfect works. Though he completed it at Moor 

 ^ark, there is evidence that he had sketched it out roughly at Tiiuity 

 bllege. 



It was during Swift's second residence at Moor Park that the 

 acquaintance commenced between him and Miss Esther Johnson, 

 more generally known by the poetical name which he gave to her of 

 Stella (the Star). Her father was a London merchant, according to 

 Scott, or steward to Sir William Temple, according to Sheridan, 

 swift himself however says that she was born at Richmond in 1GS1, 

 ' her father being the younger brother of a good family in Not.tiug- 

 lamshire, her mother of a lower degree," and hence it has been 

 uggested that she was an illegitimate daughter of Sir William Temple, 

 and a sort of half-sister to Swift. But that Swift was so closely 

 related to Temple has been satisfactorily disproved, and there seems to 

 ae uo real ground for the other part of the scandal. Her mother lived 

 with Lady Gifford, Sir William Temple's sister, who, with Mrs. John- 

 son and her daughter, resided at this time at Moor Park. Swift 

 assisted in her education, which appears to have been little attended 

 to previously, and she seems to have acquired a fondness for her 

 utor. 



Swift however, previously to his acquaintance with Miss Johnson, 

 bad professed an attachment to Miss Jane Waryng, on whom he 

 bestowed the title of Varina ; she was sister of a fellow-student at 

 Trinity College, and Swift offered to marry her ; but she was coy and 

 cold, and gave a temporary refusal on the plea of ill-health. By 

 degrees, as Swift's passion abated, hers grew warmer, and she wrote to 

 express her willingness to accept his former offer. Swift did not 

 refuse to fulfil his promise, but in his reply laid down such conditions 

 as to the duties of her who should become his wife, that no further 

 correspondence took place between them. 



After Sir William Temple's death Swift repaired to London to 

 superintend the publication of his patron's posthumous works, a task 

 which he performed carefully, and prefixed a Life of Sir William and 

 a dedication to the king ; but finding that the king took no notice of 

 the works, the dedication, or himself, he accepted an oTcr made to 

 him by Lord Berkeley in 1699, who had just been appointed one of 

 the lords justices of Ireland, to attend him there as his chaplain and 

 private secretary. He acted as secretary till they arrived in Dublin, 

 when a person of the name of Bush obtained the office for himself by 

 representing to Lord Berkeley the unsuitableness of such an office to 

 the character and duties of a clergyman. Lord Berkeley however, to 

 compensate Swift for the loss of his office, promised that he should 

 have the first good preferment in his gift that became vacant. To this 

 arrangement Swift assented. The rich deanery of Deny was soon 

 afterwards at Lord Berkeley's disposal, and Swift intimated to him 

 that he expected him to keep his word. Lord Berkeley told him that 

 Bush had obtained the promise of it for another, but, observing Swift's 

 indignation, advised him. to apply to Bush to see if the matter could 

 not be arranged : he did so, when the secretary frankly told him that 

 1000. had been offered for it, but that if he would put down the same 

 sum he should have the preference. Swift, in a rage, exclaimed, " God 

 confound you both for a couple of scoundrels," and immediately left 

 the castle, intending to return no more. Lord Berkeley however was 

 unwilling, if it could be avoided, to risk exposure ; he therefore offered 

 to him the rectory of Agher and the vicarages of Laracor and Kath- 

 beggan, then vacant, in the diocese of Meath. Though not worth a 

 third of the deanery, as they only amounted together to 230 a year, 

 Swift deemed it prudent to accept the livings : he still retained his 

 office of chaplain, and continued to reside with the family till Lord 

 Berkeley retired from the government of Ireland. The prebend of 



