Chapter LVII: Book III: , chap, i, p. 326, line 19: for “Frank”, Thackeray by an (12)

26 Dr. Wilde’s book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift
and Stella being brought to the light of day—a thing which happened
in 1835, when certain works going on in St. Patrick’s Cathedral,
Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their being examined. One hears
with surprise of these skulls “going the rounds” of houses, and
being made the objects of _dilettante_ curiosity. The larynx of
Swift was actually carried off! Phrenologists had a low opinion of
his intellect, from the observations they took.

Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in
his writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the
skull gave evidence of “diseased action” of the brain during
life—such as would be produced by an increasing tendency to
“cerebral congestion”.

27 “He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice
against Swift; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had
personally offended him, and he told me he had not.”—BOSWELL’S _Tour
to the Hebrides_.

28 Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success
was encouraging. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean,
whether his uncle Godwin had not given him his education. Swift, who
hated _that_ subject cordially, and, indeed, cared little for his
kindred, said, sternly, “Yes; he gave me the education of a dog.”
“Then, sir,” cried the other, striking his fist on the table, “you
have not the gratitude of a dog!”

Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean pause,
even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he
brought himself into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the
amusing circumstances may be once more repeated here. He had
unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant
Bettesworth—

So, at the bar, the booby Bettesworth,
Though half a crown out-pays his sweat’s worth,
Who knows in law nor text nor margent,
Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant!

The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented
himself at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. “Sir, I am Serjeant
Bett-es-worth.”

“_In what regiment, pray?_” asked Swift.

A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this
time.

29 “But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments
from you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend
Swift might occasion his English friends to wish him happily and
properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, for I would give it the
proper name, was ever untractable. The motions of his genius were
often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron than of a
friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise.”—ORRERY.

30 “An anecdote which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well
attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine
with the Earl of Burlington, who was but newly married. The earl, it
is supposed, being willing to have a little diversion, did not
introduce him to his lady nor mention his name. After dinner said
the Dean, ‘Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing; sing me a song.’
The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favour with
distaste, and positively refused. He said, ‘She should sing, or he
would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your
poor English hedge-parsons; sing when I bid you.’ As the earl did
nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that she
burst into tears and retired. His first compliment to her when he
saw her again was, ‘Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured
now as when I saw you last?’ To which she answered with great good
humour, ‘No, Mr. Dean; I’ll sing for you if you please.’ From which
time he conceived a great esteem for her.”—SCOTT’S _Life_. “He had
not the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was,
perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When he was
polite, it was in a manner entirely his own. In his friendships he
was constant and undisguised. He was the same in his
enmities.”—ORRERY.

31 “I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord
to the meanest of my acquaintances.”—_Journal to Stella._

“I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their
books and poems, the vilest I ever saw; but I have given their names
to my man, never to let them see me.”—_Journal to Stella._

The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier:—

“Did I ever tell you that the lord treasurer hears ill with the left
ear just as I do?... I dare not tell him that I am so, sir; _for
fear he should think that I counterfeited to make my
court!_”—_Journal to Stella._

32 The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the
other; and the Whig attacks made the ministry Swift served very
sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition
pamphleteers, and bewails their “factitiousness” in the following
letter:—

“BOLINGBROKE TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

“Whitehall, July 23rd, 1712.

“It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are
too weak to punish effectually those factitious scribblers, who
presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even
scurrilous language to those who are in the first degrees of honour.
This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condition
of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake
licentiousness for liberty. All I could do was to take up Hart, the
printer, to send him to Newgate, and to bind him over upon bail to
be prosecuted; this I have done; and if I can arrive at legal proof
against the author Ridpath, he shall have the same treatment.”

Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous
indignation. In the history of the four last years of the queen, the
Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentiousness of the
press and the abusive language of the other party:

“It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have
been such as to deserve the severest animadversion from the
public.... The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their
fall, and unanimous in their cause, employ a set of writers by
subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation,
and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of their
readers.... However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant
to be cured by such a remedy as a tax upon small papers, and a bill
for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought into the
House of Commons, but so late in the session that there was no time
to pass it, for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp
overmuch the liberty of the press.”

But to a clause in the proposed bill, that the names of authors
should be set to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper, his
reverence objects altogether, for, says he, “beside the objection to
this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in publishing
excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, _out of
an humble Christian spirit, to conceal their names_, it is certain
that all persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible
modesty and suspicion of themselves upon first sending their
thoughts into the world.”

This “invincible modesty” was no doubt the sole reason which induced
the Dean to keep the secret of the _Drapier’s Letters_ and a hundred
humble Christian works of which he was the author. As for the
Opposition, the Doctor was for dealing severely with them: he writes
to Stella:—

Journal. Letter XIX

“London, March 25th, 1710-11.

“... We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him
pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece; and the
fellow that showed would point to his body and say, ‘See, gentlemen,
this is the wound that was given him by his grace the Duke of
Ormond;’ and, ‘This is the wound,’ &c.; and then the show was over,
and another set of rabble came in. ’Tis hard that our laws would not
suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and
in the eye of the law every man is innocent till then.”

Journal. Letter XXVII

“London, July 25th, 1711.

“I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped
to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The
under-secretary was willing to save him; but I told the secretary he
could not pardon him without a favourable report from the judge;
besides he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved
hanging for something else, and so he shall swing.”

33 It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of
mourning.

34 “These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the _Flying Post_
and _Medley_ in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always
mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog
under prosecution, but Bolingbroke is not active enough; but I hope
to swinge him. He is a Scotch rogue, one Ridpath. They get out upon
bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh bail; so it
goes round.”—_Journal to Stella._

35 Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations; and
his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and
then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (SCOTT’S _Swift_,
vol. xix, p. 97), he says:—

“We have had your volume of letters.... Some of those who highly
value you, and a few who knew you personally, are grieved to find
you make no distinction between the English gentry of this kingdom,
and the savage old Irish (who are only the vulgar, and some
gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom); but the
English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more
civilized than many counties in England, and speak better English,
and are much better bred.”

And again, in the fourth Drapier’s Letter, we have the following:—

“A short paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr.
Wood to say ‘that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the
Irish, in refusing his coin.’ When, by the way, it is the true
English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for
granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are
asked.”—SCOTT’S _Swift_, vol. iv, p. 143.

He goes further, in a good-humoured satirical paper, _On Barbarous
Denominations in Ireland_, where (after abusing, as he was wont, the
Scotch cadence, as well as expression), he advances to the “_Irish
brogue_”, and speaking of the “censure” which it brings down, says:—

“And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad
consequence of this opinion affects those among us who are not the
least liable to such reproaches farther than the misfortune of being
born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose education
has been chiefly in that kingdom.”—Ibid. vol. vii, p. 149.

But, indeed, if we are to make _anything_ of Race at all, we must
call that man an Englishman whose father comes from an old Yorkshire
family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one!

36 “The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of
his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a
sheriff’s feast, who amongst other toasts called out to him, ‘Mr.
Dean. The trade of Ireland!’ he answered quick: ‘Sir, I drink no
memories!’

“Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided
himself on saying pert things ... and who cried out, ‘You must know,
Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit?’ ‘Do you so?’ says the Dean.
‘Take my advice, and sit down again!’

“At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long
train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle
and broke it; Swift cried out—

Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae!”

—DR. DELANY, _Observations upon Lord Orrery’s __“__Remarks, &c. of
Swift__”_. London, 1754.

37 “Don’t you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir William Temple
would look cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used
to suspect a hundred reasons? I have plucked up my spirits since
then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentleman.”—_Journal to Stella._

38 “The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and
fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man’s happiness in
the tranquillity of his mind and indolence of body; for while we are
composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or ill
we feel. As men of several languages say the same things in very
different words, so in several ages, countries, constitutions of
laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very
different expressions; what is called by the Stoics apathy, or
dispassion; by the sceptics, indisturbance; by the Molinists,
quietism; by common men, peace of conscience,—seems all to mean but
great tranquillity of mind.... For this reason Epicurus passed his
life wholly in his garden: there he studied, there he exercised,
there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode
seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and
indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of
the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the
cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking,
but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem
equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the
enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease
both of the body and mind.... Where Paradise was has been much
debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it
may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian
word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was
much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries.
Strabo describing Jericho: ‘Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt
etiam ahae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio
stadiorum centum, totus irriguus: ibi est Regis Balsami
paradisus.’ ”—_Essay on Gardens._

In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose conduct
and prudence he characteristically admires.

“I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in
Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no
higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of
plums; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very
well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon
peaches and grapes; and _a good plum is certainly better than an ill
peach_.”

39 SWIFT’S THOUGHTS ON HANGING.

(_Directions to Servants._)

“To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all
indignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes
of place at Court, a command in the army, a succession to the
stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you cannot
obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your
master’s niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon the
road, which is the only post of honour left you: there you will meet
many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one,
and making a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some
instructions.

“The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when you are
going to be hanged; which, either for robbing your master, for
housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel by
killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and
is owing to one of these three qualities: either a love of good
fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits.
Your good behaviour on this article will concern your whole
community; deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations: a
hundred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about
the bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the
Court; let nothing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a
pardon for discovering your comrades: but I suppose all this to be
in vain; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another
day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate: some
of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt and white
cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon: take leave cheerfully
of all your friends in Newgate: mount the cart with courage; fall on
your knees; lift up your eyes; hold a book in your hands, although
you cannot read a word; deny the fact at the gallows; kiss and
forgive the hangman; and so farewell; you shall be buried in pomp at
the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of
you; and your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown
succeeds in your place....”

40 “He continued in Sir William Temple’s house till the death of that
great man.”—_Anecdotes of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN.

“It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to
himself.”—Preface to _Temple’s Works_.

On all _public_ occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same
tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he
remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the
subjoined extracts from the _Journal to Stella_:—

“I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d—— ailed
him on Sunday: I made him a very proper speech; told him I observed
he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me
the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; and one thing
I warned him of—never to appear cold to me, for I would not be
treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my
life already” [_meaning Sir William Temple_] &c. &c.—_Journal to
Stella._

“I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William
Temple because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty; and
here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment.”—_Ibid._

“The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often
thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being
Secretary of State.”—_Ibid._

“Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now
quite well. I was playing at _one-and-thirty_ with him and his
family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence a piece to begin
with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple.”—_Ibid._

“I thought I saw Jack Temple [_nephew to Sir William_] and his wife
pass by me to-day in their coach; but I took no notice of them. I am
glad I have wholly shaken off that family.”—_S. to S. Sept., 1710._

41 “Swift must be allowed,” says Dr. Johnson, “for a time, to have
dictated the political opinions of the English nation.”

A conversation on the Dean’s pamphlets excited one of the Doctor’s
liveliest sallies. “One, in particular, praised his _Conduct of the
Allies_.—Johnson: ‘Sir, his _Conduct of the Allies_ is a performance
of very little ability.... Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written
the _Conduct of the Allies_!’ ”—BOSWELL’S _Life of Johnson_.

42 “Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time,
it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some
abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. If this were
well taken, and answered with good humour, he afterwards made amends
by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, from
alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further
intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote
of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean
having decanted a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass,
and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it.
‘For,’ said he, ‘I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul
wine for me.’ Mr. Pilkington, entering into his humour, thanked him,
and told him ‘he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a
glass at any rate.’ ‘Why then,’ said the Dean, ‘you shan’t, for I’ll
drink it myself. Why, —— take you, you are wiser than a paltry
curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago; for upon my
making the same speech to him, he said, he did not understand such
usage, and so walked off without his dinner. By the same token, I
told the gentleman who recommended him to me, that the fellow was a
blockhead, and I had done with him.’ ”—SHERIDAN’S _Life of Swift_.

43 FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHELL.

“Cashell, May 31st, 1735

“DEAR SIR,—

“I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am
resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to be
overmatched; and as I have some reason to hope what is past will be
forgotten, I confess I did endeavour in my last to put the best
colour I could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends judge
right of my idleness; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded
from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky
unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one
troublesome affair now upon my hands, which, by the help of the
prime serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of; and then you shall see me
a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has made a very useful
collection of the memorable actions of my predecessors. He tells me,
they were born in such a town of England or Ireland; were
consecrated such a year; and, if not translated, were buried in the
Cathedral church, either on the north or south side. Whence I
conclude, that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat,
drink, grow fat, rich, and die; which laudable example I propose for
the remainder of my life to follow; for to tell you the truth, I
have for these four or five years past met with so much treachery,
baseness, and ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it
incumbent on any man to endeavour to do good to so perverse a
generation.

“I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your health.
Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can
take to recover your flesh; and I do not know, except in one stage,
where you can choose a road so suited to your circumstances, as from
Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike and good inns, at
every ten or twelve miles’ end. From Kilkenny hither is twenty long
miles, bad road, and no inns at all: but I have an expedient for
you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, there lives in a
neat thatched cabin, a parson, who is not poor; his wife is allowed
to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the
fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the
parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key,
where he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in
bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans, and pulls out
the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet you with
a coach; if you be tired, you shall stay all night; if not, after
dinner we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine; and by
going through fields and by-ways, which the parson will show us, we
shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between this
place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope you will be so
kind as to let me know a post or two before you set out, the very
day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things prepared for
you. It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come: he will do nothing
for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add
no more arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth,
your most faithful and obedient servant,

“THEO. CASHELL.”

44 “Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir William Temple] some time, but
resolving to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined to
take orders. However, although his fortune was very small, he had a
scruple of entering into the Church merely for support.”—_Anecdotes
of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN.

45 “Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles
could never soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene;
but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is
scarce possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them
more terror and austerity.”—ORRERY.

46 “London, April 10th, 1713.

“Lady Masham’s eldest boy is very ill: I doubt he will not live; and
she stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all. She is so
excessively fond, it makes me mad. She should never leave the queen,
but leave everything, to stick to what is so much the interest of
the public, as well as her own....”—_Journal._

47 “My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head and an
aching heart.”—_In May, 1719._

48 Perhaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the dreadful
book, is the description of the very old people in the Voyage to
Laputa. At Lugnag, Gulliver hears of some persons who never die,
called the Struldbrugs, and expressing a wish to become acquainted
with men who must have so much learning and experience, his
colloquist describes the Struldbrugs to him.

“He said, They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years
old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected,
increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from
their own confession: for otherwise there not being above two or
three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a
general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is
reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only
all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more,
which arose from the prospect of never dying. They were not only
opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but
incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which
never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires
are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their
envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort
and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find
themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever
they see a funeral, they lament, and repent that others are gone to
a harbour of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to
arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned
and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very
imperfect. And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer
to depend on common tradition than upon their best recollections.
The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to
dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity
and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in
others.

“If a Struldbrug happened to marry one of his own kind, the marriage
is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as
the younger of the two comes to be fourscore. For the law thinks it
to be a reasonable indulgence that those who are condemned, without
any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the world,
should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife.

“As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are
looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their
estates, only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and
the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that
period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or
profit, they cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither are they
allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not
even for the decision of meers and bounds.

“At ninety they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no
distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get
without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still
continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget
the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of
those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same
reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, because their
memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence
to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only
entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.

“The language of this country being always on the flux, the
Struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another; neither
are they able, after two hundred years, to hold any conversation
(further than by a few general words) with their neighbours, the
mortals; and thus they lie under the disadvantage of living like
foreigners in their own country.

“This was the account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I can
remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the
youngest not above two hundred years old, who were brought to me
several times by some of my friends; but although they were told
‘that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world’, they had
not the least curiosity to ask me a single question; only desired I
would give them slumskudask, or a token of remembrance; which is a
modest way of begging, to avoid the law that strictly forbids it,
because they are provided for by the public, although indeed with a
very scanty allowance.

“They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of
them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded
very particularly; so that you may know their age by consulting the
register, which, however, has not been kept above a thousand years
past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public disturbances.
But the usual way of computing how old they are, is, by asking them
what kings or great persons they can remember, and then consulting
history; for infallibly the last prince in their mind did not begin
his reign after they were fourscore years old.

“They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women
more horrible than the men; besides the usual deformities in extreme
old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to
their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half
a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there
was not above a century or two between them.”—_Gulliver’s Travels._

49 The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by those of the
famous Stella and Vanessa; but she had a story of her own to tell
about the blue eyes of young Jonathan. One may say that the book of
Swift’s life opens at places kept by these blighted flowers! Varina
must have a paragraph.

She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In
1696, when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing a
love-letter to her, beginning, “Impatience is the most inseparable
quality of a lover.” But absence made a great difference in his
feelings; so, four years afterwards, the tone is changed. He writes
again, a very curious letter, offering to marry her, and putting the
offer in such a way that nobody could possibly accept it.

After dwelling on his poverty, &c., he says, conditionally, “I shall
be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your
person be beautiful, or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the
first, and competency in the second, is all I ask for!”

The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in life. One would
be glad to know that she met with some worthy partner, and lived
long enough to see her little boys laughing over Lilliput, without
any _arrière pensée_ of a sad character about the great Dean!

50 A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for his
art, in expounding the symbols of the “Little Language”. Usually,
Stella is “M.D.,” but sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingley, is
included in it. Swift is “Presto”; also P.D.F.R. We have “Goodnight,
M.D.; Night, M.D.; Little M.D.; Stellakins; Pretty Stella; Dear,
roguish, impudent, pretty M.D.!” Every now and then he breaks into
rhyme, as—

I wish you both a merry new year,
Roast beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer, And me a share of
your good cheer.
That I was there, as you were here,
And you are a little saucy dear.

51 The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the
evening of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-8:

“She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen;
but then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of
the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in
London—only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and
every feature of her face in perfection.

“... Properly speaking”—he goes on with a calmness which, under the
circumstances, is terrible—“she has been dying six months!...”

“Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who
more improved them by reading and conversation.... All of us who had
the happiness of her friendship agreed unanimously, that in an
afternoon’s or evening’s conversation she never failed before we
parted of delivering the best thing that was said in the company.
Some of us have written down several of her sayings, or what the
French call _bons mots_, wherein she excelled beyond belief.”

The specimens on record, however, in the Dean’s paper called _Bons
Mots de Stella_, scarcely bear out this last part of the panegyric.
But the following prove her wit:

“A gentleman, who had been very silly and pert in her company, at
last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead.
A bishop sitting by comforted him—that he should be easy, because
‘the child was gone to heaven’. ‘No, my lord,’ said she; ‘that is it
which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see his child
there.’

“When she was extremely ill, her physician said, ‘Madam, you are
near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavour to get you up
again.’ She answered, ‘Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath
before I get up to the top.’

“A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected smartness
and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came
to be so dirty. He was at a loss; but she solved the difficulty, by
saying, ‘the doctor’s nails grew dirty by scratching himself.’

“A quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad brim,
and a label of paper about its neck. ‘What is that?’—said she—‘my
apothecary’s son!’ The ridiculous resemblance, and the suddenness of
the question, set us all a-laughing.”—_Swift’s Works_, SCOTT’S ed.,
vol. ix, 295-6.

52 “I am so hot and lazy after my morning’s walk, that I loitered at
Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s, where my best gown and periwig was, and _out of
mere listlessness dine there, very often_; so I did
to-day.”—_Journal to Stella._ Mrs. Vanhomrigh, Vanessa’s mother, was
the widow of a Dutch merchant who held lucrative appointments in
King William’s time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a
house in Bury Street, St. James’s—a street made notable by such
residents us Swift and Steele; and, in our own time, Moore and
Crabbe.

53 “Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus
is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress;
impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind;
superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness,
gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but
far from being either beautiful or genteel;... happy in the thoughts
of being reported Swift’s concubine, but still aiming and intending
to be his wife.”—LORD ORRERY.

54 “You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You
had better have said, as often as you can get the better of your
inclinations so much; or as often as you remember there was such a
one in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will
not be made uneasy by me long. It is impossible to describe what I
have suffered since I saw you last: I am sure I could have borne the
rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours.
Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more;, but those
resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long; for there is
something in human nature that prompts one so to find relief in this
world I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak
kindly to me; for I am sure you’d not condemn any one to suffer what
I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write to you is,
because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you; for when I begin
to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your
looks so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may have but so
much regard for me left that this complaint may touch your soul with
pity. I say as little as ever I can; did you but know what I
thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me; and believe I
cannot help telling you this and live.”—VANESSA. (M. 1714.)

55 “If we consider Swift’s behaviour, so far only as it relates to
women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than
as whole figures.”—ORRERY.

“You must have smiled to have found his house a constant seraglio of
very virtuous women, who attended him from morning to
night.”—ORRERY.

A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott’s furnished him with the
materials on which to found the following interesting passage about
Vanessa—after she had retired to cherish her passion in retreat:—

“Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is
built much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its
external appearance. An aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own
account), showed the grounds to my correspondent. He was the son of
Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s gardener, and used to work with his father in the
garden while a boy. He remembered the unfortunate Vanessa well; and
his account of her corresponded with the usual description of her
person, especially as to her _embonpoint_. He said she went seldom
abroad, and saw little company; her constant amusement was reading,
or walking in the garden.... She avoided company, and was always
melancholy, save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed
happy. The garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with laurels.
The old man said that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected the Dean she
always planted with her own hand a laurel or two against his
arrival. He showed her favourite seat, still called ‘Vanessa’s
bower’. Three or four trees and some laurels indicate the spot....
There were two seats and a rude table within the bower, the opening
of which commanded a view of the Liffey.... In this sequestered
spot, according to the old gardener’s account, the Dean and Vanessa
used often to sit, with books and writing materials on the table
before them.”—SCOTT’S _Swift_, vol. i, pp. 246-7. “... But Miss
Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which she found herself,
determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union
with the object of her affections—to the hope of which she had clung
amid every vicissitude of his conduct towards her. The most probable
bar was his undefined connexion with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must
have been perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long elicited her
secret jealousy, although only a single hint to that purpose is to
be found in their correspondence, and that so early as 1713, when
she writes to him—then in Ireland—‘If you are very happy, it is
ill-natured of you not to tell me so, _except ’tis what is
inconsistent with mine_.’ Her silence and patience under this state
of uncertainty for no less than eight years, must have been partly
owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak state
of her rival’s health, which, from year to year, seemed to announce
speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa’s impatience
prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs.
Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connexion.
Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the Dean; and
full of the highest resentment against Swift for having given
another female such a right in him as Miss Vanhomrigh’s inquiries
implied, she sent to him her rival’s letter of interrogatories, and,
without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of
Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows the consequence. Swift, in
one of those paroxysms of fury to which he was liable, both from
temper and disease, rode instantly to Marley Abbey. As he entered
the apartment, the sternness of his countenance, which was
peculiarly formed to express the fiercer passions, struck the
unfortunate Vanessa with such terror that she could scarce ask
whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on
the table, and, instantly leaving the house, remounted his horse,
and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only
found her own letter to Stella. It was her death warrant. She sunk
at once under the disappointment of the delayed, yet cherished,
hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the
unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How
long she survived the last interview is uncertain, but the time does
not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.”—SCOTT.

56 “M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne
compagnie. Il n’a pas, à la verité, la gaîté du premier, mais il a
toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon goût qui manquent à
notre curé de Meudon. Ses vers sont d’un goût singulier, et presque
inimitable; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers et en
prose; mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans
son pays.”—VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 22.

57 The following is a _conspectus_ of them:—

ADDISON.—Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secretary of State;
Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Keeper of the Records
in Ireland; Lord of Trade; and one of the Principal Secretaries of
State, successively.

STEELE.—Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal
Stables at Hampton Court; and Governor of the Royal Company of
Comedians; Commissioner of “Forfeited Estates in Scotland”.

PRIOR.—Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague; Gentleman of the
Bedchamber to King William; Secretary to the Embassy in France;
Under Secretary of State; Ambassador to France.

TICKELL.—Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lords Justices
of Ireland.

CONGREVE.—Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches; Commissioner
for Wine Licences; place in the Pipe-office; post in the
Custom-house; Secretary of Jamaica.

GAY.—Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to
Hanover.)

JOHN DENNIS.—A place in the Custom-house. “En Angleterre ... les
lettres sont plus en honneur qu’ici.”—

VOLTAIRE, _Lettres sur les Anglais_, Let. 20.

58 He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Richard
Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire—a very
ancient family.

59 “PIPE.—_Pipe_, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the
_great roll_.

“PIPE-_Office_ is an office in which a person called the _Clerk of
the Pipe_ makes out leases of crown lands, by warrant, from the
Lord-Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of
the Exchequer.

“Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c.”—REES,
_Cyclopaed._ Art. PIPE.

“PIPE-_Office_.—Spelman thinks so called because the papers were
kept in a large _pipe_ or cask.

“These be at last brought into that office of Her Majesty’s
Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the _pipe_ ... because
the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means of divers
small _pipes_ or quills.”—BACON, _The Office of Alienations_.

[We are indebted to Richardson’s _Dictionary_ for this fragment of
erudition. But a modern man of letters can know little on these
points—by experience.]

60 “It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him in
the least, nor was he ever removed from any post that was given to
him, except to a better. His place in the Custom-house, and his
office of Secretary in Jamaica, are said to have brought him in
upwards of twelve hundred a year.”—_Biog. Brit._, Art. CONGREVE.

61 Dryden addressed his “twelfth epistle” to “My dear friend Mr.
Congreve,” on his comedy called _The Double Dealer_, in which he
says—

Great Jonson did by strength of judgement please;
Yet, doubling Fletcher’s force, he wants his case.
In differing talents both adorn’d their age:
One for the study, t’other for the stage.
But both to Congreve justly shall submit,
One match’d in judgement, both o’ermatched in wit.
In him all beauties of this age we see, &c. &c.

The _Double Dealer_, however, was not so palpable a hit as the _Old
Bachelor_, but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having
fallen foul of it, our “swell” applied the scourge to that
presumptuous body, in the _Epistle Dedicatory_ to the “Right
Honourable Charles Montague.”

“I was conscious,” said he, “where a true critic might have put me
upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, ... but I have not
heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer.” He goes on—

“But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the
false criticisms that are made upon me; and that is, some of the
ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it; for I declare, I
would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the
fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women
vicious and affected. How can I help it? It is the business of a
comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.... I should
be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliments to those
ladies who are offended. But they can no more expect it in a comedy,
than _to be tickled by a surgeon when he is letting their blood_.”

62 “Instead of endeavouring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me
leave behind me a memorial of my friendship, with one of the most
valuable men as well as finest writers of my age and country—one who
has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking
it is to do justice to Homer—and one who, I am sure, seriously
rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, therefore,
having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate
it, and to have the honour and satisfaction of placing together in
this manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of—A. POPE.”—_Postscript
to Translation of the Iliad of Homer._ Mar. 25, 1720.

63 “When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he said, he
had much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a particular
friendship for our author, and generally took him under his
protection in his high authoritative manner.”—THOS. DAVIES,
_Dramatic Miscellanies_.

64 “Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and
lived in the same street, his house very near hers, until his
acquaintance with the young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted
that house. The Duchess showed us a diamond necklace (which Lady Di.
used afterwards to wear) that cost seven thousand pounds, and was
purchased with the money Congreve left her. How much better would it
have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle.”—DR. YOUNG
(_Spence’s Anecdotes_).

65 “A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to
bow to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to
it.”—THOS. DAVIES, _Dramatic Miscellanies_.

66 The sum Congreve left her was 200_l._, as is said in the _Dramatic
Miscellanies_ of Tom Davies; where are some particulars about this
charming actress and beautiful woman.

She had a “lively aspect”, says Tom, on the authority of Cibber, and
“such a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as
inspired everybody with desire”. “Scarce an audience saw her that
were not half of them her lovers.”

Congreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. “In
_Tamerlane_, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla....;
Congreve insinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica,
in his _Love for Love_; in his Osmyn to her Almena, in the _Mourning
Bride_; and, lastly, in his Mirabel to her Millamant, in the _Way of
the World_. Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, is, I believe,
not very distant from the real character of Congreve.”—_Dramatic
Miscellanies_, vol. iii, 1784.

She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the public
favourite. She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age.

67 Johnson calls his legacy the “accumulation of attentive parsimony,
which,” he continues, “though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and
useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family
from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his
relation, reduced to difficulties and distress.”—_Lives of the
Poets._

68 He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called “Amendments of Mr.
Collier’s False and Imperfect Citations,” &c. A specimen or two are
subjoined:—

“The greater part of these examples which he has produced, are only
demonstrations of his own impurity: they only savour of his
utterance, and were sweet enough till tainted by his breath.

“Where the expression is unblameable in its own pure and genuine
signification, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he
possesses the innocent phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own
blasphemies.

“If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is
because I am not very well versed in his nomenclatures.... I will
only call him Mr. Collier, and that I will call him as often as I
think he shall deserve it.

“The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour
critic.”

“Congreve,” says Dr. Johnson, “a very young man, elated with
success, and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and
security.... The dispute was protracted through two years; but at
last Comedy grew more modest, and Collier lived to see the reward of
his labours in the reformation of the theatre.”—_Life of Congreve._

69 The scene of Valentine’s pretended madness in _Love for Love_ is a
splendid specimen of Congreve’s daring manner:—

_Scandal._—And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon
him?

_Jeremy._—Yes, Sir; he says he’ll favour it, and mistake her for
_Angelica_.

_Scandal._—It may make us sport.

_Foresight._—Mercy on us!

_Valentine._—Husht—interrupt me not—I’ll whisper predictions to
thee, and thou shalt prophesie;—I am truth, and can teach thy tongue
a new trick,—I have told thee what’s passed—now I’ll tell what’s to
come:—Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow? Answer me not—for I
will tell thee. To-morrow knaves will thrive thro’ craft, and fools
thro’ fortune; and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer
suit. Ask me questions concerning tomorrow.

_Scandal._—Ask him, _Mr. Foresight_.

_Foresight._—Pray what will be done at Court?

_Valentine._—_Scandal_ will tell you;—I am truth, I never come
there.

_Foresight._—In the city?