ments in the most folemn and devout manner with his own hand. He came to church every morn ing, preached commonly in his turn, and attended the evening anthem, that it might not be negligently performed.

"He entered upon the clerical state with hope to excel in preaching; but complained, that, from the time of his political controverfies, " he could only preach pamphlets." This cenfure of himself, if judgment may be made from those fermons which have been printed, was unreasonably severe.

"The fufpicions of his irreligion proceeded in a great measure from his dread of hypocrify; inflead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in feeming worse than he was. He went in London to early prayers, lest he should be seen at church; he read prayers to his fervants every morning, with fuch dexterous fecrecy, that Dr. Delany was fix months in his houfe before he knew it. He was not only careful to hide the good which he did, but willingly incurred the fufpicion of evil which he did not. He forgot what himself had formerly afferted, that hypocrify is lefs mifchievous than open impiety. Dr. Delany, with all his zeal for his honour, has justly condemned this part of his character. "The perfon of Swift had not many recommendations. He had a kind of muddy complexion, which, though he washed himself with oriental scrupulofity, did not look clear. He had a countenance four and fevere, which he feldom foftened by any appearance of gaiety. He ftubbornly reLifted any tendency to laughter.

"To his domestics he was naturally rough; and a man of a rigorous temper, with that vigilance of minute attention which his works discover, must have been a mafter that few could bear. That he was difpofed to do his fervants good, on important occafions, is no great mitigation: benefaction can be but rare, and tyrannic peevishness is perpetual. He did not fpare the fervants of others. Once, when he dined alone with the Earl of Orrery, he faid, of one that waited in the room, "That man has, fince we fat to the table, committed fifteen faults." What the faults were, Lord Orrery, from whom I heard the story, had not been attentive enough to discover. My number may perhaps not be exact.

"In his economy, he practifed a peculiar and offenfive parfimony, without difguife or apology. The practice of faving being once neceffary, became habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at last • deteftable. But his avarice, though it might exclude pleasure, was never fuffered to encroach upon his virtue. He was frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle; and if the purpose to which he defined his little accumulations be remembered, with his diftribution of occafional charity, it will perhaps appear that he only liked one mode of expence better than another, and faved merely that he might have something to give. He did not grow rich by injuring his fucceffors, but left both Laracor and the Deanery more valuable than he found them.-With all this talk of his covetousness and generofity, it should be remembered that he was never rich. The revenue of his deanery was not much more than 700l. a-year.

"His beneficence was not graced with tenderness or civility; he relieved without pity, and affisted without kindness; fo that thofe who were fed by him could hardly love him.

"He made a rule to himself to give but one piece at a time, and therefore always ftored Lis pocket with coins of different value.

"Whatever he did, he seemed willing to do in a manner peculiar to himself, without fufficiently confidering that fingularity, as it implies a contempt of the general practice, is a kind of defiance which juftly provokes the hoftility of ridicule; he therefore who indulges peculiar habits is worfe than others, if he be not better.

"In the intercourfe of familiar life, he indulged his difpofition fo petulence and farcafm, and thought himself injured if the licentioufnefs of his raillery, the freedom of his cenfures, or the petulance of his frolics, was refented or repreffed. He predominated over his companions with very high afcendency, and probably would bear none over whom he could not predominate. To give him advice was, in the ftyle of his friend Delany," to venture to speak to him." This cuftomary fuperiority foon grew too delicate for truth; and Swift, with all his penetration, allowed himself to be delighted with low flattery.

"On all common occafions, he habitually affects a ftyle of arrogance, and dictates rather than perfuades. This authoritative and magifterial language he expected to be received as his peculiar mode of jocularity: but he apparently flattered his own arrogance by an affumed imperiouthefs, in which he was ironical only to be refentful, and to the submissive fufficiently ferious.

VOL, IX.

b

"He told ftories with great felicity, and delighted in doing what he knew himself to do well; he was therefore captivated by the respectful filence of a steady liftener, and told the fame tales too

often.

"He did not, however, claim the right of talking alone; for it was his rule, when he had spoken a minute, to give room by a paufe for any other speaker. Of time, on all occafions, he was an exact computer, and knew the minutes required to every common operation.

"It may be justly fuppofed, that there was in his conversation, what appears fo frequently in his letters, an affectation of familiarity with the great, an ambition of momentary equality fought and enjoyed by the neglect of thofe ceremonies which custom has established as the barriers between one order of fociety and another. This tranfgreffion of regularity was, by himself and his admirers, termed greatnefs of foul. But a great mind difdains to hold any thing by courtesy, and therefore never ufurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He then encroaches on another's dignity, puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condefcenfion.

"Of Swift's general habits of thinking, if his letters can be supposed to afford any evidence, he was not a man to be either loved or envied. He seems to have wasted life in discontent, by the sage of neglected pride, and the languishment of unfatisfied defire. He is querulous and faftidious, arrogant and malignant; he fcarcely speaks of himself but with indignant lamentations, or of others but with infolent fuperiority when he is gay, and with angry contempt when he is gloomy. From the letters that pafs between him and Pope, it might be inferred that they, with Arbuthnot and Gay, had engroffed all the understanding and virtue of mankind; that their merits filled the world; or that there was no hopes of more. They fhow the age involved in darkness, and shade the picturé with fullen emulation.

"When the Queen's death drove him into Ireland, he might be allowed to regret for a time the interception of his views, the extinction of his hopes, and his ejection from gay fcenes, important employment, and fplendid friendships; but when time had enabled reason to prevail over vexation, the complaints, which at first were natural, became ridiculous because they were ufelefs. But queruloufnefs was now grown habitual, and he cried out when he probably had ceafed to feel. His feiterated wailings perfuaded Bolingbroke that he was really willing to quit his deanery for an Engfh parish; and Bolingbroke procured an exchange, which was rejected; and Swift still retained the pleafure of complaining.'

"The greateft difficulty that occurs, in analyfing his character, is to discover by what depravity of intellect he took delight in revolving ideas, from which almost every other mind fhrinks with difguft. The ideas of pleasure, even when criminal, may folicit the imagination; but what has difcafe, deformity, and filth, upon which the thoughts can be allured to dwell? Delany is willing to think that Swift's mind was not much tainted with this grofs corruption before his long vifit to Pope. He does not confider how he degrades his hero, by making him at fifty-nine the pupil of turpitude, and liable to the malignant influence of an afcendant mind. But the truth is, that Gulliver had defcribed his Yahoos before the vifit; and he that had formed those images had nothing filthy to learn.

"In the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the critic can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend fuch compofitions, eafinefs and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended The diction is correct, the numbers are fmooth, and the rhymes exact. There feldom occurs a hard_ laboured expreffion, or a redundant epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good ftyle, they confift of " proper words in proper places."

"To divide this collection into claffes, and fhow how fome pieces are grofs, and fome are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant, who certainly wrote not often to his judgment, but his humour.

"It was faid, in a preface to one of the Irish editions, that Swift had never been known to take a fingle thought from any writer, ancient or modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can easily be found that has borrowed fo little, or that in all his excellencies and all his defects has fo well maintained his claim to be confidered as original.”

POEM S.

1

But now your worth its just reward shall have :
What trophies and what triumphs are your due;
Who could fo well a dying nation fave,

At once deserve a crown, and gain it too!

You faw how near we were to ruin brought,
You faw th' impetuous torrent rolling on;
And tinely on the coming danger thought,
Which we could neither obviate nor fhun.
Britannia ftripp'd from her fole guard the laws,
Ready to fall Rome's bloody facrifice;

You ftraight stepp'd in, and from the monster's jaws
Did bravely fnatch the lovely helpless prize.
Nor this is all; as glorious is the care

To preferve conquefts, as at firft to gain:
In this your virtue claims a double fhare,
Which, what it bravely won, does all maintain.
Your arm has now your rightful title fhow'd,
An arm on which all Europe's hopes depend,
To which they look as to fome guardian god,
That must their doubtful liberty defend.
Amaz'd, thy action at the Boyne we fee!

When Schomberg started at the vast design:
The boundless glory all redounds to thee, [thine.
Th' impuife, the fight, th' event, were wholly
The brave attempt does all our foes difarm;

You need but now give orders and command,
Your name fhall the remaining work perform,
And spare the labour of your conquering hand.
France does in vain her feeble arts apply,

To interrupt the fortune of your courfe :
Your influence does the vain attacks defy
Of fecret malice, or of open force.
Boldly we hence the brave commencement date
Of glorious deeds, that must all tongues employ:
William's the pledge and earnest given by fate
Of England's glory, and her lafting joy.

ODE TO THE ATHENIAN SOCIETY.

Moor-Park, Feb. 14. 1691. ·

As when the deluge firft began to fall
That mighty cbb never to flow again
(When this huge body's moisture was so great,
It quite o'ercame the vital heat);
That mountain which was highest, first of all
Appear'd above the univerfal main,
To blefs the prinutive failor's weary fight!
And 'twas perhaps Parnaffus, if in height
It be as great as 'tis in fame,

Ard nigh to heaven as is its name:

So after th' inundation of a war,

When learning's little houfehold did embark

When the bright fun of peace began to fhine, And for a while in heavenly contemplation fat On the high top of peaceful Ararat ;

And pluck'd a laurel branch (for laurel was the
first that grew,

The first of plants after the thunder, ftorm, and rain);
And thence, with joyful nimble wing,

Flew dutifully back again,

And made an humble chaplet for the king'
And the dove-mufe is fled once more

(Glad of the victory, yet frighten'd at the war);
And now difcovers from afar

A peaceful and a flourishing fhore:
No fooner did the land

On the delightful ftrand,

Than ftraight the fees the country all around,
Where fatal Neptune rui'd erewhile,

Scatter'd with flowery vales, with fruitful gardens
And many a pleasant wood!

As if the universal Nile

[crown'd,

Had rather water'd it than drown'd:
It seems some floating piece of paradife,
Preferv'd by wonder from the flood,
Long wandering through the deep, as we are told
Fam'd Delos did of old,

And the tranfported mufe imagin'd it
To be a fitter birth-place for the god of wit,
Or the much talk'd oracular grove;
When with amazing joy the hears

An unknown mufic all around

Charming her greedy ears

With many a heavenly fong

Of nature and of art, of deep philofophy and love,
Whilft angels tune the voice, and God infpires the

tongue.

In vain the catches at the empty found,
In vain purfues the mufic with her longing eye,
And courts the wanton echoes as they fly.
Pardon, ye great unknown, and far-exalted men,
The wild excurfions of a youthful pen;
Forgive a young, and (almoft) virgin-mufe,
Whom blind and eager curiofity

(Yet curiofity, they fay,

Is in her fex a crime needs no excufe)

Has forc'd to grope her uncouth way
After a mighty light that leads her wandering eye.
No wonder then the quits the narrow path of fenfe
For a dear ramble through impertinence;
Impertinence! the fcurvy of mankind.
And all we fools, who are the greater part of it,
Though we be of two different factions still,

Both the good natur'd and the ill,
Yet wherefoe'er you look, you'll always find
We join, like flies and wafps, in buzzing about wit.
In me, who am of the first fect of thefe,
All merit, that tranfcends the humble rules
Of my own dazzled fcanty fenfe,

With her world's fruitful fyftem in her facred ark, Begets a kinder folly and impertinence

At the firft ebb of noife and fears,

Philofophy's exalted head appears;
And the dove-mufe will now no longer ftay,
But plumes her filver wings and flies away;
And now a laurel wreath fhe brings from far,
To crown the happy conqueror,
To fhow the flood begins to cease,
And brings the dear reward of victory and peace.
The eager mufe took wing upon the waves' decline,
When war her cloudy afpect just withdrew,

Of admiration and of praife.

And our good brethren of the furly fect

Muft e'en all herd us with their kindred fools: For though, poffefs'd of prefent vogue, they've Railing a rule of wit, and obloquy a trade; [made Yet the fame want of brains produces each effect. And you, whom Pluto's helm does wifely shroud

From us the blind and thoughtlefs crowd, Like the fam'd hero in his mother's cloud,

* The ode I writ to the King in Ireland.