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marriage, not only through the whole course of his education, but during the greatest part of his life.

He was born in Dublin, on St Andrew's day; and when he was a year old, an event happened to him that seems very unusual; for his nurse, who was a woman of Whitehaven, being under an absolute necessity of seeing one of her relations, who being then extremely sick, and from whom she expected a legacy; and being extremely fond of the infant, she stole him on shipboard unknown to his mother and uncle, and carried him with her to Whitehaven, where he continued for almost three years. For, when the matter was discovered, his mother sent orders by all means not to hazard a second voyage, till he could be better able to bear

it.

The nurse was so careful of him, that before he returned he had learned to spell; and by the time that he was five years old he could read any chapter in the Bible.

After his return to Ireland, he was sent at six years old to the school of Kilkenny, from whence, at fourteen, he was admitted into the university at Dublin; where by the ill treatment of his nearest relations, he was so much discouraged and sunk in his spirits, that he too much neglected some parts of his academic studies; for which he had no great relish by nature, and turned himself to reading history and poetry: so that when the time came for taking his degree of bachelor, although he had lived with great regularity and due observance of the statutes, he was stopped of his degree for dulness and insufficiency; and at last hardly admitted, in a manner little to his credit, which is called in that college speciali gratiá. And this discreditable mark, as I am told, stands upon record in their college registry.

The troubles then breaking out, he went to his mother, who lived in Leicester; and after continuing there some months, he was received by Sir William Temple, whose father had been a great friend to the family, and who was now retired to his house called Moor-Park, near Farnham in Surrey, where he continued for about two years: for he happened, before twenty years old, by a surfeit of fruit, to contract a giddiness and coldness of stomach, that almost brought him to his grave; and this disorder pursued him with intermissions of two or three years to the end of his life. Upon this occasion he returned to Ireland, by advice

of physicians, who weakly imagined that his native air might be of some use to recover his health: but growing worse, he soon went back to Sir William Temple; with whom, growing into some confidence, he was often trusted with matters of great importance. King William had a high esteem for Sir William Temple by a long acquaintance, while that gentleman was ambassador and mediator of a general peace at Nimeguen. The king soon after his expedition to England, visited his old friend often at Sheen, and took his advice in affairs of greatest consequence. But Sir William Temple, weary of living so near London, and resolving to retire to a more private scene, bought an estate near Farnham in Surrey, of about L. 100 a year, where Mr Swift accompanied him.

About that time a bill was brought into the house of commons for trennial parliaments; against which the king, who was a stranger to our constitution, was very averse, by the advice of some weak people, who persuaded the Earl of Portland that King Charles the First lost his crown and life by consenting to pass such a bill. The earl, who was a weak man, came down to Moor Park, by his Majesty's orders, to have Sir William Temple's advice, who said much to show him the mistake. But he continued still to advise the king against passing the bill. Whereupon Mr Swift was sent to Kensington with the whole account of the matter in writing, to convince the king and the earl how ill they were informed. He told the earl, to whom he was referred by his majesty (and gave it in writing), that the ruin of King Charles the First was not owing to his passing the trennial bill, which did not hinder him from dissolving any parliament, but to the passing of another bill which put it out of his power to dissolve the parliament then in being, without the consent of the house. Mr Swift, who was well versed in English history, although he was then under twenty-one years old, gave the king a short account of the matter, but a more large one to the Earl of Portland; but all in vain; for the king, by ill advisers, was prevailed upon to refuse passing the bill. This was the first time that Mr

• This happened in the year 1693, when the bill for triennial parliaments was rejected, not by the king, but by the House of Commons.

Swift had any converse with courts, and he told his friends it was the first incident that helped to cure him of vanity. The consequence of this wrong step in his majesty was very unhappy for it put that prince under a necessity of introducing those people called Whigs into power and employ ments, in order to pacify them. For, although it be held a part of the king's prerogative to refuse passing a bill, yet the learned in the law think otherwise, from that expression used at the coronation, wherein the prince obliges himself to consent to all laws, quas vulgus elegerit.

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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, and Sir William Temple then being master of the rolls in Ireland, offered him an employ of about L. 120 a-year in that office; whereupon Mr Swift told him, that since he had now an opportunity of living without being driven into the church for a maintenance, he was recom mended to the Lord Capel, then Lord Deputy, who gave him a prebend in the north, worth about 100 a-year, of which, growing weary in a few months, he returned to Eng land, resigned his living in favour of a friend, and continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great man, who, beside a legacy, left him the care and trust and advantage of publishing his posthumous writings.

Upon this event Mr Swift removed to London, and ap. plied by petition to King William, upon the claim of a promise his Majesty had made to Sir William Temple, that he would give Mr Swift a prebend of Canterbury or Westminster. The Earl of Romney, who professed much friendship for him, promised to second his petition; but as he was an old vicious, illiterate rake, without any sense of truth or honour, said not a word to the king. And Mr Swift, after long attendance in vain, thought it better to comply with an invitation given him by the Earl of Berkeley to attend him to Ireland, as his chaplain and private secretary; his Lordship having been appointed one of the Lords Justices of that kingdom He attended his Lordship, who landed near Waterford, and Mr Swift acted as secretary during the whole journey to Dublin. But another per

son had so insinuated himself into the earl's favour, by telling him that the post of secretary was not proper for a clergyman, nor would be of any advantage to one who only aimed at church preferments, that his Lordship, after a poor apology, gave that office to the other.

In some months the deanery of Derry fell vacant; and it was the Earl of Berkeley's turn to dispose of it. Yet things were so ordered, that the secretary having received a bribe, the deanery was disposed of to another, and Mr Swift was put off with some other church livings not worth above a third part of that rich deanery, and at this present not a sixth. The excuse pretended was his being too young, although he were then thirty years old.

Extract of authentic particulars respecting the Parents of Dean Swift, from Counsellor Duhigg's History of the King's Inns Dublin, 1806, p. 216.

"The reader must at last be relieved from the languid dulness of King's Inns extracts, and the observations which accompany them, by an illustration of a matter which ascertains the birth of as great a genius, and as unbending a patriot as ever graced this country: it also recognizes the account given by that eminent man of his family and parentage, supported by an undoubted document of his father. In 1665, Jonathan Swift memorials the bench for the office of steward, or under-treasurer, modestly stating, that he was qualified for the employment, by being an assistant to Mr Wale, who lately filled that situation. He further set forth, that his father and whole family were loyal, and faithfully served his Majesty, as well as Charles I., by which they were great sufferers. That gentleman was admitted an attorney, and member of the King's Inns, Hilary Term 1665, in the following terms: "Jonathan Swift, gentleman, was admitted into the society of the house, and hath paid for his admission (the usual fee) 13s. 4d. on the 26th of January 1664-5." On the 25th of January 1665-6, he was appointed steward, or under-treasurer, and afterwards authorized to receive from the members the pensions and cast commons for the benefit of Mrs Wale, widow to the preceding steward.

"On the 25th of April 1667, Mr Swift's untimely death

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caused a similar application from his afflicted widow to the Bench, that they may authorize her brother-in-law, Mr William Swift, to collect the arrear due to her husband. Her request was acceded to with becoming promptitude. Such order had a proper effect: however, L. 12, and upwards, remained upon settlement due from her husband to the society, and L. 100 from the members of that society to Mr Swift, of which L. 76, and upwards, was due by the persons who dined at the Bench table. The legal reader will blush to hear the rule of that grave, learned, and religious body. It was not to advance the L. 100 to this unfortunate woman, nor manfully to discharge the acknowledged debt of their own defaulters, but to choose, out of the arrears due from the Bench table, a sum to balance her account of L. 12, and to recommend a further payment from the body at large.

The birth of our great countryman shall be now as certained beyond cavil or doubt. He was born on the 30th of November 1667; and in the following month of January his mother renews a complaint of arrears to the Bench, with a pathetic representation of her necessary distress. How many contradictions were heretofore reconciled to make him a native of Leicester; his mother must be presumed to travel post, and at ease, for the purpose of appearing at the King's Inns in five weeks from her lying-in. All this is to be believed in preference to his own account, or the attesta tion of a respectable friend. However, fancy or falsehood must, I believe, yield to recorded truth, which would be settled beyond contradiction, if abstracts of King's Inns accounts had been printed during the Dean's life, which laudable custom has been only adopted from the year 1797. Let an integrity similar to Swift's mark future anecdotes, and the preceding circumstances ascertain his birth, the profession of his father, and honest, but unmerited adversity of the surviving parent. It was her aggravated misfortune to solicit an unfeeling groupe, whose sable records attest a more prompt disposition to support fraud and encourage tyranny, than to render justice, or to relieve with sensibility the orphan and widow's forlorn sigh.

"Meantime personal distress multiplied, and deprived her illustrious offspring of maternal care; for we are told, in

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