He sings of swains below the beechen shade,
When lovely Amaryllis fill'd the glade *;
Next, in a sympathizing lay, complains
Of love unpitied, and the lovers pains:
But when with art the hallow'd pipe he blew,
What deep attention hush'd the rival crew!
He played so sweetly and so sweetly sung,
That on each note th' enraptur'd audience hung;
Ev'n blue-hair'd nymphs, from Ladon's limpid stream,
Rais'd their bright heads, and listen'd to the theme;
Then through the yielding waves in transport glanc'd,
Whilst on the banks the joyful shepherds danc'd:
"We oft, said they, at close of evening flowers,
"Have heard such music in the vocal bowers:
"We wonder'd; for we thought some amorous god,
"That on a silver moonbeam swiftly rode,
"Had fann'd with starry plumes the floating air,
"And touch'd his harp, to charm some mortal fair †."

6. JONATHAN SWIFT. Of the life of this eccentric character, so numerous and so copious have been the details, and by men of the first respectability in the republic of letters, that even had we room to enter at full length into the consideration of his biography, the attempt might be justly thought unnecessary, and altogether a work of supererogation. We shall, therefore, limit ourselves to a few observations on the chief

productions of his pen, and on the principal events

*Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida sylras. Virg. † Poems, p. 114.

of his life; dividing them, for the sake of perspicuity, into three heads, Literary, Political, and Domestic.

Swift was, according to his own account, the son of an attorney at Dublin, and was born in that city on St. Andrew's day, in the year 1667. He was early sent to the school at Kilkenny, and in his fifteenth year became a member of the university of Dublin. It was with difficulty that he obtained his batchelor's degree, but the disgrace arising from this circumstance only stimulated him to greater exertion; an effect which, as Johnson has well observed, " may afford useful admonition and powerful encouragement to men, whose abilities have been made for a time useless by their passions or pleasures, and who, having lost one part of life in idleness, are tempted to throw away the remainder in despair *."

In 1688, and when about the age of one-andtwenty,. Swift obtained the patronage of Sir William Temple, to whom he was distantly related. Under the roof of this amiable man he resided, as a friend and companion, with the exception of one short period, until 1699, when the death of his patron compelled him more immediately to appeal to his own talents for support.

The church had been early chosen by Swift * Lives, vol. iii. p. 2.

for his profession; he had taken his degree of Master of Arts at Oxford, in 1692; and two years afterwards, during his secession from Sir William's mansion, he entered into holy orders, and obtained, through the interest of Lord Capel, the prebend of Kilroot in Connor, of about a hundred pounds a year. This however he resigned, on his return to Moor Park, under the assurance from Sir William of future English preferment in exchange. Temple had, in fact, obtained from King William a promise of the first prebend for Swift that should be vacant at Westminster or Canterbury; but his majesty, though Swift took care to place himself in his way by attending the court, either had forgotten, or did not choose to recollect, the obligation.

Another disappointment awaited him; the Earl of Berkeley had requested his assistance as his private secretary in Ireland; but shortly after their arrival in Dublin, his lordship was persuaded by a person of the name of Bush, that a clergyman was not qualified for such a duty, and procured the office for himself. The injury arising from this circumvention did not rest here; Swift had reason to expect the deanery of Derry, which was in his lordship's gift; but the influence of the new secretary directed this preferment into another channel. The indignation of

Swift was strongly expressed on this occasion; and Lord Berkeley, conscious of the ill treatment he had undergone, and apprehensive of public exposure from his pen, presented him with the rectory of Agher, and the vicarages of Laracor and Rathbeggin, in the diocese of Meath; the united revenue of which, however, did not exceed onethird of the value of the deanery.

On the living of Laracor, Swift usually resided when in Ireland, and here he at length embraced the resolution of publishing his Tale of a Tub. This celebrated work he had commenced so early as at the age of nineteen, and during his residence at Dublin-college; he completed it whilst with Sir William Temple, and kept it by him nearly eight years in its finished state; a piece of forbearance very unusual with a young author.

This keen but humorous satire appeared anonymously in 1704, and speedily excited very considerable attention, some applauding, and some vehemently reprobating its tendency and design. The invective, however, which has been. so lavishly poured upon this production, seems to have been greatly misplaced; and what is somewhat extraordinary, considering the purport of the work, the members of the church of England were its severest adversaries, and carried their resentment to such a pitch, that, some years

subsequent to its publication, our author was precluded the honours of a bishopric through the representations of Archbishop Sharpe to the Queen, on the supposed hostility of this fiction to the church. The idea could only have arisen from the occasional, and certainly, in some instances, indecent levity of the author; for the incidents of the tale form an allegory, which places in a very conspicuous light the beauty and simplicity of the established worship of this kingdom, when compared with the gorgeous superstitions of popery on the one hand, and the stern fanaticism of presbyterianism on the other.

There was a peculiarity in the character of Swift, which, both in his writings and conduct, frequently laid him open, in the eyes of common observers, to the charge of levity or even impiety; he had such a rooted abhorrence of hypocrisy, that, rather than be liable, in the smallest degree, to its imputation, he would conceal his religious feelings and habits with the most scrupulous care; and a friend has been known to have resided under his roof for six months, before he discovered that the Dean regularly read prayers to his servants morning and evening.

"To the horror he entertained of this vice," says Mr. Monck Berkeley, "must be attributed the cautious manner in which he concealed that