which was peculiarly formed to express the stronger 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, mounted 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 this last interview is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.'* Even Stella, though believed by her friends to have been ultimately united to Swift, dropped into the grave without any public recognition of the tie; they were married, it is said, in secrecy in the garden of the deanery, when on her part all but life had faded away. The fair sufferers were deeply avenged. But let us adopt the only charitable—perhaps the just-interpretation of Swift's conduct; the málady which at length overwhelmed his reason might then have been lurking in his frame; and consciousness of the fact kept him single. Some years before Vanessa's death, a scene occurred which has been related by Young, the author of the Night Thoughts.' Swift was walking with some friends in the neighbourhood of Dublin. Perceiving he did not follow us,' says Young, 'I went back, and found him fixed as a statue, and earnestly gazing upward at a noble elm, which in its uppermost branches was much decayed. Pointing at it, he said: "I shall be like that tree; I shall die at the top." The same presentiment finds expression in his exquisite imitation of Horace (Book ii. Satire 6), made in conjunction with Pope: I've often wished that I had clear Well, now I have all this and more, All this is mine but till I die; I can't but think 'twould sound more clever, To me and to my heirs for ever. If I ne'er got or lost a groat As thus: Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker! * The talents of Vanessa may be seen from her letters to Swift, They are further evinced in the following Ode to Spring, in which she alludes to her unhappy attach ment: Hail, blushing goddess. beauteous Spring! Yet why should I thy presence hail? rose With such transcendent beauty blows, And shared with me those joys serene. To grant me this and t'other acre; Preserve, Almighty Providence! Swift was at first disliked in Ireland, but the 'Drapier's Letters' and other works gave him unbounded popularity. His wish to serve Ireland was one of his ruling passions; yet it was something like the instinct of the inferior animals towards their offspring; waywardness, contempt, and abuse were strangely mingled with affectionate attachment and ardent zeal. Kisses and curses were alternately on his lips. Ireland, however, gave Swift her own heart-he was more than king of the rabble. After various attacks of deafness and giddiness, his temper became ungovernable, and his reason gave way. Truly and beautifully has Scott said, the stage darkened ere the curtain fell.' 6 The sad story of his latter days melts and overawes the imagination. Fits of lunacy were succeeded by the dementia of old age. For three years he uttered only a few words and broken interjections. He would often attempt to speak, but could not recollect words to express his meaning, upon which he would sigh heavily. Babylon in ruins (to use a simile of Addison's) was not a more melancholy spectacle than this wreck of a mighty intellec! In speechless silence his spirit passed away, October 19, 1745. He was interred in St. Patrick's Cathedral, amidst the tears and prayers of his countrymen. An inscription on his tomb, composed by himself, records his exertions for liberty and his detestation of oppression.* 'The særa indignatio of which he spoke as lacerating his heart,' says Thackeray, and which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone, as if the wretch who lay under that stone, waiting God's judgment, had a right to be angry, breaks out from him in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him.' Swift believed he had a right to be angry—angry against oppression, against triumphant wrong, corruption, and hypocrisy. Doest thou well to be angry?' was the question asked of the Hebrew prophet of old, and he answered: 'I do well.' So thought Swift, often self-deluded, mistaking hatred for duty, faction for patriotism; misled by passion, by egotism, and caprice. Swift's fortune, amounting to about £10,000, he left chiefly to found a lunatic asylum in Dublin. He gave the little wealth he had To build a house for fools and mad ; To shew, by one satiric touch, No nation wanted it so much. ་ Gulliver's Travels' and the Tale of a Tub' must ever be the Ilic depositum est corpus JONATHAN SWIFT, S. T. Decani, ubi sæva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit. strenuam pro virili libertatis vindicem, &c. P.. hujus ecclesiæ Cathedralis chief corner-stones of Swift's fame. The purity of his prose style renders it a model of English composition. He could wither with his irony and invective; excite to mirth with his wit and invention; transport as with wonder at his marvellous powers of grotesque and ludicrous combination, his knowledge of human nature-piercing quite through the deeds of men—and his matchless power of feigning reality, and assuming at pleasure different characters and situa tions in life. He is often disgustingly coarse and gross in his style and subjects; but he is never licentious; his grossness is always repulsive, not seductive. ་ Swift's poetry is perfect, exactly as the old Dutch artists were perfect painters He never attempted to rise above this visible diurnal sphere.' He is content to lash the frivolities of the age, and to depict its absurdities. In his too faithful representations, there is much to condemn and much to admire. Who has not felt the truth and humour of his City Shower,' and his description of 'Morning? Or the liveliness of his Grand Question Debated,' in which the knight, his lady, and the chambermaid, are so admirably drawn? His most ambitious flight is his Rhapsody on Poetry,' and even this is pitched in a pretty low key. Its best lines are easily remembered: · Not empire to the rising sun, Not bastard of a pedler Scot; Not boy brought up to cleaning shoes, To rise in church, or law, or state, Swift's Verses on his own Death are the finest example of his peculiar poetical vein. Is predicts what his friends will say of his illness, his death, and his reputation, varying the style and the topics to suit each of the parties. The versification is easy and flowing, with nothing but the most familiar and common-place expressions. There are some little touches of homely pathos, which are felt like trickling tears, and the effect of the piece altogether is electrical: it carries with it the strongest conviction of its sincerity and truth; and we see and feel-especially as years creep on-how faithful a depicter of human nature, in its frailty and weakness, was the misanthropic Dean of St. Patrick's. The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep, And brick-dust Moll had screamed through half the street. Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees; The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands, And school-boys lag with satchels in their hands. A Description of a City Shower. Careful observers may foretell the hour And wafted with its foe by violent gust, 'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust. Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down, The leather sounds; he trembles from within. And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear. What street they sailed from by their sight and smell. From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their course, Baucis and Philemon.-Imitated from the Eighth Book of OvidWritten about 1708. In ancient times, as story tells, It happened on a winter night- Our wandering saints in woful state, Treated at this ungodly rate, Having through all the village past, To a small cottage came at last, Where dwelt a good old honest yeoman, Called in the neighborhood Philemon, Who kindly did the saints invite In his poor hut to pass the night. And then the hospitable sire Bid Goody Baucis mend the fire, While he from out the chimney took A flitch of bacon off the hook, And freely from the fattest side Cut out large slices to be fried; Then stepped aside to fetch them drink, Filled a large jug up to the brink, And saw it fairly twice go round; Yet-what was wonderful-they found 'Twas still replenished to the top, As if they ne'er had touched a drop. The good old couple were amazed, And often on each other gazed: For both were frightened to the heart, And just began to cry: What art ?' Then softly turned aside to view Whether the lights were burning blue. The gentle pilgrims soon aware on't, Told them their calling and their errant: Good folks, you need not be afraid, We are but saints,' the hermits said; No hurt shall coine to you or yours; Bt, for that pack of churlish boors, Not fit to live on Christian ground, The roof began to mount aloft; The kettle to the top was hoist, In vain; for some superior force, A wooden jack, which had almost see't; But, slackened by some secret power, The groaning chair began to crawl, |