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SWIFT AT OXFORD-HIS FIRST VERSES.

Swift went to Oxford in 1692, and entered himself of Hart's Hall, for the purpose of taking his degree of M.A., to which he was admitted on the 5th of July in that year. He was much pleased with the civilities he met at Oxford, and professed himself more obliged, in a few weeks, to strangers, than ever he was, in seven years, to Dublin College.

Swift had already, (in 1691,) "written and burned, and written again upon all manner of subjects, more than, perhaps, any man in England;" and at Oxford he produced his first verses, (reserving only his claim to any of those contained in the Tripos of Jones.) It is a version of Horace, book ii. ode 18::

'Tis true, my cottage, mean and low,

Not built for grandeur, but for ease,
No ivory cornices can show,

Nor ceilings rough with gold displays.
No cedar beams for pomp and state,
(To nature names confest unknown,)
Repose their great and precious weight
On pillars of the Parian stone.

Not dropt an accidental heir

To some old kinless miser's means;
No wealthy vassal's gifts I wear,

Rich purple vests, and sweeping trains;

But virtue and a little sense,

Have so endeared me to the great,
That, thanks to bounteous Providence,

Nor have, nor want I, an estate.

Blest in my little Sabine field,

I'll neither gods above implore,

Nor, since in sneaking arts unskill'd,

Hang on my wealthy friends for more, &c. &c.

SWIFT AND DRYDEN.

Swift attempted Pindaric odes, but failed: he showed these poetical exercises to Dryden, whose concise reply-" Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet,"-he neither forgot nor pardoned. He has indulged the utmost licentiousness of personal rancour he places Dryden by the side of the lowest of poets; he even puns miserably on his name to degrade him as the emptiest of writers; and for that spirited translation of Virgil, which was admired even by Pope, he employs the most gro

tesque sarcastic images to mark his diminutive genius-" for this version-maker is so lost in Virgil, that he is like the lady in a lobster; a mouse under a canopy of state; a shrivelled beau within the penthouse of a full-bottomed periwig." He never was generous enough to contradict his opinion, and persisted to the last.-(D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors.)

DEATH OF SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

Some time after his return to Moor Park, finding that no provision was made for him beyond subsistence in Sir William's family, Swift became tired of his state of dependence, and in some degree dissatisfied with his patron. Swift preferred going to Ireland and endeavouring to obtain preferment in the church. They were both displeased, and so parted. Swift went to Ireland; was admitted to deacon's orders, October 18, 1694, and to priest's orders, January 13, 1695. Soon afterwards Lord Capel, then Lord-Deputy of Ireland, bestowed upon him the prebend of Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, worth about 1007. a year, whither he immediately went to perform the duties of a country clergyman.

Sir William Temple appears to have soon felt the want of Swift's services, and it was not long before he sent him a kind letter, with an invitation to return to Moor Park. Swift, on the other hand, however fond of independence, must have felt strongly the contrast between the dull life of a clergyman in a remote town in Ireland and the refined society of Moor Park. He returned thither in 1695, when he was treated by Sir William Temple rather as a friend than as a mere secretary, and they continued to live together till Sir William's death, scarce a cloud intervening to disturb the harmony of their friendship. A cold look from his patron, such was the veneration with which Swift regarded Temple, made him unhappy for days;* his faculties were devoted to his service, and, during his last decline, Swift registered, with pious fidelity, every change in Temple's disorder; and concluded the Journal, "He died at one o'clock, this morning, (27th January, 1698-9,) and with him all that was good and amiable among men."

Swift's connexion with Sir William may be thus summed

* In the Journal to Stella, he says: "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 spirit since then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentleman."

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up. He was twenty-one years of age (in 1688,) when he began his connexion with Temple, whose wife was a relation of his mother's; whose father had known his family in Ireland; and who engaged him at " 207. per annum, and board." In 1693, Swift left him; on which occasion Temple was extremely angry," as he found him useful. In 1695, he returned, and remained with him till his death in 1698. "I was at his death," says Swift, in 1726, "as far to seek as ever." "Madam," to Temple's sister, in 1709, "I pretend not to have had the least share in Sir William Temple's confidence above his relatives, or his commonest friends:-I have but too good reasons to think otherwise."-(Courtenay's Memoirs of Temple.) Lord Orrery somewhat exaggerates, in saying "Swift was employed not trusted" by Temple, whom, however, even Sir Walter Scott calls "selfish and cold-hearted."

"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS."

During the latter part of his residence at Moor Park, Swift wrote the Battle of the Books in St. James's Library, in support of Sir William Temple, and in opposition to Dr. William Wotton and Dr. Bentley. A dispute had arisen in France as to the superiority of ancient or of modern writers; the contest passed over to England, when the cause of the moderns was supported by Wotton, in his Reflections on Antient and Modern Learning. Temple took the part of the ancients, but unfortunately praised the Epistles of Phalaris, which Bentley, in an Appendix to the second edition of Wotton's Reflections, proved to be spurious. Swift's work is a well-constructed allegory, abounding in wit and humour. The idea is said to have been taken from a work by Courtray; but Monck Mason maintains that Swift's Battle is a burlesque imitation of Homer.

SWIFT'S FIRST SATIRE.

The first specimen of that peculiar talent which Swift possessed, of ridiculing the vain, frivolous, and commonplace topics of general society, was a set of verses written "in a lady's ivory table-book," soon after the writer was relieved from his dependence upon Temple. The lines are :

"Peruse my leaves through every part,
And think thou see'st my owner's heart,
Scrawl'd o'er with trifles thus, and quite
As hard, as senseless, and as light;

Exposed to every coxcomb's eyes,
But hid with caution from the wise.
Here you may read, 'Dear charming saint;'
Beneath, A new receipt for paint:"
Here in beau spelling, Tru tel deth ;'
There in her own, 'For an el breth
There, a page fill'd with billet-doux;
On t'other side, 'Laid out for shoes'-
'Madam, I die without your grace-
'Item, for half a yard of lace,'
" &c. &c.
Swift's Works, vol. xiv. p. 52.

WHO WAS STELLA?

Esther Johnson-who purchased, by a life of prolonged hopes and disappointed affection, a poetical immortality under the name of Stella (the Star.) It was during Swift's second residence at Moor Park that the acquaintance commenced between him and Esther Johnson. Her father was a London merchant, according to Scott; or steward to Sir William Temple, according to Sheridan. Swift himself says that she was born at Richmond in 1681;* "her father being the younger brother of a good family in Nottinghamshire, her mother of a lower degree;" and hence it has been suggested that she was an illegitimate daughter of Sir William Temple, and a sort of half-sister to Swift. But that Swift was so closely related to Temple has been satisfactorily disproved, and there seems to be no real ground for the other part of the scandal. Johnson, the father, died soon after Stella's birth. Her mother lived with Lady Gifford, Sir William Temple's sister, who, with Mrs. Johnson and her daughter, resided at this time at Moor Park.

Scott tells us that general interest was taken by all the inhabitants of the mansion, in the progress which little Hetty (Stella) made in her education. And much of the task of instruction devolved upon Swift, now a man of thirty, who seems to have, for some time, regarded his lovely pupil with the friendship of an elder brother. He taught her even the most ordinary parts of education, and in particular instructed her in writing: their hands resemble each other in some peculiarities. But her education was very imperfect: she was really deficient in many of the most ordinary points of information. The constant and habitual intercourse of

* In one of the registers of the old church at Richmond is the baptism of Stella, viz., "Hester, daughter of Edward Johnson, March 20, 1680-1."

affectionate confidence between the mentor and the pupil, by degrees assumed a more tender complexion; and there is little doubt that the feelings which attended this new connexion must have had weight in disposing Swift to break off a lingering and cold courtship which he had maintained with Mrs. Jane Waryng. Henceforth, the fates of Swift and Stella were so implicated together, as to produce the most remarkable incidents of both their lives.

WHO WAS VARINA?

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.

Varina was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. Although Swift corresponded with Varina for a series of years, there appear to be but two letters left-both written by Swift, one in the height of his passion, and the other in its decline-and both characteristic and curious. The first is dated in 1696, and is chiefly remarkable for its extreme badness and stupidity; though it is full enough of love and lamentation. The lady, it seems, had long before confessed a mutual flame; but prudential considerations made him averse to their immediate union-upon which the lover revels and complains in the following deplorable sentenceswritten, it will be observed, when he was on the borders of thirty:

"Madame,-Impatience is the most inseparable quality of a lover, and indeed of every person who is in pursuit of a design whereon he conceives his greatest happiness or misery to depend. It is the same thing in war, in courts, and in common business. Every one who hunts after pleasure, or fame, or fortune, is still restless and uneasy till he has hunted down his game; and all this is not only very natural, but something reasonable too; for a violent desire is little better than a distemper, and therefore men are not to blame in looking after a cure. I find myself hugely infected with this malady, and am easily vain enough to believe it has some very good reasons to excuse it. For indeed, in my case, there are some circumstances which will admit pardon for more than ordinary disquiets. That dearest object upon which all my prospect of happiness entirely depends, is in perpetual danger to be removed for ever from my sight. Varina's life is daily wasting; and though one just and honourable action would furnish health to her, and unspeakable happiness to us both, yet some power that repines at human felicity has that influence to hold her continually doating upon her cruelty, and me on the cause of it.

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