..me \; N c <-^ ^ v^ ^,.?^ -^^ vOo . ^^x. -<^./^*.. x^^ ^Oc ENGtiSH HUMOURISTS BY W. M. THACKERAY Eal«r«d k( the Po»t Cffie*. !». Y., u »e«»«dV YORK;: LOv ..... S LIBRARY.-CATALOGim, nf,i-r+pnow..20 6'i 'Vr,,. \x oo.cs O't, by Mrs. A3ex» OW.20 I ....15 . ...10 O t Partll. «..,,.16 10 •l;, bv T.l\]7U: 2f 36. Life sr. Pan; 38. Tale 39. The '■ 40. An /: 4i 4-' ^r. 4^ 4'J, Th:' fiO. Eariv Bai: 5\. Vies : 5'^. Prog; Ger ,ry.- B3. The Spv 54. East Lyn 6) 6S Por;-. Sf>, T.,r;'-'^ 20 , ....10 bj Coooei 99 i>y W lOf Wood, vi' Lytton. 2(J JV'. •artl.. . .15 15 lOF .Gbon . .20 fw ao 11.1 ' f .ytto'n . t?0 J11 ,:-ue Jc3 ^ go •artl. ..15 ;^artlI..15 :h 20 ^r . I K^ t IT. . ..15 nuifk..2() ):icbC89..20 ■-....■.. ?X 20 X:, by lacy 9C -n by E IJjBCkeL.aC ..20 20 -,P'tI..15 ",PtII.lP 20 .P'tl ..ir. 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Over two million ladies have u^ed this delightful toilet preparation, and in every instance it has given entire satisfaction. Ladies, if you desire to be beauti- ful, give LAIRD'S BLOOM OP YOU TH a trial, and be convinced of its won- derful efficacy. Sold by Fancy Goods Dealers and Druggists everywhere. Price, 75c. per Bottle. Depot, 83 John St., N. IT. ^^0[i^ \^,.«^ /I THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. SWIFT. In treating of the English humorists of the past age, it is of the men and of their lives, rather than of their books, that I ask permission to speak to you ; and in doing so, you are aware that I cannot hope to entertain you with a merely humor- ous or facetious story. Harlequin without his mask is known to present a very sober countenance, and was himself, the story goes, the melancholy patient whom the Doctor advised to go and see Harlequin* — a man full of cares and perplexities like the rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, under whatever mask or disguise or uniform he presents it to the public. And as all of you here must needs be grave when you think of your own past and present, you will not look to find, in the histories of those whose lives and feelings I am going to try and describe to you, a story that is otherwise than serious, and often very sad. If Humor only meant laughter, you would scarcely feel more interest about humorous writers than about the private life of poor Harlequin just mentioned, who pos- sesses in common with these the power of making you laugh. But the men regarding whose lives and stories your kind pres- ence here shows that you have curiosity and sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness — your scorn for * The anecdote is frequently told of our performer Rich. (371) ^^2 EA'GLIsn HUM ORIS TS. untruth, pretension, imposture — your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. To the best of his means and abihty he comments on al! the ordinarv' actions and passions of Hfe ahnost. He takes upon himself to be the week- day preacher, so to speak. Accordingly, as he finds, and speaks, and feels the truth best, we regard him, esteem him— sometimes love him. And, as his business is to mark other people's lives and peculiarities, we moralize upon///> life when he is gone — and yesterday's preacher becomes the text for to- day's sermon. Of English parents, and of a good English family of clergy men,* Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, seven months after the death of his father, who had come to practise there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree with diffi- culty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, by the recommendation of his mother, Swift was received into the family of Sir William Temple,- who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his patron in 1694, and the next year took orders in Dublin. But he threw up the small Irish preferment which he got and returned to 1 emple, in whose family he re- mained until Sir William's death in 1699. His hopes of advancement in England failing, Swift returned to Ireland, and took the living of Laracor. Hither he invited Hester John- son,! Temple's natural daughter, with whom he had contracted a tender friendship, while they were both dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to England. Swift now passed nine years at home. * He was from a younger brancli of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, in Hercfordsliirc, suffered for his loyalty m Charles I.'s time. That gentleman married Elizabetii Dryden, a member of the family of the poet. Sir Walter ■ Scott gives, with his characteristic minuteness in such points, the exact relationship between these famous men. Swift was ''the son of Dryden's second cousin.'' Swifl, too, was the enemy of Dryden's reputation. Witness the " Battle of the Books : " — " The difference was greatest among the horse," says he of the moderns, " where every private trooper pretended to the com- mand, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden and Withers." And in " Poetry, a Rhap sody '' he advises the poetaster to — " Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, For these our critics much confide in, Though merely writ, at first for filling, To raise the volume' .s price a shilling." " Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet,'"' was the phrase of Dryden to his kins- man, which remamed alive in a memory tenacious of such matters. t " Miss Hetty" she was called in the family — where her face, and her dress, and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the real fact about her birth plain enough. Sir William left her a thousand pounds. SWIFT. 3„ In 1709 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to Ire- land, during which he took possession of his deanery of St. Patrick's, he now passed nve years in I^ngland, taking the most distinguished part in the political transactions which terminated with the death of Queen Anne. After her death, his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over. Swift returned to- Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In this time he vrrote the famous '• Drapicr's Letters '' and " Gulliver's Travels."' He married Hester Johnson, Stella, and buried Esther Vanhom- righ, Vanessa, vvho had followed him to Ireland from London, w^here she had contracted a violent passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Sv^^ift was in England, w^hich he quitted for the last time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died in January, 1728, and Swift not until 1745--, having passed the last five of the seventy-eight years of his life v/ith an impaired intellect and keepers to watch him.* You know, of course, that Swift has had many biographers ; his life has been told by the kindest and most good-natured of men. Scott, who admires but can't bring himself to love him ; and by stout old Johnson,! who, forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the street. * Soraelimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking about the house for many consecutive hours ; sometimes he remained in a kind of torpor. At times, he would seem to struggle to bring into district consciousness, and shape into ex- pression, the intellect that lay smothering under gloomy obstruction in him. A pier- glass falling by accident, nearly fell on him. He said he wished it had! He once repeated slowly several times, " J am what I am.'' The last thing he wrote was an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms and stores, which was pointed out to liim as he went abroad during his mental disease :— " Behold a proof of Irish sense : tlere Irish wit is seen : When nothing's left that's worth defence, They build a magazine ! " t Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there is a copious "Life" by Thomas Sheridan (Dr. Johnson's " Sherry " ), father of Richard Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever Irish Dr. Thomas Sheridan. Swift's intimate, who lost his chaplamcy by so unluckily choosing fer a text on the King's birthday, '■ Suffi- sient for the day is the evil "thereof 1 " Not to mention less important works, there is also the " Remarks on tlie Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift." by that polite and dignified writer, the Earl of Orrery. His lordship is said to have striven for literary renown, chiefly that he might make up for the slight passed on him by his fatlier, who left his library away from him. It is to be feared that tlie ink he used to wa'-h out that stain only made it look bigger. He had, however, known Swift, and corresponded with people'who knew him/ His work (which appeared in 175 1) pro- voked a good deal of controversy, railing out, among other brochures, the interesting •' Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks," &c., of Dr. Delany. 274 ENGLISH HUMORISTS. Dr. Wilde of Dublin,* who has written a most interesting vol- ume on the closing years of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the most malignant of his biographers : " it is not easy for an Eng- lish critic to please Irishmen — perhaps to try and please them. And yet Johnson truly admires Swift : Johnson does not quar- , rel with Swift's change of politics, or doubt his sincerity of religion : about the famous Stella and Vanessa controversy the Doctor does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could not give the Dean that honest hand of his ; the stout old man puts it into his breast, and moves off from him.f Would we have liked to live with him ? That is a question which, in dealing with these people's works, and thinking of their lives and pe(5uliarities, every reader of biographies must put to himself. Would you have liked to be a friend of the great Dean ? I should like to have been Shakspeare's shoe- black — just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped him — to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet serene face. I should like, as a young man, to have lived on Field- ing's staircase in the Temple, and after helping him up to bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latch-key, to have shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. Wlio would not give something to pass a night at the club with John- son, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck ? The charm of Addison's companionship and conversation has passed to us by fond tradition — but Swift ? If you had been his inferior in parts (and that, with a great respect for all per- sons present, I fear is only very likely), his equal in mere social station, he would have bullied, scorned and insulted you ; if, undeterred by his great reputation, you had met him like a man, he would have quailed before you,| and not had the pluck * Dr. Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift and Stella being brought to the light of day — a thing which happened in 1S35, when certain works going on in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their being examined. One hears with surprise of these skulls " going the rounds '' of houses, and being made the objects of dilettante curiosity. The larynx of Swift was actually carried off ! Phrenologists had a low opinion of his intellect from the ob- servations they took. Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in his writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the skull gave evidence of " diseased action " of the brain dunng life — such as would be produced by an increasing tendency to " cerebral congestion." t " He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift ; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had personally offended him. and he told me he had not." — Bosw^ell's Tour to the Hebrides. \ Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success was encourag- ing. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean whether his uncle Godwin had not given him his education. Swift, who "hated that subject cordially, and, in* SWIFT. 37S to reply, and gone home, and years after written a foul epigram about you — watched for you in a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's blow and a dirty bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue ribbon, who flattered his vanity, or could help his ambition, he would have been the most delight- ful company in the world. He would have been so manly, so sarcastic, so bright, odd, and original, that you might think he had no object in view but the indulgence of his humor, and that he was the most reckless, simple creature in the world. How he would have torn your enemies to pieces for you ! and made fun of the Opposition ! His servility was so boisterous that it looked like independence ; * he would have done your errands, but with the air of patronizing you, and after fighting your battles, masked, in the street or the press, would have kept on his hat before your wife and daughters in the drawing- room, content to take that sort of pay for his tremendous ser- vices as a bravo, t deed, cared little for his kindred, said, sternly, " Yes ; he gave me the education of a dog.'' " Then, sir," cried the other, striking his fist on the table, " you have not the gratitude of a dog ! '' Other occasions tliere were when a bold face gave the Dean pause, even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he brought himself into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the amusing circumstances may be once more re- peated here. He had unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant Bettesworth — " Thus at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, Though half-a-crown o'er-pays his sweat's worth, Who knows in law nor text nor margent, Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant ! " The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented himself at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. " Sir, I am Serjeant Bett-es-worth.'' "/« what regiment, pray '' '' asked Swift. A guai-d of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this time. * '* But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments from you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend Swift might occasion his English friends to wish him happily and properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, for I would give it the softest name, was everuntractable. The motions of his genius were often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron than of a friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise." — Orrery. -|- <•-**** p^YL anecd;)te, which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well at- tested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine with the Earl of Burlington, who was but newly married. The Earl, it is supposed, being willing to have a little diversion, did not introduce him to his lady nor mention his name. After dinner said the Dean, ' Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing ; sing me a song.' The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favor with distaste, and positively refused. He said, * She should sing, or he would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your poor English hedge-parsons ; sing when I bid you,' As the Earl did nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that she burst into tears and retired. His first compliment to her when he saw her again was, ' Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last ? ' To which she answered with great good-humor, ' No, Mr. Dean ; I'll sing for you if 376 ENGL ISH HI r MORIS TS. lie says as much himself in one of his letters to Boling- broke : — " All my efforts to distinguish myself were only for \yant of a great title and fortune, that I might be used like a lord by those who have an opinion of my parts ; whether right or wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation of wit and great learning does the office of a blue ribbon or a coach and six."* Could there be a greater candor ? It is an outlaw, who says, " These are my brains ; with these I'll win titles and compete with fortune. These are my bullets ; these I'll turn into gold ;" and he hears the sound of coaches and six, takes the road like Macheatb, and makes society stand and deliver. They are all on their knees before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue ribbon, and my lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre and crozier in it, which he in^ tends to have for his share, has been delayed on the way from St. James's ; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners come and tell him that the coach has taken a differ- ent road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and rides away into his own country.f you please.' From which time he conceived a great esteem for her." — Scott's Life. « * * « * Hg \-^^^ j^ot the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was, perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When lie was polite, it was in 2 manner entirely his own. In his friendships he was constant and undisguised. He was the same in his enmities." — Orrery. * " I make no figure but at court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the meanest of my acquaintances." — Journalto Stella. " I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their books and poems, the vilest I ever saw ; but I have given their names to my man, never to let them see me." — Journal to Stella. The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier : — " Did I ever tell you that the Lord Treasurer hears ill with the left ear, just as 1 do ? * * * *- I dare not tell him that I am so, for fear he should thmk that 1 eounterfeitcdto make my court /" — Journal to Stella. t The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the other : and the Whig attacks made the Ministry Swift served very sore. Bohngbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition pamphleteers, and bewails their " factitiousness '' in the following letter : — " BOLIXGBROKE TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. " iVhitehall, July22,d, 171 2. '' It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are too weak to punisli effectually those factitious scribblers, who presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even scurrilous language to tliose who are in the first degrees of honor. This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condition of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake licentiousness for lil> erty. Ali I could do was to take up Hart, the printer, to send him to Newgate, and SWIFT. 3„ Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral or adorn a tale of ambition, as any hero's that ever lived and failed. But we must remember that the morality was lax — that other gentlemen besides himself took the road in his day — that public society was in a strange disordered condition, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The Boyne was being fought and won, and lost — the bells rung in William's victory in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for to bind !iim over upon bail to be prosecuted ; this I have done ; and if I can arrive at legal proof against the author, Ridpath, he sliall have the same treatment." Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous indignation. In the history of the four last years of the Queen, the Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentiousness of the press and the abusive language of the other party : — " It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have been such as to deserve the severest animadversion from the public. * * * * The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their fall, and unanimous in their cause, employ a set of writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of their readers. * * * * However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant to be cured by such a remedy as a tax ujaon small papers, and a bill for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought into the House of Commons, but so late in the session that there was no time to pass it, for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp overmuch the liberty of the press." But to a clause in the proposed bill, that the names of authors should be set to every pi-lnted book, pamphlet or paper, his Reverence objects altogether ; for, says he, "besides the objection to this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in pub- lishing excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, ottf of an hnniblc Christian spirit, to conceal their names, it is certain that all persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible modesty and suspicion of themselves upon first send- mg their thouglits into the world." This " invincible modesty '' was no doubt the sole reason which induced the Dean to keep the secret of the " Drapier's Letters'' and a hundred humble Christian works of which he was the author. As for the Opposition, the Doctor was for dealing severely with them : he writes to Stella: Journal, Letter XIX. "■London^ March 2i,th, 1710-11. " * * * * We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece ; and the fellow that shovs'ed would point to his body and say, ' See, gentlemen, this is the wound that was given him by his Grace the Duke of Ormond ; ' and, ' This is the wound,' &c. ; and then the show was over, and another set of rabble came in. 'Tis hard that our laws Avould not suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and in th^ eye of the law every man is innocent till then. * * * * " Journal, Letter XXVII. " London, July s^th, 171 1. " I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The under Secretary was willing to save him ; but I told the Secretary he could not pardon him without a favorable report from the Judge ; besides, he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved hanjing for something else, and so he shall swing." 278 ENGLISH II CM OK IS TS. themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble, almost everybody gambled ; as in the Rail- way mania — not many centuries ago — almost every one took his unlucky share : a man of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, could scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, and make his spring at his opportunity. His bitter- ness, his scorn, his rage, his subsequent misanthropy, are as- cribed by some panegyrists to a deliberate conviction of man- kind's unworthiness, and a desire to amend them by castigating. His youth was bitter, as that of a great genius bound down by ignolDie ties, and powerless in a mean dependence ; his age was bitter,* like that of a great genius that had fought the battle and nearly won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards writhing in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, if he likes, what is caused by his own fury, or disappointment, or self-will. What public man — what statesman projecting a coup — what king determined on an invasion of his neighbor — what satirist meditating an onslaught on society or an individ- ual, can't give a pretext for his move ? There was a French general the other day who proposed to march into this country and put it to sack and pillage, in revenge for humanity out- raged by our conduct at Copenhagen : there is always some excuse for men of the aggressive turn. They are of their na- ture warlike, predatory, eager for fight, plunder, dominion. f As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck — as strong a wing as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of his claws, and cut his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not without awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. That Swift was born at No. 7 Hoey's Court, Dublin, on the 30th November, 1667, is a certain fact, of which nobody will deny the sister island the honor and glory ; but, it seems to me, he was no more an Irishman than a man born of Eng- lish parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo. t Goldsmith was an * It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of mourning. t " These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the Flyinq- Post and Medley in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog under prosecution, i>ut Bolingbroke is not active enough ; but I hope to swing him. He is a Scotch rogue, one Ridpath. They get out upon bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh bail ; so it goes xoviw^:' —Journal to Stella. \ Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations : and his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (Scott's Swift., vol. xix. p. 97), he says : — " Wc have had your volume of letters. * * * * Some of those who highlv SWIFT. 3„ IrishmaTi, and always an Irishman : Steele was an Irishman, and always an Irishman : Swift's heart was English and in England, his habits English, his logic eminently English ; his statement is elaborately simple ; he shuns tropes and meta- phors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and economy, as he used his money : with which he could be gen- erous and splendid upon great occasions, but which he hus- banded when there was no need to spend it. He never indulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a grave simplicity and a perfect neatness.* Dreading ridicule too, as a man of his humor — above all an Englishman of his humor — certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power which he really possessed ; one often fancies in reading him that he dares not be eloquent when he might ; that he does not speak above his voice, as it were, and the tone of society. value you, and few who knew you personally, are grieved to find you make no dis- tinction between the English gentry of this kingdom, and the savage old Irish (who are only the vulgar, and some gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom);' but the English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more civilized than many counties in England, and speak better English, and are much better bred." And again, in the fourth Drapier's Letter, we have the following : — " A sliort paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. Wood to say ' that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the Irish in refusing his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are asked.'' — Scott's Swift^ vol. vi. p. 453. He goes further, in a good-humored satirical paper, " On Barbarous Denomina- tions in Ireland,'' where (after abusing, as he was wont, the Scotch cadence, as well as expression.) he advances to the ^^ Irisli brogzie ^'" ^i\d speaking of the "censure" which it brings down, says : — " And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad consequence of this opinion affects those among us wlio are not the least liable to such reproaches farther than the misfortune of being born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose education has been chiefly in that kingdom." — Ibid. vol. vii. p. 149. But, indeed, if we are to make anything of Race at all, we must call that man an Englislmian whose father comes from an old Yorkshire family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one ! * " The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a Sheriff's feast, who amongst other toasts called out to him, ' Mr. Dean, The Trade of Ireland ! ' he answered quickly : ' Sir, I drink no memories 1 ' * * * * " Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided himself on saying pert things * * * and who cried out — ' You must know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit ? ' ' Do you so ? ' says the Dean. ' Take my advice, and sit dowo again ! ' " At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle and broke it ; Swift cried out — * Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae !' " — Dr. Delany : Observations ti/on Lord Orrery's ^^ Remarks. &><:., on Sv^fi" London, 1754. 28o . ENGLFSH HUMORISTS. ■ * ' ■■ 11 His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his, knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance with literature even..^ which he could not have pursued very sedulousl}^ during tha\, reckless career at Dublin, Swift got under the roof of Sir^ William Temple. He was fond of telling in after life what, quantities of books he devoured there, and how King Williani. taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion. It was at Shene and at Moor Park, with a salar}^ of twenty pounds and' a dinner at the upper servants' table, that this great and lonely. Swift passed a ten years' apprenticeship — wore a cassock that was only not a liver\^ — bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's to Supplicate my lady's good graces, or run on his honor'* errands.* It was here, as he was writing at Temple's table, or following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard the men who had governed the great world — measured himself with them, looking up from his silent corner, gauged their brains, weighed their wits, turned them, and tried them, and marked them. Ah ! what platitudes he must have heard ! what feeble jokes ! what pompous commonplaces ! what small men they must have seemed under those enormous periwigs, to the swarthy, un- couth, silent Irish secretary. I wonder whether it ever struck Temple, that that Irishman was his master? I suppose that dismal conviction did not present itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have lived with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service — ate humble pie and came back again ; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, swallowing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy rage to his fortune. Temple's style is the perfection of practised and easy good- breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, he professes a very gentlemanly acquaintance with it ; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelope his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park : and lets the King's party and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out *"Do)ft you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir Wilham Temple would loolc cold and out of humor for three or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons ? I have phicked up my spirits since then, faith : he spoiled a tine gentleman.-' — J-oumal to Stella. SWIFT. 381 «mong themselves. He reveres the Sovereign (and no man perliaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow) ; he admires the Prince of Orange ; but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Chris- tendom, and that vakiable member of society is him.self Guliel- mus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in his retreat ; be twee^i his study-chair and his tulip-beds,* clipping his apricots and pruning Iiis essays, — the statesman, the ambassador no more . but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene ; where in place of kings and fair ladies he pays his court to the C'iceronian majesty ; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse ; or dallies by the south wall with the ruddy nymph of gardens. Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious deal of veneration from his household, and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about him, as delicately as any of the plants which he loved. When he fell ill in 1693, the household was aghast at his indisposition ; mild Dorothea his wife, the best companion of the best of men — " Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate.'' % u % % * % The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and fortu- •nate in their express;ion, when they placed a man's happiness in the tranquillity of his mind and indolence of body ; for while we are composed of both, 1 doubt both must have a share in the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages say the same things in very different words, so in several ages, countries, constitutions of laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very different expressions: what is called by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion ; by the skeptics, indisturbance ; by the Molinists, quietism ; by common men, peace of conscience,— seems all to m^an but great tranquillity of mind. * * '^' For this reason, Epicurus passed his life wholly in his garden ; there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy ; and, indeed, no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking ; but, above all, the exemp- tion from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and *:hercby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind.* * * Where Paradise was, has been much debated, and little agreed ; but wliat sort of place meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries. Strabo describing Jericho : ' Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtoe simt etiara aliae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum centum, totus irrigus ; ibi est Regis Balsami paradisus.'' '" — Essay on Gardens. In the same famous essay Temple .speaks of a friend, whose conduct and prudence he characteristically admires : *»*«-** J thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in Stafford- shire, who is a great lover of his gardens, to pretend no higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of plums ; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very well succeeded, which he could never have done in at-teqipts upqri peaches and grapes ; 2.\\,Ci <^ good /lum is certainly better than an ill 382 ENGLISH HUMOR IS TS. As for Dorinda, his sister, — •' Those who would grief describe, might come and trace Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. To see her weep, joy every face forsook, And grief flung sables on each menial look. The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul, That furnished spirit and motion through the whole." Isn't that Une in which grief is described as putting the menials into a mourning livery, a fine image ? One of the menials wrote it who did not like that Temple livery nor those twenty- pound wages. Cannot one fancy the uncouth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, following at his honor's heels in the garden walk ; or taking his honors orders as he stands by the great chair, where Sir William has the gout, and his feet all blistered with moxa ? When Sir William has the gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second table ; * the Irish secretary owned as much afterwards : and when he came to dinner, how he must have lashed and growled and torn the household with his gibes and scorn ! What would the steward say about the pride of them Irish schollards — and this one had got no great credit even at his Irish college, if the truth were known — and what a contempt his Excellency's * Swift's Thoughts on Hanging. {Directions to Servants.) " To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all indignities ; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes of a place at court, a command in the army, a succession to the stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you cannot obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your master': niece or daughter, 1 directly advise you to go upon the road, which is the only post of honor left you ; there you will meet many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one, and make a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some in- structions. " Th3 last advice I give you relates to your behavior when you are going to be hanged : which, either for robbing your master, for housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel by killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and is owing to one of these three qualities : either a love of good fellow- ship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits. Your good behavior on this article will concern your whole community : deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations : a hundred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about tho bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the Court ; let noth- ing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a pardon for discovering your com- rades ; but I suppose all this to be in vain ; for if you escape now, your fate will be *.he same another day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate ; some of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt and white cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon : take leave cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate : mount the cart with courage ; fall on your knees ; lift up your eyes ; hold a book in your hands, although you cannot read a word ; deny the fact at the gallows ! kiss and forgive the hangman, and so farewell ; you shall be buried in pomp at the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of you; and your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown succeeds in your place. * * *'' SWIFT. 383 own gentleman must have had for Parson Teague from DubUn. (The valets and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to say which Swift thought the more contemptible). And what must have been the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the housekeeper's little daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences above all things — above mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous Sir William in his square-toes and periwig, — when Mr. Sivift comes down from his master with rage in his heart, and has not a kind word even for little Hester Johnson ? Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescen- sion was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir William would perpetually quote Latin and the ancient classics a propos of his gardens and his Dutch statues 2iud plates-ba?ides, and talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Caesar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. Apropos of beans, he would mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain from beans, and that this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean ; he is a Pythagorean philosopher ; he is a wise man — that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so ? One can imagine the downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, and the flash of scorn which they emit. Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens ; Pope says nobly (as everything Pope said and thought of his friend was good and noble), '' His eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness in them." And one person in that house- hold, that pompous, stately, kindly Moor Park, saw heaven no- where else. But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins ; and in a garden-seat which he devised for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness which pun- ished and tormented him through life. He could not bear the place or the servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condo- lence, from which we have quoted a few lines of mock melan- choly, he breaks out of the funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, and even hope. I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to Temple, in which, after having broke from his bondage, the poor 3^4 EAGLISH II U MORIS TS. wretch crouches piteously towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for testimonials for orders. " The particulars required of me are what relate to morals and learn- ing; and the reasons of quitting your honor's family — ^that is,,| whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They are- left entirely to your honor's mercy, though in the first I think 1 cannot reproach myself for anything further than for inf(7'initics. This is all I dare at present beg from your honor, under cir- cumstances of life not worth your regard : what is left me to wish (next to the health and prosperity of your honor and family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the opportu- nity of leaving my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg niy most humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your honor's lady and sister." — Can prostration fall deeper ? could a slave bow lower ? * Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, describing the same man, says, '' Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house and had a bow from everybody but me. When I came to the ante- chamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to fret a place for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake, with my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of '200/. per annum as member of the English Church at. Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going into the * *• He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great juan." — Anecdotes of the Family of Siv^ft, hy the Dean. " It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to himself." — Pre- face to Temple's Works. On all public occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the subjoined extracts from \\\& Journal to Stella: — *• I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d ailed him on Sun- day : I made him a very proper speech ; told him I observed he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he Avr.s in better ; and one thing I warned him of — ^never to appear cold to me, for I would not b- treated like a schoolboy ; that I had felt too much of that in my life already '' {vica ing Sir William Temple), &c., &c. — Journal to Stella. '■ \ ;i!n thinking wliat a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple be- cause he might have been .Secretary of State at fifty ; and here is a young fellow hardly thirty in th'at employment."— /<^zV/. •• The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought what a splutter Sir Wiliiam Temple makes about being Secretary of State." — Ibid. *' Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now quite well. I was playing at one-and-thirty with him and his family the other night. He gave us all twelvepenre apiece to begin with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple." —Ibid. " I thought I saw Jack Temple [tiephexv to Sir William] and his wife pass by me to-dav in their coach ; but I took no notice of them. I am glad 1 have wliolly shaken oft that f?mily." — .S'. to S. Sept., 1710. SIVIT-T. 385 Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it was very late. A gentleman said he was too fast. ' How can I help it,' says the Doctor, ' if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right ? ' Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English, for which he would have them all subscribe : ' For,' says he, ' he shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.' * Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him, — both went off just before prayers." There's a little malice in the Bishop's "just before prayers." This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in the midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man — he was cautious about his money, but ready. — If you were in a strait would you like such a benefactor? I think I would rather have had a potato and a friendly word from Goldsmith than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a dinner.! He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor men's faces. No ; the Dean was no Irishman — no Irish ever gave but with a kind word and a kind heart. « * " Swift must be allowed," says Dr. Johnson, " for a time, to have dictated the political opinions of the English nation.'' A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doctor's liveliest sallies, " One, in particular, praised his 'Conduct of the Allies.' — Johnson: 'Sir, his ' Conduct of the Allies ' is a performance of very little ability. * * * Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written the • Conduct of the Allies ! ' "— Boswell's Life of jfoktLSOll. t *' Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time, it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. If this were well taken, and answered with good humor, he afterwards made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further intercoursewith the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean having decanted a bottle of wine, poured whatremained into a glass, and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. ' For,' said he. " I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul wine for me.' Mr. Pilk- ington, entering into his humor, tlianked liim, and told him ' he did not know the difference, but was glad *o get a glass at any rate.' ' Why, then,' said the Dean, 'you shan't, for I'll drink it myself. Why, take you, you are wiser than a paltry curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago ; for upon my making the same speech to liim, he said lie did not imderstand such usage, and so walked off without his din- ner. By the same token, I told the gentleman who recommended him to me that the