dition, a foldier. Godwin, therefore, determined to attempt the acquifition of a fortune in that kingdom; and the fame motives induced his four brothers to go with him. Godwin foon became wealthy; and the reft obtained fomething more than a genteel competence; though Dryden and Jonathan, who died foon after their arrival, had little to bequeath. [Sketch, § 14. 16.]

Jonathan, at the age of about three and twenty, and before he went to Ireland, married Mrs Abigail Erick, of Leicestershire *. The family of this lady was defcended from Erick the Forester, who raised an army to oppose William the Conqueror; by whom he was vanquished, and afterwards made commander of his forces. But whatever was the honour of her lineage, her fortune was fmall; and about two years after her marriage, fhe was left a widow with one child, a daughter, and pregnant with another; having no means of fubfiftence but an annuity of 201. which her husband had purchased for her in England, immediately after his marriage. [Sketch, $ 19.]

In

This lady was greatly beloved and efteemed by all the family of the Swifts. Her converfation was extremely polite, chearful, and agreeable. She was of a generous and hofpitable nature, very exact in all the duties of religion, attended the public worship generally twice a day; was a very early rifer, and was always dreffed for the whole day at about fix o'clock in the morning. Her chief amusements were needle-work and reading. She was equally fond of both her children, notwithstanding fome difagreements that fubfifted between them. D. S. p. 22. 23.

In this diftrefs fhe was taken with her daughter into the family of Godwin, her husband's eldest brother; and, on the 30th of November 1667, about feven months after her husband's death, fhe was, in Hoey's-alley, in the parish of St Werburgh, Dublin, delivered of a son, whom she called Jonathan in remembrance of his father, and who was afterwards the celebrated Dean of St Patrick's. [D. S. p. 22.]

Of all the brothers of Mrs Swift's husband, Thomas excepted, Godwin only had fons; and by these fons fhe was fubfifted in her old age, as fhe had been before by their father and their uncles, with fuch liberality, that the declared .herself, not only happy, but rich. [D. S. p. 23.]

It happened, by whatever accident, that Jonathan was not fuckled by his mother, but by a nurfe, who was a native of Whitehaven: And when he was about a year old, her affection for him was become fo ftrong, that finding it neceffary to vifit a relation who was dangeroufly fick, and from whom the expected a legacy, fhe found means to convey the child on fhipboard, without the knowledge of his mother or his uncle, and carried him with her to Whitehaven. At this place he continued near three years: For when the matter was discovered, his mother fent orders, not to hazard a fecond voyage, till he should be better able to bear it. The nurse, however, gave other teftimonies of her affection to Jonathan: For, during his ftay at Whitehaven, fhe had

taught him to spell; and when he was five years old, he was able to read any chapter in the Bible. [Sketch, § 21. O. let. 1.]

Mrs Swift, about two years after her husband's death, quitted the family of Mr Godwin Swift, in Ireland, and retired to Leicester, the place of her nativity: But her fon was again carried to Ireland by his nurfe, and replaced under the protection of his uncle Godwin. [O. let. 1.]

It has been generally believed, that Swift was born in England: a mistake to which many incidents befides this have contributed. He had been frequently heard to fay, when the people of Ireland difpleafed him, "I am not of this "vile country, I am an Englishman ;" and would infift, that he was ftolen from England when a child, and brought over to Ireland in a band-box. Mr Pope alfo, in one of his letters to him, mentions England as his native country. But whatever the motives were that prevailed on Dr Swift to speak in this manner, they were not borrowed from any fort of contempt which he had fecretly entertained against Ireland confidered merely as a nation, but rather proceeded from feveral other fources, which will appear afterward. [D. S. p. 26.] This account of his birth is taken from that which he left behind him in his own hand-writing; and while he lived, he was fo far from seriously denying or concealing his being a native of Ireland, that he often mentioned, and even pointed out the house in which he was born.

VOL. I.

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He has also been thought by fome to have been a natural fon of Sir William Temple: a mistake which was probably founded upon another; for, till the publication of his letter to Lord Viscount Palmerston, among his pofthumous works, he was thought to have received fuch favours from Sir William, as he could not be supposed to beftow upon a perfon to whom he was not related, and but distantly related to his wife *. However, fuch a relation between Sir William and the Dean, appears beyond contradiction to have been impoffible; for Sir William Temple was refident abroad in a public character from the year 1665 to 1670, firft at Bruffels, and afterwards at the Hague; as may be proved by his letters to the

Earl

* In the year of the Revolution, his uncle Godwin Swift had fallen into a kind of lethargy, or dotage, which deprived him by degrees of his fpeech and memory, and rendered him totally incapable of being of the leaft fervice to his family and friends. But, in the midft of this diftrefsful fituation, as if it was ordained that no incident fhould bereave mankind of fuch a genius, Sir William Temple (whofe lady was related to Dr Swift's mother) moft generously stept in to his affistance, and avowedly fupported his education at the university of Oxford. Acts of generosity feldom meet with their just applause. Sir William Temple's friendfhip was immediately construed to proceed from a confcicufnefs, that he was the real father of Mr Swift; otherwife it was thought impoffible, that he could be fo uncommonly munificent to a young man, no wife related to him, and but diftantly related to his wife. I am not quite certain, that Swift himself did not acquiefce in the calumny. Perhaps, like Alexander, he, though the natural fon of Jupiter, would appear greater than the legitimate fon of Philip. O. let. 2.

Earl of Arlington, and the reft of the ministry: So that Dr Swift's mother, who never croffed the fea, except from England to Ireland, was out of all poffibility of a perfonal correfpondence with Sir William Temple, till fome years after her fon's birth; who, as before observed, was born in 1667. [O. let. 1.]

At about the age of fix years [1673] he was fent to the school of Kilkenny; and having continued there eight years, he was, at the age of fourteen, [1681], admitted into the univerfity of Dublin, and became a ftudent in Trinity college. There he lived in perfect regularity, and obeyed the ftatutes with the utmost exactness. But the moroseness of his temper often rendered him very unacceptable to his companions; fo that he was little regarded, and lefs beloved: And he was fo much depreffed by the disadvantages of his fituation, deriving his prefent fubfiftence merely from the precarious bounty of an uncle, and having no other object of hope but the continuance of it *, that he could not refift the temptaC 2 tion

* While Swift was at the university, one day as he was looking out of his window penfive and melancholy, his pockets being then at the lowest ebb, he spied a master of a ship gazing about in the college courts. Lord, thought he, if that person fhould now be enquiring and ftaring about for my chamber, in order to bring me fome prefent from my cousin Willoughby Swift, what a happy creature fhould I be! He had scarce amused himself with this pleasing imagination, when behold the shipmafter having come into his chamber, asked him if his name was Jonathan Swift? who having told him it was;

Why