Sketch and note.

but died young, and left only one fon, whose name alfo was Thomas, and who died in 1752, rector of Puttenham, in Surry, a benefice which he had poffeffed threefcore years. Godwin was a barrister of Grays-Inn, and William, Dryden, Jonathan, and Adam, were attornies.

Godwin having married a relation of the old marchioness of Ormond, the old duke of Ormond made him his attorney general in the palatinate of Tipperary in Ireland. Ireland was at this time almoft without lawyers, the rebellion having made almost every man of whatever condition 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 become 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.

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 Forefter, who raised an army to oppofe William the Conqueror, by whom he was vanquifhed, 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 twenty pounds which her husband had purchafed for her in England, immediately after his marriage.

In this diftrefs fhe was taken with her daugher into the family of Godwin, her husband's eldest brother, and on the 30th of November, 1667, about seven months after her husband's death, fhe was delivered of a fon, whom the called Jonathan in remembrance of his father, and who was afterwards the celebrated dean of St. Patrick's.

D. S. p.

Of all the brothers of Mrs. Swift's husband, God win only had fons; and by these fons the was fubfifted in her old age, as fhe had been before by their father and their uncles, with fuch liberality, that she declared herself not only happy but rich.

23.

It happened, by whatever accident, that Jonathan was not fuckled by his mother, but by a nurse, 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 dangerously sick, and from whom the expected a legacy, the 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 nurfe however gave other teftimonies of her affection to Jonathan, for during his ftay at Whitehaven, she had taught him to fpell, and when he was five years old he was able to read any chapter in the bible.

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.

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 say when the people of Ireland difpleafed him,

I am not of this vile country, I am an Englishman. Mr. Pope alfo in one of his letters to him, mentions England as his native country; but 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 B4

10

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.

See vol.

xii. p. 98.

He has also been thought by fome to have been a natural fon of fir William Temple, a mistake which was probably founded upon another, for till the publication of his letter to lord Palmerston, among his pofthumous works, he was thought to have received fuch favours from fir William as he could not be supposed to bestow upon a person to whom he was not related; however fuch a relation between fir William and the Dean appears beyond contradiction to have been impoffible, for fir William Temple was refident abroad in a public character from the year 1665, to 1670, as may be proved by his letters to the earl of Arlington and the rest Orrery, of the ministry. Swift was born in Novem

P. 5.

ber, 1667, and his mother was never out of the British dominions.

1673.

At about the age of fix years he was fent to the fchool of Kilkenny, and having continued there eight years, he was at the age of fourteen admitted into the univerfity of 1681. Dublin, and became a ftudent in Trinitycollege. There he lived in perfect regularity, and obeyed the ftatutes with the utmost exactSketch. nefs; but he was fo much depressed by the disadvantages of his fituation, deriving his present fubfiftence meerly 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 temptation to neglect many neceffary objects of academic ftudy, to which he was not by nature much inclined, and apply himself wholly to books of history and poetry, by which he could without intellectual labour fill his mind with pleafing images, and for a while fufpend the fenfe of his condition. The facrifice of the future to the prefent, whether it be a folly or a

fault,

fault, is feldom unpunished, and Swift foon found himself in the fituation of a man who had burned his bed to warm his hands, for at the end of

four years he was refufed his degree of ba- 1685. chelor of arts for infufficiency, and was at last admitted fpeciali gratia, which is there confidered as the highest degree of reproach and dishonour.

But upon Swift, this punishment was not ineffectual, he dreaded the repetition of fuch difgrace as the laft evil that could befal him, and therefore immediately fet about to prevent it as the principal business of his life. During feven years from that time he studied eight hours a day; and by fuch an effort of fuch a mind fo long continued, 7. R. 5 J. great knowledge muft neceffarily have been acquired. He commenced thefe ftudies at the univerfity in Dublin, where he continued them three years, and during this time he alfo drew the first sketch of his Tale of a Tub *.

1688.

In the year 1688, when he was about twenty-one, and had been seven years at college, his uncle Godwin was feized with a lethargy, and foon after totally deprived both of his speech and his memory; as by this accident Swift was left without fupport, he took a journey to Leicester that he might confult with his mother what courfe of life to purfue. At this time fir William Temple was in high reputation, and honoured with the confidence and familiarity of king William. His father, fir John Temple, had been mafter of the Rolls in Ireland and contracted an intimate friendship with Godwin Swift which continued till his death, and fir William who inherited his title and eftate had married a lady to whom Mrs. Swift was related; fhe therefore advised

Waffendon Warren, efq; a gentleman of fortune near Belfaft, in the north of Ireland, who was chamber fellow with Dr.

D. S. p.

33, 34

her fon to communicate his fituation to fir William, and follicit his direction what to do; this advice, which perhaps only confirmed a refolution that Swift had fecretly taken before he left Ireland, he immediately refolved to pursue.

Sir William received him with great kind1690. ness, and Swift's firft vifit continued two years; fir William had been ambaffador and mediator of a general peace at Nimeguen before the revolution; in this character he became known to the prince of Orange, who frequently vifited him at Sheen, after his arrival in England, and took his advice in affairs of the utmost importance. Sir William being then lame with the gout, Swift used to attend his majesty in his walks about the garden, who admitted him to fuch familiarity that he fhewed him how to cut asparagus after the Dutch manner, and once offered to make him a captain of horse. Swift appears to have fixed his D. S. 108. mind very early upon an ecclefiaftical life, and it is therefore probable that upon declining this offer he obtained a promife of preferment in the church, for in a letter to his uncle William, dated

D. S. 56.

1692, he fays, 'I am not to take orders till the king gives me a prebend.'

Sir William becoming ftill more infirm, and wishing to retire farther from London, bought an estate at Farnham in Surry, called Moorpark, whither he was accompanied by Swift *. About this time a bill was brought