difcreet, it cannot be denied that fhe retrieved it by prudence and œconomy, at an age when many have continued diffolute, and was frugal after the habit of expence had made frugality difficult; if fhe could not fubdue a paffion which has tyrannifed over the strongest and pureft minds, the does not appear to have known that it was criminal, or to have desired that it might be unlawfully gratified. She preffed a person whom she believed fingle to marry her, but it does not therefore follow, that he was his concubine, much less that fhe defired to be reputed fo, and was then follicitous to incur the infamy which has been fince thrown upon her. It cannot furely be believed that the fhameless and reputed concubine, even of Swift, would have been vifited by ladies of credit and fashion, or follicited in marriage by two clergymen of eminence and fortune, to whom her story and character must have been well known: befides, Dr. Berkeley, after having carefully perufed all the letters that paffed between them which Vanefa directed to be published, with the poem, found that they contained nothing that could bring the leaft difgrace upon the dean; her's, indeed, were full of paffionate declarations of her love; his contained only compliments, excufes, apologies, and thanks for trifling prefents. There was not in either the least trace of a criminal commerce, which, if there had been any fuch, it would, in so long an intercourse, have been extremely difficult to avoid; and, if fhe defired to be reputed his concubine, it cannot be fuppofed that the concealed any letter which would have proved that fhe was fo, especially as it would have gratified her refentment against him, for refufing to make her his wife.

0.73.

J.R. 12',

122, 123.

If it appears, therefore, that there was no criminal commerce between them, and that she did not desire the world should believe there had been any, it fol

lows

lows from her directing the publication of the poem,> of which, perhaps, the poffeffed the only copy, that, in her fenfe of the verfes, none of them implied a fact which would dishonour her memory. And this

appears also to have been the opinion of J.R. 123. her executors, who though they fuppreffed the letters, because they contained nothing that could do her honour, yet published the poem, by which, it must therefore be fuppofed, they did not think he would be difgraced.

It has indeed been faid, that Vanessa, from the time she was deserted devoted herself, like Ariadne,

to Bacchus and perhaps it is true that in J.R. 123. the anguish of disappointed defire she had recourse to that dreadful opiate which never fails to complicate difeafe with trouble, to leave the fufferer more wretched when its operation is at an end, to divide life into frenzy and defpair, and at once to haften the approach, and increase the terrors of death. But it cannot be thought, that when the made her will, fhe was either intoxicated or delirious, because the perfect exercise of reafon is effential to the validity of the act. No particular of her diftrefs, therefore, can weaken the arguments drawn from the direction in her will to publifh the poem and the letters, of which the gratification of her vanity was fo evidently the motive, that it is difficult to conceive how it could be overlooked.

From 1716 to 1720 is a chaẩm in the dean's life, which it has been found difficult to fill up. That he had no need to repeat his college exercises, has been fhewn already; and that, in this interval, J.R. 101. he went through a voluminous courfe of ecclefiaftical hiftory, feems farther improbable by a letter to lord Bolingbroke, dated April 5, 1729, in which it appears, that he was then reading Baronius, and Baronius was the only piece of church hiftory that was found in his library. Lord Orrery thinks,

with great reason, that he employed this time upon Gulliver's Travels.

The author of the Obfervations, indeed, fuppofes the dean's genius to be verging towards a decline, in the year 1723, and that Gulliver's Travels were written after that time; but in both these fuppofitions he is probably mistaken; though in the former he feems to be favoured by a paffage in a letter written by the dean himself to Mr. Pope, dated Sept. 20, 1723.

See vol. :

xii. 190.

That his genius was not declining in 1723, appears by the Draper's letters, which were not written till 1724; and of these the Obfervator himself fays, his genius never fhone out in greater strength than on that and the fubfequent occafions,' a truth which is univerfally acknowledged. That Gulliver's Travels were written before that time is equally evident, for Swift went into the north of Ireland early in the fpring of 1725, and, in a letter to doctor Sherridan, during his refidence there he puts him in mind of his description of the Taboos, fo that Sherridan must have seen the Travels in manufcript, at leaft, in the year 1724. The dean alfo, in a letter to Mr. Pope, dated Sept. 29, 1725, fays, O! if the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my Travels. It may reasonably be concluded, therefore, that his Travels were then all written, and that at this time he was reviewing and retouching them for the prefs, especially as they were published in 1726; and as he was otherwife employed in 1724, they must have been written, at least, before 1723.

Upon the whole, perhaps, it is not an extravagant conjecture, that having, according to his own account, wholly neglected his ftudies for the firft three years of his refidence at the deanery, and indulged the refentment which his difappointments had produced till it could be contained no longer,

he

he conceived the first notion of expreffing it in fuch a manner as might correct the enormities which he expofed; and with this view immediately began his Travels, of which the first copy was, probably, finished before the year 1720.

About this time the dean, who had already acquired the character of a humourist and a wit, was firft regarded with general kindness, as a patriot of Ireland. He wrote a propofal for the univerfal ufe of Irish manufactures; a tract, which as it was apparently calculated for the service of Ireland, and zealously condemned a facrifice of intereft to England, made him very popular; but this fervice would not, perhaps, have been fo long and fo zealously remembered, if a profecution had not been commenced against the printer. As foon as this measure was taken, the importance of the work was estimated by the diligence of the government to suppress it, and the zeal and integrity of the writer were measured by the danger he had incurred. No publick notice, however, was taken of the dean on this occafion; and Waters, the printer, after having been long harraffed and imprisoned, at length obtained a noli profequi.

The dean did not again appear in his political cha racter till the year 1724. A patent having been iniquitously procured by one Wood to coin 180,000l. in copper, for the ufe of Ireland, by which he would have acquired exorbitant gain, and proportionably impoverished the nation, the dean, in the character of a Draper, wrote a series of letters to the people, urging them not to receive this copper money. Thefe letters united the whole nation in his praife, filled every street with his effigies, and every voice with acclamations; and Wood, though he was long fupported by those who proftituted the highest delegated authority to the vileft purposes, was at length compel

See Vol X. p. 1. See the letters and notes, Vol. X.

led

led to withdraw his patent, and his money was totally fuppreffed.

Upon the arrival of lord Carteret, foon after the publication of the fourth letter, feveral paffages were felected as fufficient ground for a profecution, and his excellency and council published a proclamation, offering 300l. reward for a discovery of the author. This proclamation gave the dean a remarkable opportunity to illuftrate his character. It happened that his butler, whom he had employed as his amanuenfis, and who alone was trufted with the secret, went out in the afternoon of the day of the proclamation, without leave, and staid abroad the whole night and part of the next day. There was great reafon to fufpect that he had made an information, and having received his reward, would never return. The man, however, came home in the evening, and the dean was advised by his friends to take no notice of his fault, left he fhould be provoked to a breach of truft, from the dread of which his return had just delivered them. But the dean rejected this counfel with the utmost disdain, and, commanding the man into his presence, ordered him immediately to strip off his livery and leave the house. You villain, faid he, I know I am in your power, and for that very reason I will the lefs bear with your infolence or neglect.

The man, in very fubmiffive terms, confeffed that he had been drinking all night, and intreated to be forgiven, but Swift was inexorable; he then begged that he might be confined in fome part of the house fo long as the proclamation could intitle him to any reward, left when he was driven from his fervice, and deftitute of another, the temptation might be too strong for his virtue, and his diftrefs might involve him in a crime which he most abhorred, Swift, however, was ftill inexorable, and the man was difmiffed. During all the time of danger, Swift obftinate

ly