altogether interrupted by the death of his uncle Godwin and the derangement of his affairs, which then first became public, had he not found another patron in his uncle Dryden William Swift. This gentleman gave the necessary support to his orphan nephew, and it would seem with more grace and apparent kindness, though not more liberally in amount than his brother Godwin, for he too was in narrow circumstances. But Swift always cherished his memory, and recorded him as the best of his relations." He used also to mention an incident which occurred while he was at college, of which Willoughby Swift, his cousin, the son of Dryden William, was the hero. Sitting one day in his chamber, absolutely pennyless, he saw a seaman in the court below, who seemed enquiring for the apartment of one of the students. It occurred to Swift that this man might bring a message from his cousin Willoughby, then settled as a Lisbon merchant, and the thought scarcely had crossed his mind when the door opened, and the stranger approaching him, produced a large leathern purse of silver coin, and poured the contents before him, as a present from his cousin. Swift, in his ecstasy, offered the bearer a part of his treasure, which the honest sailor generously declined. And from that moment, Swift, who had so deeply experienced the miseries of indigence, resolved so to manage his scanty income, as never again to be reduced to extremity. The system by which he regulated his expense was so very rigid, that, from many of his journals still existing, it is clear he could have accounted for every penny of his expenditure, during any year of his life, from the time of his being at college, until the total decline of his faculties.

Pleasure, as well as necessity, interfered with Swift's studies. Poverty, and the sense of the contempt which accompanies it, often gives to a lofty temper a cast of recklessness and desperation, and Swift's mind was by one of his friends well likened to an evoked spirit, that would do mischief if not supplied with constant employment. Johnson, who studied at college under similar disadvantages, has expressed such feelings in his own nervous language. Hearing from Mr. Boswell that he

had been considered as a gay and frolicsome fellow, while at Pembroke, he answered, "Ah! Sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness that they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power, and all authority." Even such a rebel against college discipline Swift appears to have been, under similar circumstances; and it is remarkable, that, though far inferior in humour, in purity of style, and in comprehensive genius, Johnson bore a strong resemblance, in his morbid temperament, political opinions, and habits of domination in private society, to the Dean of St. Patrick's. Swift, therefore, while under the dominion. of this untamed spirit, was guilty of many irregularities, some which occasioned reproof, and some which led to yet more severe consequences. He repeatedly neglected, and affected to contemn the discipline of the college, and frequented taverns and coffee-houses. In the wantonness of his wit, he assailed the fellows of the University with satirical effusions, to which the speeches occasionally delivered by the Terre Filius, gave sufficient scope. But though this species of saturnalia had a prescriptive license, experience might have taught Swift that it was not to be relied on, and that the individual ridiculed watched his time and opportunity to retort upon the satirist the pain which he had inflicted. The earlier part of Swift's academical course was more slightly marked with these irregularities, for no record of penal infliction occurs, until a special grace for the degree of Bachelor of Arts was conferred upon him, on 13th February, 1685-6. We are not therefore to look for the cause of the degrading manner in which this degree was bestowed, (as flowing, not from the merit of the student, but the unearned favour of the University,) in Swift's irregularities, but in the neglect of those studies which were then held essential parts of education. In going through the preliminary dissertation, he was ignorant even of the necessary syllogistic forms. He answered the arguments of the impugners in common language, and the proctor reduced his replies into syllogism, the candidate thus displaying a degree of ignorance of what

was then miscalled the art of reasoning, which must of itself have called for the mark of incapacity which was attached to his degree. Yet such was the strength of Swift's memory, that, after thirty or forty years, he could repeat to Sheridan the propositions, as they were attacked and defended, in their proper scholastic technicality.

The disgraceful note with which his degree had been granted, probably added to Swift's negligence, and gave edge to his satirical propensities. Between the periods of 14th November 1685, and 8th October 1687, he incurred no less than seventy penalties for non-attendance at chapel, for neglecting lectures, for being absent from the evening roll-call, and for town-haunting, which is the academical phrase for absence from college without license. At length these irregularities called forth a more solemn censure, for, on 18th March 1686-7, with his cousin, Thomas Swift, his chum, Mr. Warren, and four others, he incurred the disgrace of a public admonition for notorious neglect of duties. His second public punishment was of a nature yet more degrading. On 20th November 1688, Swift, the future oracle of Ireland, was, by a sentence of the Vice-Provost, and senior fellows of the University, convicted of insolent conduct towards the junior Dean, (Owen Lloyd,) and of exciting dissension within the walls of the college. He shared with two companions the suspension of his academical degree, and two of the delinquents, Swift being one, further were sentenced to crave public pardon of the junior Dean.* The bitterness of spirit with which

*Such is the account of this matter inferred by the late Dr. Barrett from the college records; and his acquaintance with the mode of keeping them, and the purposes for which they are made up, entitle his judgment to the greatest weight. His opinion is also confirmed by that of Mr. Theophilus Swift, who expresses his conviction, that, in consequence of his share in the academical satires upon the Fellows of Trinity College, Swift was in danger of losing the testimonium of his degree, without which he could not have been admitted ad eundem at Oxford. And he supposes that, mortified at the recollection of the humiliating conditions imposed as his terms of pardon, his great kinsman was not unwilling that the particulars of the case should be sunk in a general report, that he had been reVOL. II.

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Swift submitted to this despotic infliction, if indeed he obeyed it, for of this there is no absolute proof, may be more easily conceived than described. The sense of his resentment shows itself in the dislike which he exhibits to his Alma Mater, the Trinity College of Dublin, and the satirical severity with which he persecutes Dr. Owen Lloyd, the junior Dean, before whom he had been ordained to make this unworthy prostration.*

This unpleasant circumstance of the Dean's academical life, has become gradually confounded with the yet more severe penalty of expulsion, inflicted upon John Jones, one of his companions. Mr. Richardson has recorded a tradition, that Swift was expelled from college for writing a Tripos, as it is called, or satirical oration, uttered by him as Terræ-Filius. The research of the

fused his degree for insufficiency,-a mode of stating the fact, which was likely to throw more discredit on the discernment of the heads of the university, than on his own acknowledged talents. Yet an ingenious correspondent has alleged the following reasons, to prove that this degrading ceremony never was submitted to.

"From Dr. Barrett's Life of Swift, it appears that he graduated above a year before the usual time, which in Trinity College, Dublin, is four years and a half, therefore speciali gratia must mean that he got it by interest or merit ; or, if it was suspended after, as Dr. B. suggests, it might have been restored to him on intercession of friends. But there appears little to countenance the supposition, that he was ordered to beg pardon on his knees, and nothing to warrant the assertion that he submitted to such an indignity, as there is no trace of his remaining in college after the revolution, which is the date Dr. B. assigns for that censure. The dates are very confused and contradictory as to the two Swifts; and, while he allows Thomas Swift to have had a scholarship, and suspects that Jonathan had not, he forgets that very few ever remain in Trinity College, Dublin, after graduating, unless they enjoy scholarships; and that Jonathan Swift had one, appears further from his remaining in Commons, and being, according to Dr. B., suspended from Commons, by way of punishment, after graduating, which could be no punishment at all to him, if his Commons were not at the charge of the University."

* See the Works of Jonathan Swift, to which these Memoirs are prefixed, Vol. IV. p. 13, where Dr. Lloyd is said to have been bribed by a Deanery to take a cast-mistress off the hands of Lord Wharton.

+ Vol. VI. page 171. Richardson to Lady Bradshaigh, April 22, 1752.-"I am told my Lord (Orrery) is mistaken in some of his facts; for instance, in that wherein he asserts, that Swift's learning was a late acquirement. I am very well warranted by the son of

learned Dr. Barrett has ascertained, that such a tripos was actually delivered, 11th July 1688. He had published its contents, which are preserved in the Lanesborough MS., and he has proved, from the college records, that Jones, the Terre-Filius of the period, was actually deprived of his degree, for the false and scandalous reflections contained in that satire, though the sentence was afterwards mitigated into a temporary suspension of his degree and academical rights. But Jones, not Swift, was the Terræ-Filius so degraded. The inaccuracy of Richardson's informer may be easily pardoned: he was recollecting the events of a remote period, when Swift and Jones, friends and associates, both experienced punishment for petulant satire and insubordination. It is not, therefore, wonderful, that he confounded the circumstances attending their delinquencies, and attributed the more weighty offence, an of fence, too, of which Swift was likely to have been guilty, and the more severe punishment, to him who afterwards became the object of general attention. It is probable, likewise, that the tripos may have been heightened by the satirical strokes of Swift; though I cannot think it likely that he was the principal author of the work, for which Jones sustained the sentence of expulsion, since, with all his grossness, it exhibits little of his hu

mour.

In 1688, the war broke out in Ireland; and Swift, then in his twenty-first year, without money, and if not without learning, at least without the reputation of possessing it, with the stains of turbulence and insubordination attached to his character, and without a single friend to protect, receive, or maintain him, left the Col

an eminent divine, a prelate, who was for three years what is called his chum, in the following account of that fact. Dr. Swift made as great a progress in his learning at the University of Dublin in his youth, as any of his contemporaries; but was so very ill-natured and troublesome, that he was made Terræ-Filius, on purpose to have a pretence to expel him. He raked up all the scandal against the heads of that university, that a severe enquirer, and a still severer temper, could get together into his harangue. He was expelled in consequence of his abuse; and having his discessit, afterwards got admitted at Oxford to his degree."