،، conquered with his eyes, which Pope said were azure as the heavens, with a charming archness in them." After Stella's death he became crabbed, and stingy, and deaf, and cross, and miserable. His birthday, which was always celebrated with bonfires and great rejoicings, was to him the saddest day of the year. He had made a foolish vow not to wear glasses, so he could not read. He thus describes his own condition : "Deaf, giddy, helpless, left alone, I hardly hear a woman's clack." He lost reason and memory, and died a solitary idiot in the hands of servants, on the 19th of October, 1745. He bequeathed most of his property to an hospital for lunatics and idiots "To show, by one satiric touch, Let us turn from this sad picture to some specimens of his wit: A pert young man once said to him, "Do you know, Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit?" "Do you so?" answered Mr. Swift; "take my advice and—sit down again." have an In travelling, he called at a hospitable house, where the good but garrulous lady asked him with great eagerness what he would have for dinner. "Will you apple-pie, sir, or a cherry-pie, sir, or a plum-pie, sir?" Any pie, madam, but a mag-pie.” ،، He disliked profuse apology, and, when a farmer's wife spoiled his dinner by saying "It is not good enough for his worship to sit down to," he exclaimed: "Then why didn't you get a better? You knew I was coming. I've a great mind to go away and dine on a red herring." A gentleman, trying to persuade him house, said, "I will send the bill of fare." "Send me your bill of company." to dine at his Swift replied, Lady Carteret, The taxes were very severe in Ireland. wife of the lord-lieutenant, said to him: "The air of Ireland is very excellent and healthy." "For goodness' sake," said Swift, "don't say so in England, madam, for if you do, they will certainly tax it.” His favorite barber, having decided to take a public house and yet keep up his old business, begged the dean to give him "a smart little touch of poetry, to clap under his sign." So he wrote this couplet, which remained for many years: "Rove not from pole to pole, but step in here, Where naught excels the shaving, but the beer." He was fond of making extempore proverbs, to suit the circumstances. Walking with some friends in a gentleman's garden, who did not invite them to enjoy his tempting fruit, Swift observed that it was a saying of his dear grandmother: Always pull a peach, When it is within your reach!" and at once helped himself, followed by the whole company. His servants were truly attached to him, and would never leave him, yet his method of discipline was peculiar. One of them annoyed him by her carelessness-leaving doors open. She had once obtained permission to attend. her sister's wedding, and had been gone some fifteen minutes, when she was sent for to return. Back she came, post-haste, to the dean's study, to know what he wanted. "Shut the door!" was the laconic answer, with a long moral understood. He sometimes loved to impose upon the credulity of the Irish, especially their faith in him. When a large crowd had gathered -one morning to see an eclipse, he gave a crier a shilling to announce, "that it was the pleasure of the dean that the eclipse should not come off till nine o'clock the next day." Whereupon they all quietly dispersed. There is a witty epigram, reporting a little sharpshooting between the caustic dean and some unknown fair one, in which the lady certainly had the best of it: "Cries Sylvia to a reverend dean, 'What reason can be given, Since marriage is a holy thing, That there are none in heaven?' 'There are no women,' he replied; They cannot find a priest." In judging the character and conduct of this unhappy man, we should remember his peculiar temperament and his disordered brain. He was loved and sincerely lamented by his friends, by the poor, by the whole Irish nation whom he helped so powerfully. He wanted a proper position in life, and was no more selfish than other men in his efforts to obtain it. He did much for England, and expected England to do something for him. His faults were so prominent, that his virtues are apt to be forgotten; and, no doubt, his memory has been treated with too much harshness. A man could not have been wholly bad whom Addison spoke of "as the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, the greatest genius of his times." Sir James Mackintosh said of him: "The distinguishing feature of his moral character was a strong sense of justice, which disposed him to exact with rigor, as well as in general scrupulously to observe, the duties of society. These powerful feelings, exasperated probably by some circumstances of his own life, were gradually formed into an habitual and painful indignation against triumphant wrong, which became the ruling principle of his character and writings. His hatred of hypocrisy sometimes drove him to a parade of harshness, which made his character appear less amiable than it really was. His friendships were faithful, if not tender, and his beneficence was active, though it rather sprang from principle than feeling. No stain could be discoverable in his private conduct, if we could forget his intercourse with one unfortunate and with one admirable woman." "His whole nature was small, thin, and fine, rather than large or broad. Like a tongue of flame, however, thin and small as it was, it was high-aspiring." AMONG the brilliant wits of Queen Anne's reign, none stands higher than ALEXANDER POPE, born in the memorable year of the revolution, May 22, 1688. But sadness mingled with joy in his mother's heart, for her child. was both sickly and deformed. His face, in childhood, however, was remarkably pleasant, his temper mild and gentle, and his voice so sweet that he was called "the little nightingale." When this pretty, delicate boy became a famous poet, he used his powers of sarcasm so often and so freely, that he was feared and hated as well as admired; and gruff old Dr. Johnson said of him, that "the |