nificant people who worry me with Trifles. I often reflect on my present life as the exact Burlesque of my middle age, which passed among Ministers that you and your party since call the worst of times. I am now acting the same things in Miniature, but in a higher station as first Minister, nay sometimes as a Prince, in which last quality my Housekeeper, a grave elderly woman, is called at home and in the neighbourhood Sr Robert. My Butler is Secretary, and has no other defect for that office but that he cannot write; Yet that is not singular, for I have known three Secretaryes of state upon the same level, and who were too old to mend, which mine is not. My realm extends to 120 Houses, whose inhabitants constitute the Bulk of my Subjects; my Grand Jury is my House of Commons, and my Chapter the House of Lords. I must proceed no further, because my Arts of Governing are Secrets of State.

"As to my Economy, I cannot call myself a Housekeeper. My servants are at Boardwages; however I dine almost constantly at home, because, literally speaking, I know not above one Family in this whole Town where I can go for a Dinner. The old Hospitality is quite extinguished by Poverty and the oppressions of England. When I would have a friend eat with me, I direct him in general to send in the morning and enquire whether I dine at home, and alone; I add a Fowl to my Commons, and something else if the Company be more, but I never mingle strangers, nor multiply dishes. I give a reasonable price for my wine (higher my ill-paid, sunk rents will not reach). I am seldom without 8 or nine Hogsheads. And as to the rest, if your Lordship will do me that Honour when you come to Town, you must submit to the same method. Onely perhaps I will order the Butler to see whether, by chance, he can find out an odd bottle of a particular choice wine which is all spent, although there may be a dozen or two remaining; but they are like Court Secrets, kept in the Dark. As to puddings, my Lord, I am not only the best, but the sole perfect maker of them in this kingdom; they are universally known and esteemed under the name of the Deanry Puddings: Suit and Plumbs are three-fourths of the Ingredients; I had them from my Aunt Giffard, who preserved the succession from the time of Sir W. Temple."

THE DEAN'S LAST ILLNESS.

Swift's health was now gradually giving way under the pressure of age, and his recurring fits of deafness and giddiness. He had intervals of judgment, but his memory became imperfect; and these were the precursors of the final disorder he had long dreaded. So early as 1717, Dr. Young was walking with Swift about a mile out of Dublin, when the Dean stopped short. The Doctor passed on, and perceiving Swift did not follow, he went back, and found him fixed as a statue, and earnestly gazing upward at a noble elm, which, in its uppermost branches, was much withered and decayed. Pointing at it, he said, "I shall be like that tree; I shall die

at the top." And when the Dean, in conversation, dwelt upon the mental imbecility which closed the lives of Somers, Marlborough, and other distinguished contemporaries, it was never without a deep and anxious presage of his own fate.

But he had not lost his acute feeling. When Dr. Sheridan was about to remove from Dublin, Swift happened to call in just as the workmen were taking down the pictures in the parlour-that room where, for such a number of years, he had passed so many happy hours. Struck with the sight, he burst into tears, and rushed into a dark closet, where he continued a quarter of an hour before he could compose himself. In November, 1731, he wrote the memorable verses † prophetic of his own death, in which occur these lines:

"See how the Dean begins to break,

Poor gentleman, he droops apace,
You plainly find it in his face;

That old vertigo in his head

Will never leave him till he's dead;
Besides his memory decays,

He recollects not what he says."

Among the Dean's singularities were his resolution never to wear spectacles, and his obstinate perseverance in the use of too much exercise. He writes to Pope, December 2, 1736:

"I have not been in a condition to write: years and infirmities have quite broke me; I mean that odious continual disorder in my head. I neither read, nor write, nor remember, nor converse: all I have left is to walk and ride; the first I can do tolerably; but the latter, for want of good weather at this season, is seldom in my power; and having not an ounce of flesh about me, my skin comes off in ten miles riding, because my skin and bone cannot agree together. But I am angry because you will not suppose me as sick as I am, and write to me out of perfect charity, although I cannot answer.

Swift's determination not to wear spectacles now made reading very difficult to him: he was at a loss how to fill up his time, and this led him to over-exercise.

In the spring of 1737, the Dean maintained that he had never received any benefit from the advice or prescriptions of his five medical men: Arbuthnot alone understood his case, but he could not remedy it. Swift now writes to Alderman

* Byron had a similar feeling, and more than once spoke of "dying, like Swift, at the top first;" but he has not been accused of insanity by any of his biographers.

"These verses have an exquisite facility; but we are not to suppose that Swift wrote them off-hand; their ease is the result of very careful composition."-Rogers,

Barber that his health is much decayed; his giddiness and deafness more frequent, his spirits fled, his memory almost gone. He says: "I sink every day, and am older by 20 years than any other of the same age.' Ten days later, he writes to Sheridan: "I can hardly write ten lines without twenty blunders, as you will see by the number of scratches and blots before this letter is done. Into the bargain, I have not one ray of memory, and my friends have all forsaken me, except Mr. Whiteway, who preserves some pity for my condition, and a few others, who love wine that costs them nothing."

In January, 1738, he again writes to Alderman Barber: "I have, for almost three years past, been only the shadow of my former self, with years of sickness and rage against all public proceedings, especially in this miserably oppressed country. I have entirely lost my memory, except when it is roused by perpetual subjects of vexation." So desponding was he at times, that he used to say, on parting with a friend : Well, God bless you! but I hope I shall never see you again."

66

He grew worse during 1738, and his friends thought he could not long survive. Yet, in the year before, he wrote with his own hand his will, and finally arranged, with all due legal precaution, that his property should, after his death, be applied in the erection of the Hospital that now bears his name. He, however, felt greatly the severe winter of 1739. He grew worse in April, 1740; yet he was able to give a dinner-party within a fortnight after, so changeable was his malady: he used, however, to forget the name of friends who visited him twice a-week. Mr. Wilde, in his Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life, particularly mentions this circumstance, because the subsequent increase of this defect has been enumerated by his biographer, among the proofs of the insanity of a man past 73! Mr. Wilde argues that Swift's disease was not insanity; and proves that in one of his severe fits of giddiness and deafness, the Dean dictated an answer to a public address, "in which there is all the dignity of habitual pre-eminence, and all the resignation of humble piety." Nor can insanity be read in the Dean's forgetfulness and state of second-childishness. Mr. Wilde adds:

That his various friends did not believe him to be insane, nor regard him as an idiot at this period, though they were well aware of his loss of memory and other infirmities, is manifest from their writing to him in

the usual manner. Although it was not concluded, nor signed, till 1740, Swift's will, it would appear from his letter of directions to Mrs. Whiteway, respecting his interment, &c., was written in 1737; but the codicil to it was evidently added between May 2 and 3, 1740. As that document was received and put in force as the act of a sane person, we cannot believe him to have been deranged up to that period. His approaching sad condition may be learned from one of his letters to Mrs. Whiteway at this time; one of the last, in all probability, he ever wrote.

"I have been very miserable all night, and to-day extremely deaf and full of pain. I am so stupid and confounded, that I cannot express the mortification I am under both in body and mind. All I can say is, that I am not in torture; but I daily and hourly expect it. Pray let me know how your health is, and your family. I hardly understand one word I write. I am sure my days will be very few; few and miserable they must be.

"I am, for those few days,

"Yours entirely,

"J. SWIFT. ·

"If I do not blunder, it is Saturday, July 26, 1740. If I live till Monday I shall hope to see you, perhaps for the last time."

The last two documents in the Dean's handwriting, and, probably, the last he ever penned, are a note to Mrs. Whiteway, concerning her health, and his address to his Sub-Dean and Chapter on the subject of the choir: the former dated the 13th and the latter the 28th of January, 1741. Occasional entries in his account-books were, however, made as late as 1742, when he was in his seventy-fifth year. From this period may be dated his complete loss of memory, and inability of managing his own affairs; so that his estate was put under the management of trustees, and his person confided to the care of the Rev. Dr. Lyon.

In 1743, we find him described as remaining in silence: "he would often," says Delany, "attempt to speak his mind, but could not recollect words to express his meaning; upon which he would shrug up his shoulders, shake his head, and sigh heartily." In this very remarkable passage, (says Mr. Wilde,) which details anything but a state of insanity, we have, perhaps, the true account of Swift's actual condition. From this period, it is said, he remained silent until Saturday the 19th of October, 1745, when he died at three o'clock in the afternoon, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, without a single pang, so gently, indeed, that his attendants were scarce aware of the moment of his dissolution. He expired in the arms of Richard Brennan, who had attended him

during the six years that immediately preceded his death, and who was, at that time, one of the bell-ringers of St. Patrick's.

At a post-mortem examination, on opening the skull, the sinus of Swift's brain was found loaded with water. Mr. Wilde states his disease to have been cerebral congestion: for the few last years from his seventy-fifth to his seventy-eighth year his disease partook of the nature of senile decay, or the dementia of old age; and he did not expire "a driv❜ler and a show."

BURIAL-PLACE OF SWIFT.

On the announcement of the Dean's death, the enthusiasm of Irish gratitude broke out, and he was mourned as if he had been called away in the full career of his public services. Young and old of all ranks surrounded the house to pay the last tribute of sorrow and affection; and they begged the most trifling article that had belonged to him to be treasured up as a relic-"yea, begged a hair of his for memory."

Mr. Monck Mason relates: "A person who resides in my family is one of the few persons, perhaps the only one, now living, who witnessed the melancholy spectacle [of the remains of Swift lying in state]. She remembers him as well as if it was but yesterday; he was laid out in his own hall, and great crowds went to see him.-His coffin was open; he had on his head neither cap nor wig; there was not much hair on the front or very top, but it was long and thick behind, very white, and was like flax on the pillow.-Mrs. Barnard, his nurse-tender, sat at his head, but, having occasion to leave the room for a short time, some person cut a lock of hair from his head, which she missed upon her return; and after that day no person was admitted to see him.'"

In the Dean's will he desired to be buried with privacy, which word was so strictly interpreted by the executors that it was reported they intended to have the remains carried out at the back-door of the Deanery at one in the morning, by four porters, into the church, attended only by two clergymen. To this course Mrs. Whiteway spiritedly objected, and through her appeal to the executors, the remains were interred with more fitting respect as regards the funeral appointments, though still with privacy.

His remains rest in the great aisle of St. Patrick's Cathedral, where is the following inscription, written by himself,