Swift was down in the dumps in a moment. You could not expect the author of Gulliver to relish his fellow-humans in a lump. Sticking his head out of the window, he called to the coachman and told him to drive back to Dublin, as he could not think of mixing with such a crowd. Then, luckily for himself, as it turned out, he saw that the affair had gone too far to be thus lightly abandoned. ‘Well,’ he declared gloomily, ‘there is no remedy; I must submit; but I have lost a fortnight of my life.’ He had not; but how many fortnights in that long unhappy life of his might not he have lost and yet only gained thereby, perhaps won some little touch of heart’s ease?
He was received at the door by Mathew, who conducted him to his room, made the usual speech about the customs of the house, and then retired, leaving Swift, still gloomily submissive and not a little incredulous, to his dour meditations. Shortly afterwards, however, the cook appeared with his bill of fare, and the butler with his wine list, ready to receive orders. ‘And is all this really so?’ Swift demanded of his two companions; ‘and may I command here as in my own house?’ Dr. Sheridan and his friend assured him that he might, that the host desired all his guests to suit their own inclinations without the least restraint. ‘Well then,’ cried Swift, ‘I invite you and Dr. Sheridan to be my guests while I stay, for I think I shall scarcely be tempted to mix with the mob below.’
Now listen to our historian, for we hasten to the climax:
Three days were passed in riding over the demesne, and viewing the various improvements, without ever seeing Mr. Mathew or any of the guests: nor were the company below much concerned at the dean’s absence, as his very name usually inspired those who did not know him with awe, and they were afraid that his presence would put an end to the ease and cheerfulness which reigned among them. On the fourth day Swift entered the room where the company were assembled before dinner, and addressed Mr. Mathew in a strain of the highest compliment, expatiating on all the beauties of his improvements, with the skill of an artist, and with the taste of a connoisseur. Such an address from a man of Swift’s character could not fail of being pleasing to the owner, who was, at the same time, the planner of these improvements; and so fine an eulogium from one who was supposed to deal more largely in satire than panegyric was likely to remove the prejudice entertained against his character, and prepossess the rest of the company in his favour. He concluded his speech by saying: ‘And now, gentlemen, I am come to live among you, and it shall be no fault of mine if we do not pass our time agreeably.’
There is something almost startling in the naïveté of our historian’s observation that ‘such an address ... could not fail of being pleasing.’ Pleasing indeed! Hearty praise in public from Jonathan Swift was worth all that seven years’ sacrifice.
After that, we are told, all constraint vanished. Swift, as we know, could be the very prince of good fellows in his best days and when the mood was on; and now he entered readily into the life of the place, devised all manner of jests, and kept Thomastown in a roar. Never, we are told, were there such days and nights at Thomastown; and those of us who have more than a superficial acquaintance with Swift can readily believe it. Soon, all too soon, came the time when Sheridan had to return to his school. But Swift was not allowed to depart with his friend; the whole company entreated him to remain; even Mathew himself for once broke through his rule of never soliciting a guest to stay; and the upshot of it was that the great man stayed on, and finally, in place of that wasted fortnight, spent four months, four happy months, as the guest of Thomastown. Thus, though we know so little of Mathew’s guests, at least we do know this: he sheltered beneath his roof for more than a hundred nights one of the greatest intellects of his time; he was enabled to give some little time of rest and forgetfulness, snatched, as it were, before the coming of a dreadful darkness, to one of the greatest and most unhappy spirits known to our literature. That, surely, was no little thing. Nor did it lack recompense. I have said that Mathew, this eccentric personage, this king of hosts, was not without greatness, not yet suitably acknowledged. But I was wrong. For whatever he did, if the tale holds true, the world repaid him in full, the thanks of all guests to this greatest of hosts have long ago been given their voice, and the debt is cleared. For was he not praised by Swift?
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW.
| Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber: |
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| yet did not hestitate to juggle=> yet did not hesitate to juggle {pg 46} |