CHAPTER V.
JONATHAN SWIFT—JOHN ARBUTHNOT.
The booksellers who employed the most famous man of letters then living (1777), to write the Lives of the Poets, selected the authors whose biographies were to accompany the poems they proposed to publish. They did not know the difference between versemakers and poets; but they probably did know what authors of the rhyming tribe were likely to prove the most popular. Dr. Johnson, who was then in his sixty-ninth year, was willing to write the Lives to order. He added, indeed, three or four names to the list which had been given him; but he made no protest, and contented himself, as he told Boswell, in saying that a man was a dunce when he thought that he was one.
Among the biographies included by Johnson in the Lives, appears the illustrious name of Swift. He was far indeed from being a dunce; but just as certainly he was not a poet, unless the title be given to him by courtesy. On the other hand, Swift ranks among the most distinguished prose writers of his time—many critics consider him the greatest—and he therefore finds his natural place in the prose section of this volume.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).
Swift's life is an extraordinary psychological study, but it will suffice to state here the bare outline of his career. He was a posthumous child, and born in Dublin of English parents, November 30th, 1667. When a year old he was kidnapped by his nurse out of pure affection, and carried off to Whitehaven, where she remained with the child for three years. At the age of six the boy was sent to Kilkenny school, and there he had William Congreve (1670-1729), the future dramatist, for a schoolfellow. Neither at school nor at Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered as a boy of fifteen, did Swift distinguish himself, and he left the University in disgrace. At the Revolution he found a refuge with his mother at Leicester, and she, through a family relationship, obtained a position for her boy in the house of Sir William Temple (1628-1698), who was accounted a great man in his own day, and was famous alike for statecraft and literature. By many readers he will be best remembered as the husband of the charming Dorothy Osborne, whose innocently sweet love-letters have not lost their freshness in the lapse of two centuries.
There was a degree of servitude in Swift's position of secretary, which galled his proud spirit. But Temple, so far from treating him unkindly, introduced him to the King, and employed him in 'affairs of great importance.' In 1694 he left Temple, went to Dublin, took holy orders, and lived as prebend of Kilroot on £100 a year. In 1696 he resigned the office and returned to Moor Park, where he remained until Sir William Temple's death, in 1699. There he studied hard, ran up a steep hill daily for exercise, and cultivated the acquaintance of Esther Johnson, the 'Stella' destined to take a strange part in Swift's history, then a mere girl, and a companion of Temple's sister, who lived with him after his wife's death.
Swift began his literary career by writing Pindaric odes, one of which led Dryden to say, and the prediction was amply verified, 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.' Probably no man of genius ever wrote worse poetry than is to be found in these portentous efforts.
Here is one fair illustration of his flights as an ode writer, and the reader will not ask for more: