His sons, of course, adopted entirely different pursuits; and, though affectionate brothers, agreed in nothing save a love for each other and attachment to their father. They were both writers, and good ones; both speakers, and bad ones.
Military etiquette was formerly very conspicuous on some occasions. I well recollect when a man bearing the king’s commission was considered as bound to fight any body and every body that gave him the invitation. When the Duke of York was pleased to exchange shots with Colonel Lennox (afterwards Duke of Richmond), it was considered by our friend Theophilus as a personal offence to every gentleman in England, civil or military; and he held that every man who loved the reigning family should challenge Col. Lennox, until somebody turned up who was good marksman enough to penetrate the colonel, and thus punish his presumption.
Following up his speculative notions, Mr. Swift actually challenged Colonel Lennox for having had the arrogance to fire at the king’s son. The colonel had never seen or even heard of this antagonist; but learning that he was a barrister and a gentleman, he considered that, as a military man, he was bound to fight him as long as he thought proper. The result, therefore, was a meeting;—and Colonel Lennox shot my friend Theophilus clean through the carcase; so that, as Sir Callaghan O’Brallaghan says, “he made his body shine through the sun!”—Swift, according to all precedents on such occasions, first staggered, then fell—was carried home, and given over—made his will, and bequeathed the Duke of York a gold snuff-box! However, he recovered so completely, that when the Duke of Richmond went to Ireland as lord lieutenant, I (to my surprise) saw Swift at his grace’s first levee, most anxious for the introduction. His turn came; and without ceremony he said to the Duke, by way of a pun, that “the last time he had the honour of waiting on his grace, as Colonel Lennox, he received better entertainment—for that his grace had given him a ball!”
“True,” said the duke, smiling; “and now that I am lord lieutenant, the least I can do is to give you a brace of them!”—and in due time, he sent Swift two special invitations to the balls, to make these terms consistent with his excellency’s compliments.
Swift, as will hence be inferred, was a romantic personage. In fact, he showed the most decisive determination not to die in obscurity, by whatever means his celebrity might be acquired.
A savage, justly termed the monster, had, during Swift’s career at the bar, practised the most horrid and mysterious crime we have yet heard of—namely, that of stabbing women indiscriminately in the street—deliberately and without cause. He was at length taken and ordered for trial: but so odious and detestable was his crime, that not a gentleman of the bar would act as his advocate. This was enough to induce Swift to accept the office. He argued truly, that every man must be presumed innocent till by legal proof he appears to be guilty, and that there was no reason why the monster should be excepted from the general rule, or that actual guilt should be presumed on the charge against him more than any other charge against any other person: that prejudice was a primâ facie injustice; and that the crime of stabbing a lady with a weapon which was only calculated to wound, could not be greater than that of stabbing her to the heart, and destroying her on the instant: that if the charge had been cutting the lady’s throat, he would have had his choice of advocates. This line of reasoning was totally unanswerable. He spoke and published his defence of the monster, who, however, was found guilty, and not half punished for his atrocity.
Theophilus had a competent private fortune; but as such men as he must somehow be always dabbling in what is called in Ireland “a bit of a law-suit,” a large per-centage of his rents never failed to get into the pockets of the attorneys and counsellors; and after he had recovered from the Duke of Richmond’s perforation, and the monster had been incarcerated, he determined to change his site, settle in his native country, and place his second son in the university of Dublin.
Suffice it to say, that he soon commenced a fracas with all the fellows of the university, on account of their “not doing justice somehow,” as he said, “to the cleverest lad in Ireland!” and, according to his usual habit, he determined at once to punish several of the offenders by penmanship, and regenerate the great university of Ireland by a powerful, pointed, personal, and undisguised libel against its fellows and their ladies.
Theophilus was not without some plausible grounds to work upon; but he never considered that a printed libel did not admit of any legal justification. He at once put half a dozen of the fellows hors de société, by proclaiming them to be perjurers, profligates, impostors, &c. &c.; and printed, published, and circulated this his eulogium with all the activity and zeal which belonged to his nature, working hard to give it a greater circulation than almost any libel published in Ireland, and that is saying a great deal!—but the main tenor of his charge was a most serious imputation and a very home one.
By the statutes of the Irish university, strict celibacy is required; and Mr. Swift stated “that the fellows of that university, being also clergymen, had sworn on the Holy Evangelists, that they would strictly obey and keep sacred these statutes of the university, in manner, form, letter, and spirit, as enjoined by their charter from the virgin queen. But that, notwithstanding such their solemn oath, several of these fellows and clergymen, flying in the face of the Holy Evangelists and Queen Elizabeth—and forgetful of morality, religion, common decency, and good example, had actually taken to themselves each one woman (at least), who went by the name of Miss Such-a-one, but who, in fact, had, in many instances, undergone, or was supposed to have undergone, the ceremony and consummation of marriage with such and such a perjured fellow and parson of Dublin university: and that those who had not so married, had done worse! and that, thereby, they had either perjured themselves or held out so vicious a precedent to youth, that he was obliged to take away his son, for fear of his morals becoming relaxed.”