the most had almost all preceded him to the tomb. Oxford, Arbuthnot, Peterborough, Gay, Lady Masham and Rowe, had one by one dropped off. Of all that brilliant company who had surrounded him in the days of his power, Pope and Bolingbroke alone remained, and Pope was sinking under continued illness, and Bolingbroke was drawing his last breath in the more congenial atmosphere of France. A cloud had passed over his friendship with Sheridan, whom he sincerely loved, but whose boisterous spirits had become too much for the old and misanthropic man, and Sheridan had now gone with broken fortunes to a school at Cavan. Stella had left no successor. His niece, Mrs. Whiteway, watched over him with unwearied kindness, but she could not supply the place of those who had gone.

He looked forward to death without terror, but his mind quailed at the prospect of the dotage and the decrepitude that precedes it. He had seen the greatest general and the greatest lawyer of the day sink into second childhood, and he felt that the fate of Marlborough and of Somers would at last be his own. A large mirror once fell to the ground in the room where he was standing. A friend observed how nearly it had killed him. "Would to God," he exclaimed, "that it had!" His later letters-especially his letters to his friend Knightly Chetwode-are full of complaints of attacks of deafness and dizziness, of J failure of memory, of confusion of mind. He was conscious of failing powers, and grew morbidly restless and irritable. His flashes of wit became fewer and fewer. Avarice, the common vice of the old, came upon him, and he was himself quite aware of the fact. He shrank

from all hospitality, from all luxuries. Yet even at this time his large charities were unabated, and he refused a considerable sum which was offered him to renew a lease on terms that would be disadvantageous to his

successors.

After 1736 the failure of his faculties grew very evident, and in 1742 it became necessary to place him under restraint.

At length the evil day arrived. A tumour, accompanied by excruciating pain, arose over one of his eyes. For a month he never gained a moment of repose. For a week he was with difficulty restrained by force from tearing out his eye. The agony was too great for human endurance. It subsided at last, but his mind had wholly ebbed away. It was not madness; it was absolute idiocy that ensued. He remained passive in the hands of his attendants without speaking, or moving, or betraying the slightest emotion. Once, indeed, when someone spoke of the illuminations by which the people were celebrating the anniversary of his birthday, he muttered, "It is all folly; they had better leave it alone." Occasionally he endeavoured to rouse himself from his torpor, but could not find words to form a sentence, and with a deep sigh he relapsed into his former condition. His face, Mrs. Delany tells us, retained all its old beauty; the hard lines that once gave it a harsh expression had passed away, while his long silver hair gave him a most venerable appearance, but every spark of intelligence had disappeared. It was not till he had continued in this state for two years that he exchanged the sleep of idiocy for the sleep of death.

He died in October, 1745, in his seventy-eighth year,

and was buried beside Stella, in his own cathedral, where the following epitaph, written by himself, marks his grave:

HIC DEPOSITUM EST CORPUS

JONATHAN SWIFT, S. T. P.

HUJUS ECCLESIÆ CATHEDRALIS

DECANI.

UBI SÆVA INDIGNATIO

COR ULTERIUS LACERARE NEQUIT.

ABI VIATOR,

ET IMITARE SI POTERIS,

STRENUUM PRO VIRILI LIBERTATIS VINDICEM.

His property he left to build a madhouse. It would seem as though he were guided in his determination by an anticipation of his own fate. He himself assigned another reason. He says in his poem on his own

death:

"He left the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad,

To show by one satiric touch
No nation needed it so much."

The paper of "Resolutions," of which a facsimile (slightly reduced) is given opposite, was found by Mrs. Whiteway among Swift's papers at his death. It is here reproduced from the original, now in the Forster Collection at South Kensington. The following is a literal transcript:

When I come to be old. 1699.

Not to marry a young Woman.

Not to keep young Company unless they reely desire it.
Not to be peevish or morose, or suspicious.

Not to scorn present Ways, or Wits, or Fashions, or Men, or
War, &c.

Not to be fond of Children, or let them come near me hardly.' Not to tell the same story over and over to the same People. Not to be covetous.

Not to neglect decency, or cleenlyness, for fear of falling into Nastyness.

Not to be over severe with young People, but give Allowances for their youthfull follyes and weaknesses.

Not to be influenced by, or give ear to knavish tatling servants, or others.

Not to be too free of advise, nor trouble any but those that

desire it.

To desire 2 some good Friends to inform me wch of these Resolutions I break, or neglect, and wherein; and reform accordingly.

Not to talk much, nor of my self.

Not to boast of my former beauty, or strength, or favor with Ladyes, &c.

Not to hearken to Flatteryes, nor conceive I can be beloved by a young woman, et eos qui hereditatem captant, odisse ac vitare.

Not to be positive or opiniative.

Not to sett up for observing all these Rules; for fear I should observe none.

1 The words in italics were erased by another hand, probably by Deane Swift.

2 The original word was conjure."

fish he bond of my farmer beauty, offrenill

not to hearker to Flatteryer,

pener beauty, auftreill, or hair will Ladyes, the no conceive I can be beloved by a young women. It eas que heu talem explant rifle nd to be positive or quiciale.