[From the Letter from Italy.] For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes, Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise; Poetic fields encompass me around, * * See how the golden groves around me smile, O liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright, Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores; And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile. Ode. How are thy servants blest, O Lord! In foreign realms, and lands remote, Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt, Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil, Think, O my soul! devoutly think, Confusion dwelt on every face, O'ercame the pilot's art. Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord! For though in dreadful whirls we hung The storm was laid, the winds retir'd, The sea that roar'd at thy command, In midst of dangers, fears, and death, I'll praise thee for thy mercies past, My life, if thou preserv'st my life, Thy sacrifice shall be; And death, if death must be my doom, Shall join my soul to thee. Ode. The spacious firmament on high, Soon as the evening shades prevail, And spread the truth from pole to pole. What, though in solemn silence, all 1 Malone states that this was the first time the phrase classic ground, since so common, was ever used. It was ridiculed by some contemporaries as very quaint and affected. *The earliest composition that I recollect taking any pleasure in was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, beginning, "How are thy servants blest, O Lord!" I particularly remember one half-stanza, which was music to my boyish ear: "For though in dreadful whirls we hung Burns-Letter to Dr Moore. [The Battle of Blenheim.] But now the trumpet terrible from far, The fatal day its mighty course began, Behold, in awful march and dread array But O, my muse, what numbers wilt thou find 'Twas then great Marlbro's mighty soul was prov'd, [The concluding simile of the angel has been much celebrated, and was so admired by the lord treasurer, that on seeing it, without waiting for the completion of the poem, he rewarded the poet by appointing him, in the place of Mr Locke (who had been promoted), a commissioner of appeals.] [From the Tragedy of Cato.] Act iv. Scene iv. Re-enter PORTIUS. Portius. Long may they keep asunder! Lucius. O Cato! arm thy soul with all its patience; See where the corse of thy dead son approaches! The citizens and senators, alarmed, Have gather'd round it, and attend it weeping. Cato. [meeting the corpse.] Portius, behold thy brother, and remember Juba. Was ever man like this! [Aside. Alas! my friends, Juba. Behold that upright man! Rome fills his eyes With tears that flow'd not o'er his own dead son. [Aside. Cato. Whate'er the Roman virtue has subdued, Heaven will not leave me in the victor's hand. Portius. Misfortune on misfortune! grief on grief! Add, if you please, that I request it of him, My brother Marcus Cato. Hah! what has he done! Has he forsook his post? has he given way? Did he look tamely on, and let them pass? Lucius. Cæsar has mercy, if we ask it of him. Cato. Then ask it, I conjure you! let him know Whate'er was done against him, Cato did it. The virtue of my friends may pass unpunish'd. Juba. If I forsake thee Cato. Thy virtues, prince, if I foresee aright, There live retired; pray for the peace of Rome; Portius. I hope my father does not recommend Cato. Farewell, my friends! if there be any of you Who dare not trust the victor's clemency, Know, there are ships prepared by my command (Their sails already opening to the winds) That shall convey you to the wish'd-for port. Is there aught else, my friends, I can do for you? The conqueror draws near. Once more farewell! If e'er we meet hereafter, we shall meet In happier climes, and on a safer shore, Where Cæsar never shall approach us more. [Pointing to his dead son. There the brave youth, with love of virtue fired, Act V. Scene I. [CATO. alone, sitting in a thoughtful posture: in his hand PLATO'S book on the Immortality of the Soul. A drawn sword on the table by him.] It must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well!— Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, Of falling into nought? why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, which he was early familiar, seem to have sunk deep in his haughty soul. 'Born a posthumous child,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'and bred up an object of charity, he early adopted the custom of observing his birth-day as a term, not of joy, but of sorrow, and of reading, when it annually recurred, the Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ? striking passage of Scripture in which Job laments The wide, th' unbounded prospect, lies before me; But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. Here will I hold. If there's a power above us, (And that there is, all nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy. But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar. I'm weary of conjectures. This must end them. The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds. and execrates the day upon which it was said in his father's house "that a man-child was born."" Swift was sent to Trinity college, Dublin, which he left in his twenty-first year, and was received into the house of Sir William Temple, a distant relation of his mother. Here Swift met King William, and indulged hopes of preferment, which were never realised. In 1692 he repaired to Oxford, for the purpose of taking his degree of M.A., and shortly after obtaining this distinction he resolved to quit the establishment of Temple and take orders in the Irish church. He procured the prebend of Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, but was soon disgusted with the life of an obscure country clergyman with an income of £100 a-year. He returned to Moorpark, the house of Sir William Temple, and threw up his living at Kilroot. Temple died in 1699, and the poet was glad to accompany Lord Berkeley to Ireland in the capacity of chaplain, From this nobleman he obtained the rectory of Aghar, and the vicarages of Laracor and Rathveggan; to which 35 was afterwards added the prebend of Dunlavin, making his income only about £200 per annum. At Moorpark, Swift had contracted an intimacy with Miss Hester Johnson, daughter of Sir William Temple's steward, and, on his settlement in Ireland, this lady, accompanied by another female of middle age, went to reside in his neighbourhood. Her future life was intimately connected with that of Swift, and he has immortalised her under the name of Stella. In 1701, Swift became a political writer on the side of the Whigs, and on his visits to England, he associated with Addison, Steele, and Arbuthnot. In 1710, conceiving that he was neglected by the ministry, he quarrelled with the Whigs, and united with Harley and the Tory administration. He was received with open arms. 'I stand with the new people,' he writes to Stella, 'ten times better than ever I did with the old, and forty times more caressed.' He carried with him shining weapons for party warfare - irresistible and unscrupulous satire, steady hate, and a dauntless spirit. From his new allies, he received, in 1713, the deanery of St Patrick's. During his residence in England, he had engaged the affections of another young lady, Esther Vanhomrigh, who, under the name of Vanessa, rivalled Stella in poetical celebrity, and in personal misfortune. After the death of her father, this young lady and her sister retired to Ireland, where their father had left a small property near Dublin. Human nature has, perhaps, never before or since presented the spectacle of a man of such transcendent powers as Swift involved in such a pitiable labyrinth of the affections. His pride or ambition led him to postpone indefinitely his marriage with Stella, to whom he was early attached. Though, he said, he 'loved her better than his life a thousand millions of times,' he kept her hanging on in a state of hope deferred, injurious alike to her peace and her reputation. Did he fear the scorn and laughter of the world, if he should marry the obscure daughter of Sir William Temple's steward? He dared not afterwards, with manly sincerity, declare his situation to Vanessa, when this second victim avowed her passion. He was flattered that a girl of eighteen, of beauty and accomplishments, sighed for a gown of forty-four,' and he did not stop to weigh the consequences. The removal of Vanessa to Ireland, as Stella had gone before, to be near the presence of Swift-her irrepressible passion, which no coldness or neglect could extinguish-her life of deep seclusion, only chequered by the occasional visits of Swift, each of which she commemorated by planting with her own hand a laurel in the garden where they met - her agonizing remonstrances, when all her devotion and her offerings had failed, are touching beyond expression. 'The reason I write to you,' she says, 'is because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you. For when I begin to complain, then you are angry; and there is something in your looks so awful, that it strikes me dumb. O! that you may have but so much regard for me left, that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can. Did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me, and believe that I cannot help telling you this, and live.' To a being thus agitated and engrossed with the strongest passion, how poor, how cruel, must have seemed the return of Swift! Cadenus, common forms apart, But books, and time, and state affairs, In school to hear the finest boy. The tragedy continued to deepen as it approached the close. Eight years had Vanessa nursed in solitude the hopeless attachment. At length she wrote to Stella, to ascertain the nature of the connexion between her and Swift; the latter obtained the fatal letter, and rode instantly to Marley abbey, the residence of the unhappy Vanessa. 'As he entered the apartment,' to adopt the picturesque language of Scott in recording the scene, 'the sternness of his countenance, which was peculiarly formed to express the stronger passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror, that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table; and instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed yet enerished hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.'* Even Stella, though ultimately united to Swift, dropped into the grave without any public recognition of the tie; they were married in secrecy in the garden of the deanery, when on her part all but life had faded away. The fair sufferers were deeply avenged. But let us adopt the only charitableperhaps the just-interpretation of Swift's conduct; the malady which at length overwhelmed his reason might then have been lurking in his frame; the heart might have felt its ravages before the intellect. A comparison of dates proves that it was some years before Vanessa's death that the scene occurred which has been related by Young, the author of the Night Thoughts.' Swift was walking with some friends in the neighbourhood of Dublin. Perceiving he did not follow us,' says Young, '1 * The talents of Vanessa may be seen from her letters to Swift. They are further evinced in the following Ode to Spring, in which she alludes to her unhappy attachment: Hail, blushing goddess, beauteous Spring! Yet why should I thy presence hail? Divine imprest their gentle sway, Dear names, in one idea blend; Oh! still conjoined, your incense rise, And waft sweet odours to the skies! : 1 went back, and found him fixed as a statue, and I've often wished that I had clear A terrace-walk, and half a rood Of land, set out to plant a wood. Well, now I have all this and more, I ask not to increase my store; But here a grievance seems to lie, All this is mine but till I die; I can't but think 'twould sound more clever, To me and to my heirs for ever. If I ne'er got or lost a groat By any trick or any fault; And if I pray by reason's rules, : And not like forty other fools, As thus, Vouchsafe, oh gracious Maker! To grant me this and 'tother acre ; Or if it be thy will and pleasure, But only what my station fits, Swift was at first disliked in Ireland, but the Drapier's Letters and other works gave him unbounded popularity. His wish to serve Ireland was one of his ruling passions; yet it was something like the instinct of the inferior animals towards their offspring; waywardness, contempt, and abuse were strangely mingled with affectionate attachment and ardent zeal. Kisses and curses were alternately on his lips. Ireland, however, gave Swift her whole heart-he was more than king of the rabble. After various attacks of deafness and giddiness, his temper became ungovernable, and his reason gave way. Truly and beautifully has Scott said, 'the stage darkened ere the curtain fell.' Swift's almost total silence during the last three years of his life (for the last year he spoke not a word) appals and overawes the imagination. He died on the 19th of October 1745, and was interred in St Patrick's cathedral, amidst the tears and prayers of his countrymen. His fortune, amounting to about £10,000, he left chiefly to found a lunatic asylum in Dublin, which he had long meditated. He gave the little wealth he had Gulliver's Travels and the Tale of a Tub must ever Swift's poetry is perfect, exactly as the old Dutch | Tomb of Swift in Dublin cathedral. content to lash the frivolities of the age, and to de- Not empire to the rising sun, To rise in church, or law, or state, Hath blasted with poetic fire. Swift's verses on his own death are the finest example of his peculiar poetical vein. He predicts what his friends will say of his illness, his death, and his reputation, varying the style and the topicsto suit each of the parties. The versification is easy and flowing, with nothing but the most familiar and commonplace expressions. There are some little touches of homely pathos, which are felt like trickling tears, and the effect of the piece altogether is electrical: it carries with it the strongest conviction of its sincerity and truth; and we see and feel |