led to withdraw his patent, and his money was totally fuppreffed. Upon the arrival of lord Carteret, foon after the publication of the fourth letter, feveral paffages were felected as fufficient ground for a profecution, and his excellency and council published a proclamation, offering 300l. reward for a discovery of the author This proclamation gave the dean a remarkable opportunity to illuftrate his character. It happened that his butler, whom he had employed as his amanuenfis, and who alone was trufted with the fecret, went out in the afternoon of the day of the proclamation, without leave, and ftaid abroad the whole night and part of the next day. There was great reafon to suspect that he had made an information, and having received his reward, would never return. The man, however, came home in the evening, and the dean was advised by his friends to take no notice of his fault, left he should be provoked to a breach of truft, from the dread of which his return had just delivered them. But the dean rejected this counfel with the utmost difdain, and, commanding the man into his prefence, ordered him immediately to ftrip off his livery and leave the house. You villain, faid he, I know I am in your power, and for that very reason I will the lefs bear with your infolence or neglect. The man, in very fubmiffive terms, confeffed that he had been drinking all night, and intreated to be forgiven, but Swift was inexorable; he then begged that he might be confined in fome part of the house fo long as the proclamation could intitle him to any reward, left when he was driven from his service, and deftitute of another, the temptation might be too ftrong for his virtue, and his diftrefs might involve him in a crime which he most abhorred. Swift, however, was ftill inexorable, and the man was difmiffed. During all the time of danger, Swift obftinate ly ly refufed to contribute one farthing towards his fup port, nor could he be perfuaded to fee his face; but when the time limited in the proclamation was expired, he was permitted to return to his fervice. Soon afterwards he was called haftily up by the dean, who, without any preface, again ordered him to ftrip off his livery, put on his own cloaths, and then come to him again. The poor fellow, though he was greatly aftonished at this proceeding, knew Swift too well to expoftulate, and therefore, with whatever reluctance, did as had been commanded. When he returned, the dean ordered the other fervants to be called up, who immediately attended, expecting that the butler was to be difmiffed in ter rorem, and that they should be warned in very fevere terms of his offence. Swift, as foon as they had ranged themselves before him, ordered them to take notice, that Rabert was no longer his fervant; he is now, faid the dean, Mr. Blakely, the verger of St. Patrick's cathedral, a place which I give him as a reward for his fidelity. The value of this place is be tween thirty and forty pounds a year; how D. S. 190. ever, Robert would not quit his master, but continued to be his butler fome years afterwards. In this inftance the dean exercised his pride, his fortitude, and his equity, in a manner peculiar to himself; and though there are many who would equally have rewarded fuch fidelity, there are few who would have ventured to wait the iffue of fo fevere and dangerous a probation. From this time the dean's influence in Ireland was almost without bounds, he was confulted in whatever related to domestic policy, and in particular to trade. The weavers always confidered him as their patron and legislator, after his propofal for the ufe of Irish manufactures, and came frequently in a body to receive his advice in fettling the rates of their ftuffs, and the wages of their journeymen; and when elec tions were depending for the city of Dublin, many corporations refufed to declare themfelves, till they knew his fentiments and inclinations. Over the populace he was the moft abfolute monarch that ever governed men, and he was regarded by perfons of every rank with veneration and esteem. It appears by many of his writings, that he lived in great friendship and familiarity with lord Carteret during his lieutenancy, notwithftanding his lordship had figned the proclamation to difcover him, as the writer of the Draper's Letters. Swift, indeed, remonftrated against this proceeding, and once afked his lordship how he could concur in the profecution of a poor honeft fellow, who had been guilty of no other crime than that of writing three or four letters for the instruction of his neighbours, and the good of his country; to this question his excellency elegantly replied, in the words of Virgil, Regni novitas me talia cogit Moliri. D.S.270. He was equally diligent to recommend his friends to lord Carteret as he had been to recommend them to lord Oxford, and he did it with the fame dignity and freedom. Pray, my lord, faid he, one day, have you the honour to be acquainted with the Grattons? My lord answered he had not: Why then, pray, my lord, faid Swift, take care to obtain it; it is of great confequence: the J. R. 95. Grattons, my lord, can raife ten thousand men. obtained a living for his friend Dr. Sherridan, and he recommended feveral others of whom he knew nothing but that they were good men. He See vol. xii. 184. He used alfo to remonftrate with great freedom against fuch measures as he disapproved, and lord Carteret having gained the advantage of him in fome difpute concerning the diftreffes of Ireland, he cried out in a violent paffion, What the vengeance brought you among 1 among us? Get you gone, get you gone; pray God Almighty send us our boobies back again; J. R. 25. a reply which shewed at once the turn, the. ftrength, and the virtue of his mind, as it was a fine compliment to the force of reafon, by which he had been just foiled, and was expreffed with all the vehe mence of his temper, and all the peculiarity of his wit. He was several times in England on a vifit to Mr. Pope, after his fettlement at the deanery, particularly in the years 1726 and 1727. There is a paffage in one of his letters to Dr. Sherridan, during his vifit in 1726, by which it appears, that he then had fuch an offer of a fettlement, in the midst of his friends, within twelve miles of London, as, if he had been ten years younger, he would. gladly have accepted: But I am now, fays he, too old for new schemes, and especially fuch as would bridle me in my freedoms and liberalities. He had alfo an invitation from lord Bolingbroke to spend a winter with him at his house on the banks of the Loire in France; and this he would have accepted, but that he received an account from Ireland, that Mrs. Johnfon was dangerously ill. See vol. xxi. vol. Mrs. Johnson's conftitution was tender and delicate, and, as the dean himself says, fhe had not the See Lett. Stamina vita; in the year 1724, she began visibly to decay, and, in the year 1726, was thought to be dying. The dean received the news with agonies not to be felt but by the tenderest and most ardent friendship, nor conceived but by the most lively imagination, and im mediately hafted back into Ireland. xii. P. 208. It happened, however, that Mrs. Johnson, contrary to the opinion of her physician, recovered a moderate fhare of health, and the dean, probably, to compleat some defign which in his hafte he had left unfinished, returned again to England in 1727. From Sea vol. From England he was once more about to let out for France upon lord Bolingbroke's xii. 214, invitation, when news arrived of the king's death. He had attended the late queen while fhe was princefs in his former excurfions to England, and he had feen her twice in one week by her royal highness's command in this: fhe had always treated the dean with great civility, and the dean had treated her with his ufual and peculiar frankness. The third day after the news of the late king's death, he attended at court, and kiffed the king and the queen's hand upon their acceffion, and was blamed by his friends for deferring it fo long. What profpect he had of a change in publick affairs on this event, or of any advantage which fuch a change might produce to himself or his friends, does not appear, but he was earnestly intreated to delay his journey; and, when he had again determined to fet out, he was upon fome new incidents again prevailed upon not to go, by the vehement perfuafion of fome perfons, whom, he fays, he could not disobey. Many schemes were propofed, in which he was eagerly follicited to engage, but he received them coldly; not as it appears because he was determined no more to enter into publick life, but because the schemes themselves were fuch as he did not approve: however, in the fame letter, in which he fays, that, if the king had lived ten days longer, he should not have dated it from London, but Paris, he fays, that his share in the hurry of the time would not be long, and that he fhould foon return. He was foon after feized with one of his fits of giddiness and deafness, a calamity which was greatly aggravated by the news that Mrs. Johnfon was again fo ill, that the phyficians defpaired of her life, Upon this occafion he relapfed into the agonies of mind which he had felt the year before; he expected VOL. I. E by |