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than one hundred pounds a year; this little eftate, which lay at Goodrich, he mortgaged for three hundred broad pieces, and having quilted them into his waistcoat, he fet out for Ragland Caffle, whither his majesty king Charles the First had retired after the battle of Nafely. The governor who well knew him, afked what was his errand; I am come faid Swift, tỏ give his majefty my coat, at the fame time pulling it off and prefenting it: the governor told him pleafantly that his coat was worth little, why then faid Swift, take my waistcoat; this was foon found to be an ufeful garment by its weight; and it is remarked by lord Clarendon, that the king received no fupply more feasonable or acceptable than thefe three hundred broad pieces during the whole war, his distress being then very great and his refources cut off. The zeal and activity of this gentleman for the royal cause expofed him to much danger and many fufferings; he was plundered more than thirty times by the parliament's army, he was ejected from his church livings, his eftate was fequeftered and he was himself thrown into prifon. His eftate however was afterwards recovered, and part of it fold to pay the money due on the mortgage, and fome other debts; the remainder being about one half defcended to his heir, and is now poffeffed by his great-grandfon, Deane Swift, efq.

a

This Mr. Thomas Swift married Mrs. Elifabeth Dryden, of an ancient family in Huntingdonshire, fifter to the father of John Dryden the poet; by whom he had ten fons and four daughters; of the fons, fix furvived him, Godwin, Thomas, Dryden, William, Jonathan, and Adam.

Thomas was bred at Oxford and took orders; he married the eldest daughter of fir William D'Avenant,

The grandmother of this gentleman, one of the wives of Godwin Savift, was heiress to

admiral Deane, whence Deane hecame a Chriftian name in the family.

B

3

bur

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but died young, and left only one fon, whofe name alfo was Thomas, and who died in 1752, rector of Puttenham, in Surry, a benefice which he had poffeffed threefcore years. Godwin was a barrifter of Grays-Inn, and William, Dryden, Jonathan, and Adam, were attornies.

and note.

Godwin having married a relation of the old marchionefs of Ormond, the old duke of Ormond made him his attorney general in the palatinate of Tipperary in Ireland. Ireland was at this time almoft without lawyers, the rebellion having made almost every man of 'whatever condition a foldier. Godwin therefore determined to attempt the acquifition of a fortune in that kingdom, and the fame motives induced his four brothers to go with him. Godwin foon become wealthy, and the reft obtained fomething more than a genteel competence, though Dryden and Jonathan who died foon after their arrival had little to bequeath.

Jonathan at the age of about three and twenty, and before he went to Ireland married Mrs. Abigail Erick, of Leicestershire; the family of this lady was defcended from Erick the Forefter, who raised an army to oppofe William the Conqueror, by whom he was vanquifhed, and afterwards made commander of his forces. But whatever was the honour of her lineage, her fortune was fmall, and about two years after her marriage, fhe was left a widow with one child, a daughter, and pregnant with another, having no means of fubfiftence but an annuity of twenty pounds which her husband had purchased for her in England, immediately after his marriage.

In this diftrefs fhe was taken with her daugher into the family of Godwin, her husband's eldest brother, and on the 30th of November, 1667, about seven months after her husband's death, fhe was delivered of a fon, whom the called Jonathan in remembrance of his father, and who was afterwards the celebrated dean of St. Patrick's.

D. S. P.

Of all the brothers of Mrs. Swift's husband, Godwin only had fons; and by these fons the was fubfifted in her old age, as fhe had been before by their father and their uncles, with fuch liberality, that she declared herself not only happy but rich.

23.

It happened, by whatever accident, that Jonathan was not fuckled by his mother, but by a nurse, who was a native of Whitehaven; and when he was about a year old her affection for him was become so strong, that finding it neceffary to vifit a relation who was dangerously sick, and from whom the expected a legacy, fhe found means to convey the child on fhipboard, without the knowledge of his mother or his uncle, and carried him with her to Whitehaven: at this place he continued near three years; for when the matter was difcovered, his mother fent orders not to hazard a fecond voyage till he should be better able to bear it. The nurfe however gave other teftimonies of her affection to Jonathan, for during his stay at Whitehaven, the had taught him to fpell, and when he was five years old he was able to read any chapter in the bible.

Mrs. Swift about two years after her husband's death, quitted the family of Mr. Godwin Swift, in Ireland, and retired to Leicester, the place of her nativity; but her fon was again carried to Ireland by his nurfe, and replaced under the protection of his uncle Godwin.

It has been generally believed that Swift was born in England, a mistake to which many incidents befides this have contributed; he had been frequently heard to say when the people of Ireland difpleafed him,

I am not of this vile country, I am an Englishman.' Mr. Pope alfo in one of his letters to him, mentions England as his native country; but this account of his birth is taken from that which he left behind him in his own hand writing, and while he lived he was

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fo far from seriously denying or concealing his being a native of Ireland, that he often mentioned and even pointed out the houfe in which he was born.

See vol.

xii. p. 98.

He has also been thought by fome to have been a natural fon of fir William Temple, a mistake which was probably founded upon another, for till the publication of his letter to lord Palmerfton, among his pofthumous works, he was thought to have received fuch favours from fir William as he could not be fuppofed to beftow upon a perfon to whom he was not related; however fuch a relation between fir William and the Dean appears beyond contradiction to have been impoffible, for fir William Temple was refident abroad in a public character from the year 1065, to 1670, as may be proved by his letters to the earl of Arlington and the rest of the miniftry. Swift was born in November, 1667, and his mother was never out of the British dominions.

Orrery,
P. 5.

At about the age of fix years he was 1673. fent to the school of Kilkenny, and having continued there eight years, he was at the age of fourteen admitted into the university of Dublin, and became a student in Trinitycollege. There he lived in perfect regularity, and obeyed the ftatutes with the utmost exact

1681.

Sketch. nefs; but he was fo much depressed by the disadvantages of his fituation, deriving his present fubfiftence meerly from the precarious bounty of an uncle, and having no other object of hope but the continuance of it, that he could not refift the temptation to neglect many neceffary objects of academic study, to which he was not by nature much inclined, and apply himself wholly to books of history and poetry, by which he could without intellectual labour fill his mind with pleafing images, and for a while fufpend the fenfe of his condition. The facrifice of the future to the prefent, whether it be a folly or a

fault,

fault, is feldom unpunished, and Swift foon found himself in the fituation of a man who had burned his bed to warm his hands, for at the end of

four years he was refufed his degree of ba- 1685. chelor of arts for infufficiency, and was at laft admitted fpeciali gratia, which is there confidered as the highest degree of reproach and dishonour.

But upon Swift, this punishment was not ineffectual, he dreaded the repetition of fuch difgrace as the laft evil that could befal him, and therefore immediately fet about to prevent it as the principal business of his life. During feven years from that time he ftudied eight hours a day; and by such an effort of fuch a mind fo long continued, J. R. 50. great knowledge muft neceffarily have been acquired. He commenced thefe ftudies at the univerfity in Dublin, where he continued them three years, and during this time he also drew the first sketch of his Tale of a Tub *.

1688.

In the year 1688, when he was about twenty-one, and had been seven years at college, his uncle Godwin was feized with a lethargy, and foon after totally deprived both of his speech and his memory; as by this accident Swift was left without fupport, he took a journey to Leicester that he might confult with his mother what courfe of life to purfue. At this time fir William Temple was in high reputation, and honoured with the confidence and familiarity of king William. His father, fir John Temple, had been mafter of the Rolls in Ireland and contracted an intimate friendship with Godwin Swift which continued till his death, and fir William who inherited his title and eftate had married a lady to whom Mrs. Swift was related; fhe therefore advised

a Waffendon Warren, elq; a gentleman of fortune near Belfaft, in the north of Ireland, who was chamber fellow with Dr.

D. S. p.

33, 34.

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