that Lord Bathurst and Lord Chesterfield, with the view of testing Mrs. Howard's influence with George II., persuaded the royal mistress to demand of the new King an earl's coronet for Lord Bathurst. She did-the Queen put in her veto, and Swift, who openly and most ambitiously cultivated Mrs. Howard, in despair, returned to Ireland, to lament Queen Anne, and curse Queen Caroline, under the mask of patriotism, in a country he abhorred and despised. Such are Walpole's words; upon which Croker notes, in the Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i.: "On this, be it observed, that George II. was proclaimed on the 14th of June, 1727, and Swift returned to Ireland in the September of the same year, and that the first creation of peers in that reign did not take place till the 28th of May, 1728. Is it credible that Mrs. Howard should have made such a request of the new King, and suffered so decided a refusal ten or eleven months before any peers were made? But again, upon this first creation of peers, Mrs. Howard's brother is the second name.. Is it probable that with so great an object for her own family in view, she risked a sclicitation for Lord Bathurst? But that which seems most convincing is Swift's own correspondence. In a letter to Mrs. Howard of the 9th of July, 1727, in which, rallying her on her solicitation, to which the new King would be exposed, he says, "for my part, you may be secure that I will never venture to recommend even a mouse to Mrs. Cole's cat, or a shoe-cleaner to your meanest domestic."

To return to Walpole. "To Mrs. Howard [he continues] Swift's ingratitude was base. She indubitably had not only exerted all her interest to second his and his faction's interests, but loved Queen Caroline and the minister as little as they did; yet, when Swift died, he left behind him a character of Mrs. Howard by no means flattering, which was published in his posthumous works. On its appearance, Mrs. Howard, (become Lady Suffolk,) said to me, in her calm, dispassionate manner, 'All I can say is, that it is very different from one that he drew of me, and sent to me, many years ago, and which I have, written by his own hand.'"

Upon this Croker notes: "This is a complete mistake, to give it no harsher name. The character which Swift left behind, and which was published in his posthumous works, is the very same which Lady Suffolk had in her possession. If it be not flattering, it is to Swift's honour, that he did not condescend to flatter her in the days of her highest favour;

that the remains were interred there. No memorial of the place of interment was erected until the year 1731, when Dean Swift, actuated by a just indignation towards the relatives of this great man, who, though they derived all their wealth and honours from him, neglected to pay the smallest tribute to his remains; and after many fruitless attempts made by him, he caused the present slab to be erected, and himself dictated the inscription, in which the Dean states that himself and the Chapter, "postquam per epistolas, per amicos, diu ac sæpe orando nil proficere, hunc demum lapidem statuerunt." From one of the Dean's letters upon the subject the following is an extract:

I desire you [Lord Carteret] will tell Lord Fitzwalter, (who married the Duke's grand-daughter,) that if he will not send fifty pounds to make a monument for the old duke, I and the chapter will erect a small one of ourselves for ten pounds; wherein it shall be expressed, that the posterity of the Duke, naming particularly Lady Holderness and Mr. Mildmay, not having the generosity to erect a monument, we have done it of ourselves. And if, for an excuse, they pretend they will send for his body, let them know it is mine; and rather than send it, I will take up the bones, and make of it a skeleton, and put it in my register-office, to be a memorial of their baseness to all posterity.

The envoy from Prussia, having married a grand-daughter of Schomberg, made a formal complaint to George II., and said publicly at the drawing-room, that "the Dean of St. Patrick's had put up that monument out of malice, to make a quarrel betwixt his Majesty and the King of Prussia." Thus an irreconcilable breach took place between Swift and the court, as well as the ministers. On Walpole, Swift made war both in verse and prose; nor did he spare even royalty itself, for the "Directions for making a Birthday Song," are most bitter upon the whole family, especially on Queen Caroline.

SWIFT'S LOSS OF FRIENDS.

The sudden death of the kind-hearted and affectionate Gay was the first severe shock of this nature. Pope's letter, announcing this event, is indorsed by Swift, "Received December 15th, [1732,] but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." The death of Arbuthnot followed in 1734-5. Swift thus expresses himself to Pope on the breaches thus made among their friends: "The death of Mr. Gay and the Doctor have been terrible wounds near my heart. Their living would have been a great comfort to me,

although I should never have seen them; like a sum of money in a bank, from which I should receive at least annual interest, as I do from you, and have done from my Lord Bolingbroke." Ill health on both sides gradually slackened Swift's intercourse with Pope. Their friendship remained sincere and perfect, on both sides, till closed by death. On the presentation copy of the Dunciad, Swift has written Auctoris Amicissimi Donum, an expression of superlative warmth.

A MOCK COURT OF LAW.

In 1733, when Swift executed the revision of Gulliver's Travels, he made the most bitter additions to the passages affecting the law and its professors. About the same time, he indulged his humour with a most extraordinary mock trial, in ridicule of the assizes then about to be held in the county of Meath.

The scene was Ardsalla, the house of Mr. Ludlow, where the Jacksons, Grattans, Mr. Stopford, and other favourites of the Dean, were assembled. Sheridan, it seems, had been guilty of a petty delinquency in his chamber. The rest shall be abridged from the narrative of Mr. Theophilus Swift. "A tribunal is erected, and all things prepared in due and regular form. A plain kitchen-table is turned with its top downwards, and into this dock Sheridan is put, wigless and bareheaded; while Swift himself mounts the seat of justice with his own wig frizzed, and bushed into a full bottom, and set inverted on his head. A servant-maid's scarlet cloak is flung over his shoulders, to represent the robes of a judge, and Aaron's band is converted into that of a Chief Justice. The grand jury are sworn, and the bill found; the petty jury sworn in their turn, and the prisoner put on his trial. The crier commands silence, and the lawyers are ranged. The utmost gravity and decorum prevail; and the only smile that passed on the occasion arose from the ludicrous circumstance of Mr. Stopford, who, being fee'd for the crown, declared he could not do his duty as a true lawyer, unless he should be fee'd on both sides. A second fee, therefore, is given him in open court, on behalf of the prisoner; and he told my mother, he actually received by the double fee eighteen shillings. He is said to have conducted himself with wonderful humour and address through the whole of the trial. The Jacksons and Grattans had likewise their respective stations in the cause. Most of the servants are examined, and in spite of prayers and entreaties, Mrs. Ludlow herself; who is made to swear on the vessel alleged to have suffered pollution. Their verdict, as might be expected, is that of guilty; and Swift, with all the solemnity of justice, pronounces sentence of death on the trembling Sheridan, awfully concluding with, "The Lord have mercy on your soul!' A rope is produced; Sheridan sees he shall be hanged pro forma; out of the dock he springs, and flies upstairs, the whole court in full cry after him. But fear having added wings to his feet, he had sufficient time to bolt

F

his chamber door, which he barricadoed as well as he could with what furniture was in the room. Here for two hours he remained besieged; at length he capitulated, on a solemn assurance that he should not be hanged."

SWIFT AND BETTESWORTH.

In a satire upon the Dissenters, in 1733, the Dean had directed a few lines against "the booby Bettesworth," who was a serjeant-at-law and a member of the Irish parliament, and who, on reading the lines, was so highly incensed that he drew a knife, and swore he would cut off the Dean's ears; he proceeded direct to the deanery with that intention, but as Swift was on a visit at Mr. Worrall's, Bettesworth went there, and requested to speak with the Dean alone, whom he addressed with great pomposity," Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, I am Serjeant Bettesworth." "Of what regiment ?" asked Swift. An altercation ensued, which soon became so loud and violent, that the servants rushed into the room and turned Bettesworth into the street. To guard against any similar attack in future, the Dean's neighbours formed an association, for the purpose of watching the deanery, and protecting the person of the Dean from violence.

The offensive lines which the Serjeant called upon Swift to disavow, are:

"So at the bar the booby Bettesworth,

Though half-a-crown o'erpays his sweat's worth,

Who known in law nor text nor margent,

Calls Singleton his brother serjeant.”

Swift's reply is stated as follows: "Sir, when I was a young man, I had the honour of being intimate with some great legal characters, particularly Lord Somers, who, knowing my propensity to satire, advised me, when I lampooned a knave or fool, never to own it. Conformably to that advice, I tell you I am not the author."

ST. PATRICK'S HOSPITAL FOUNDED.

It has been supposed by his biographers that a presentiment of his insanity induced Swift to devote his fortune to the erection of a lunatic asylum; and, probably, from an expression in Lord Orrery's work, that he was a fit inmate for his own asylum, it is generally believed that Swift was the first patient in the Hospital, although it was not erected till several years after his death. With the educated and the learned he had

long entertained the idea of establishing such an institution; for in 1731, in his verses on his own death occurs this stanza:

"He gave the little wealth he had,
To build a house for fools or mad,
And showed, by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much."

In 1732, he spoke to Sir William Fownes on the establishment of an hospital, but not of his own intention. Sir William then addressed to the Dean a proposal "that an hospital called Bedlam be built in the city of Dublin, or liberties, for the reception of lunatics from any part of the kingdom."

Swift left the bulk of his property, the savings of about thirty years of his life, to found and endow such an hospital. In 1735 he presented a memorial to the Corporation of Dublin, praying that a piece of ground on Oxmantown Green might be assigned for the purpose, which was immediately assented to, but the site which he ultimately fixed on was in Jamesstreet, Dublin, near Steevens's Hospital. The funds which finally devolved upon the hospital amounted to about 12,000l., which was the sum of Swift's savings. Upon this bequest appeared the following couplet:

"The Dean must die! our idiots to maintain !

Perish ye idiots! and long live the Dean !"

Johnson's unworthy lines,

"From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show,”-

pass current, not for mere imbecility and second-childishness, but for absolute insanity; and it is no easy task to uproot this idea.

With the above funds, aided by parliamentary grants, St. Patrick's or Swift's Hospital, was built and opened in 1757, for fifty patients; it is now capable of accommodating one hundred and fifty patients.

SWIFT AND HIS HOUSEHOLD.

In a letter addressed by the Dean to Lord Castledurrow, dated Dublin, Dec. 24, 1736, we find the following odd picture of Swift's household:

"Your last letter hath layn by me about a fortnight unacknowledged, partly by the want of health and lowness of Spirits, and chiefly by want of Time not taken up in busyness, but lost in the Teazings of insig