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THE DEAN AND THE SURGEON.

During his residence at Cavan, Swift was tormented with an ulcerous shin, when he sent for a surgeon belonging to the barracks, to dress his wound. The young man entered with fear and trembling, for all men stood in awe of the Dean. "Look ye, sir," said Swift, raising his leg from the stool on which it was extended, "my shin is very badly hurt; I have sent for you, and if you can cure it, by

I'll advertise you. Here's five guineas for you, and you need look for no more; so cure me as fast as you can." The surgeon succeeded; and the Dean, who liked both his skill and his modesty, was kind to him, often asked him to dinner, and when the cure was completed, made him a compliment of five guineas more. In a letter to Mrs. Whiteway he says, the shin cost him but three guineas; the rest he probably set down to benevolence.

THE DEAN'S PARSIMONY.

Pope relates : "Dr. Swift has an odd blunt way, that is mistaken by strangers for ill-nature. 'Tis so odd that there's no describing it but by facts. I'll tell you one that just comes into my head. One evening Gay and I went to see him: you know how intimately we were all acquainted. On our coming in; 'Heyday, gentlemen,' says the Doctor,' what's the meaning of this visit? How come you to leave all the great lords, that you are so fond of, to come hither to see a poor Dean ?'-' Because we had rather see you than any of them.'-'Ay, any one that did not know you as well as I do, might believe you. But since you are come, I must get some supper for you, I suppose ?'-No, Doctor, we have supped already.'-Supped already! that's impossible: why, 'tis not eight o'clock yet.'-' Indeed we have.'-' That's very strange: but if you had not supped, I must have got something for you. Let me see, what should I have had? a couple of lobsters? and that would have done very well, two shillings: tarts, a shilling. But you will drink a glass of wine with me, though you supped so much before your usual time, only to spare my pocket ?'-'No, we had rather talk with you, than drink with you.'-' But if you had supped with me, as in all reason you ought to have done, you must have drunk

with me. A bottle of wine, two shillings. Two and two are four, and one is five; just two and sixpence a-piece. There, Pope, there's half-a-crown for you; and there's another for you, sir; for I won't save anything by you I am determined.' This was all said and done with his usual seriousness on such occasions; and in spite of everything we could say to the contrary, he actually obliged me to take the money."Spence's Anecdotes.

Delany informs us, in like manner, that when Lady Eustace, or other women of rank, dined at the Deanery, Swift allowed them a shilling a-head to provide their own entertainment; and used to struggle hard that only sixpence should be allowed for the brat, as he called Miss Eustace, afterwards Mrs. Tickell. When he dined with his poorer friends, he insisted upon paying his club, as at a tavern.

BENEFICIAL HOAX.

The execution of one Elliston, a noted street-robber, gave Swift an opportunity of practising a stratagem, which put an end, for many years, to the practice of street robbery; for, being received as genuine by the companions of the sufferer, they really believed, as there asserted, that he had left a list of their names to be proceeded against, if they did not relinquish their evil courses. The piece is as follows:

"Now, as I am a dying man," Elliston is made to say, "I have done something which may be of good use to the public. I have left with an honest man (and indeed the only honest man I was ever acquainted with) the names of all my wicked brethren, the principal places of their abode, with a short account of the chief crimes they have committed; in many of which I have been their accomplice, and heard the rest from their own mouths: I have likewise set down the names of those we call our setters of the wicked houses we frequent, and all of those who receive and buy our stolen goods. I have solemnly charged this honest man, and have received his promise upon oath, that whenever he hears of any rogue to be tried for robbery or housebreaking, he will look into his list, and if he finds the name there of the thief concerned, to send the whole paper to the Government. Of this I here give my companions fair and public warning, and hope they will take it."

SWIFT'S BONHOMMIE.

Captain Hamilton, of Castle-Hamilton, a plain country gentleman, but of excellent natural sense, came upon a visit at Market-Hill, while the Dean was staying there. "Sir Arthur Acheson, hearing of his friend's arrival, ran out to receive

him at the door, followed by Swift. The captain, who did not see the Dean, as it was in the dusk of the evening, in his blunt way upon entering the house, exclaimed, that he was very sorry he was so unfortunate as to choose that time for his visit. Why so ?'-' Because I hear Dean Swift is with you. He is a great scholar, a wit; a plain country squire will have but a bad time of it in his company, and I don't like to be laughed at.' Swift then stepped to the captain, from behind Sir Arthur, where he had stood, and said to him, ‘Pray, Captain Hamilton, do you know how to say yes, or no, properly? Yes, I think I have understanding enough for that.' Then give me your hand,-depend upon it, you and I will agree very well.' The captain told Mr. Sheridan he never passed two months so pleasantly in his life, nor had ever met with so agreeable a companion as Swift proved to be during the whole time."

INGRATITUDE TO SWIFT.

The Dean now experienced the height of unpopularity. All who had favoured the high-church interest were involved in a sweeping charge of Jacobitism, of which calumny Swift had his share. Libels on libels were showered against him; the rabble insulted him as he walked the street; and even young men of rank forgot his station and their own so far as to set the same example of wanton brutality. Nor was this the worst evil of his situation. His former friends, including many who owed him civility and gratitude, paid court to the opposite party, by treating him with rudeness and insult. He was obliged to secure his papers against the searches of government; and a packet addressed to him by the Duke of Ormond's chaplain was seized by a messenger.

Among the Dean's false friends Sir Thomas Southwell, one of the commissioners of the revenue, often mentioned as a friend in Swift's Letters and Journal, distinguished himself, by answering Swift, when he had addressed him on some ordinary occasion of business, "I'll hold you a groat, Mr. Dean, I do not know you." Afterwards, when created Lord Southwell, he expressed regret for his conduct during the heat of party, and attempted to regain Swift's acquaintance, by saluting him with great politeness. But the Dean retorted his rudeness, prefaced by his own cant phrase, "I'll hold you a groat, my lord, I do not know you."

Swift seems, therefore, for some time, to have been secluded from the society of the great, powerful, and distinguished; and the companion of Oxford and Bolingbroke, of Prior, Pope, Gay, had to select his society from the men of kindred taste in his own order, with a few of more elevated rank, who either had the sense and spirit to "forsake politics for wit," or were not disinclined to high-church politics.

Among this troop of friends were the Grattans, seven brethren of high honour. The eldest lived on his paternal fortune. One was a physician, one a merchant, and afterwards lord mayor of Dublin; one was head-master of a free-school, with a large appointment, and the remaining three were clergymen. "Do you not know the Grattans ?" said Swift to Lord Carteret, when he came over as lord-lieutenant; "then pray obtain their acquaintance. The Grattans, my lord, can raise 10,000 men.' This was one of the instances in which Swift showed his desire of enhancing the importance of his friends.

WHY SWIFT DID NOT MARRY.

Lockier notes: "Though the Dean is the best of company, and one of the liveliest men in England of his age, he said (when in no ill-humour), 'The best of life is but just tolerable; 'tis the most we can make of it." Mr. Singer adds: "He observed that it was very apt to be a misfortune to be used to the best company; and gave as a reason for his not marrying, that he had always been used to converse with women of the higher class, and that he might as well think of marrying a princess as one of them. 'A competence enables me, single as I am, to keep as good company as I have been used to, but with a wife of this kind and a family, what should I have done ?' "

Mr. Mason, who altogether doubts the facts of the Dean's marriage, says: "I attribute Swift's refraining from marriage, partly to the natural coldness of his temper, of which his life and writings furnish us with incontestable proofs, and partly to the small prospects of gratification which he could promise to himself from the sight of a healthful progeny. It was, perhaps, the consideration of these matters that induced him to make a resolution of leading a life of celibacy, which he appears to have formed at a very early period; and these motives, doubtless, urged him to adopt, in place of natural

heirs, that part of the community, whose pitiable and helpless condition rendered them the fittest objects of his parental affection and philanthropic care.”

Lord Orrery has these notes upon the Dean's treatment of women. "If we consider Swift's behaviour, so far only as it relates to women, we shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than as whole figures.

"You must have smiled to have found in his house a constant seraglio of very virtuous women, who attended him from morning to night."

DID SWIFT EVER LAUGH?

Johnson asserts that the Dean stubbornly resisted any tendency to laughter. "I cannot recollect," says Pilkington, "that ever I saw the Dean laugh; perhaps he thought it beneath him; for when any pleasantry passed, which might have excited it, he used to suck in his cheeks to avoid laughing."

Lord Orrery tells us that Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles could never soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene; but when the sternness of visage was increased by rage, it was scarcely possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them more terror and austerity.

LORD ORRERY'S "REMARKS."

The real cause of Lord Orrery's treatment of Swift originated in a letter that had been found unopened by Swift's executors among his papers. The letter was indorsed "This will keep cold." Lord Orrery had also learned, that when he sent the paper-book to Swift on his birthday, the Dean, on reading the words "Dear Swift," in the first line, exclaimed with great indignation at this familiarity, "Dear Swift? Dear Swift ? Boy! Boy! Pshaw! Pshaw! What does the boy mean? Friend? Friend? Sincere Friend?" Lord Orrery's servant, who waited in the hall, is thought to have heard these expressions, and reported them to his master.

Orrery first broached the figment that Swift might be the natural son of Sir William Temple, which was morally impossible.

The following epigram was handed about on the publication of the Remarks::

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