182

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XIX.

1693 .

pure, manly and perspicuous. This young man was namedJonathan Swift. He was born in Ireland, but would havethought himself insulted if he had been called an Irishman. Hewas of unmixed English blood, and, through life, regarded theaboriginal population of the island in which he first drew breathas an alien and a servile caste. He had in the late reign keptterms at the University of Dublin, but had been distinguishedthere only by his irregularities, and had with difficulty obtainedhis degree. At the time of the Revolution, he had, with manythousands of his fellow colonists, taken refuge in the mothercountry from the violence of Tyrconnel, and had thought him-self fortunate in being able to obtain shelter at Moor Park.*For that shelter, however, he had to pay a heavy price. Hewas thought to be sufficiently remunerated for his services withtwenty pounds a year and his board. He dined at the secondtable. Sometimes, indeed, when better company was not tobe had, he was honoured by being invited to play at cards ■withhis patron; and on such occasions Sir William was so generousas to give his antagonist a little silver to begin with.** Thehumble student would not have dared to raise his eyes to a ladyof family: but, when he had become a clergyman, he began,after the fashion of the clergymen of that generation, to makelove to a pretty waitingmaid who was the chief ornament of theservants’ hall, and whose name is inseparably associated withhis in a sad and mysterious history.

Swift many years later confessed some part of what, he feltwhen he found himself on his way to Court. His spirit had beenbow'eddown, and might seem to have been broken, by calami-ties and humiliations. The language which he was in the habitof holding to his patron, as far as we can judge from the

* As to Swift’s extraction and early life, see the Anecdotes written byhimself.

** Journal to Stella, Letter liii.