The leaders of public opinion in Ireland:
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JONATHAN SWIFT. HENRY FLOOD HENEY GRATTAN PAGE 1 63 , 104 DANIEL O'CONNELIi . . , , . 223 INTRODUCTION. In KEPUBLisniNG the following sketches, which first appeared anonymously many years ago, I am yielding in part to the request of many friends in Ireland and elsewhere who have been good enough to regret the dif- ficulty of procuring them ; and in part also to a feeling that at the present moment their appearance might not be wholly useless or inopportune. At a time when the Repeal movement which was suspended by the famine is manifestly reviving ; when the establishment of reli- gious equality has removed the old lines of party con- troversy, and prepared the way for new combinations ; when security of tenure, increased material prosperity, the spread of education, and the approaching triumph of the ballot, have given a new weight and indepen- dence to the masses of the people ; and when, at the same time, a disloyalty in some respects of a more malignant type than that of any former period has widely permeated their ranks, it is surely not unadvis- able to recall the leading facts of the great struggle of Irish nationality. The present of a nation can only be explained by its past; and in dealing with strong sentiments of disloyalty and discontent, it is of the Vlll INTKODUCTION. utmost importance to trace the historical causes to which they may be due. There are no errors in politics more common or more fatal than the political pedantry which esti- mates institutions exclusively by their abstract merits, without any regard to the special circumstances, wishes, or characters of the nations for which they are intended, and the political materialism which refuses to recognise any of what are called senti- mental grievances. Political institutions are essen- tially organic things, and their success depends, not merely on their intrinsic excellence, but also on the degree in which they harmonise with the traditions and convictions, and take root in the affections of the people. Every statesman who is worthy of the name will carefully calculate the effect of his measures upon opinion, will esteem the creation of a strong, healthy, and loyal public spirit one of the highest objects of legislation, and will look upon the diseases of public opinion as among the greatest evils of the State. There is, perhaps, no government in the world which succeeds more admirably in the functions of eliciting, sustaining, and directing public opinion than that of England. It does not, it is true, escape its full share of hostile criticism, and, indeed, rather signally illus- trates the saying of Bacon, that ' the best governments are always subject to be like the finest crystals, in which every icicle and grain is seen which in a fouler stone is never perceived ;' but whatever charges may be brought against the balance of its powers, or against its legislative efficiency, few men will question its eminent success as an organ of public opinion. In England an even disproportionate amount of the INTRODUCTION. ix national talent takes the direction of politics. The pulse of an energetic national life is felt in every quarter of the land. The debates of Parliament are followed with a warm, constant, and intelligent interest by all sections of the community. It draws all classes within the circle of political interests, and is the centre of a strong and steady patriotism equally removed from the apathy of many continental nations in time of calm, and from their feverish and spasmodic energy in time of excitement. Its decisions, if not instantly accepted, never fail to have a profound and a calming influence on the public mind. It is the safety-valve of the nation. The discontents, the suspicions, the peccant humours that agitate the people find there their vent, their reso- lution, and their end. It is impossible, I think, not to be struck by the contrast which in this respect Ireland presents to Eng- land. If the one country furnishes us with an admir- able example of the action of a healthy public opinion, the other supplies us with the most unequivocal signs of its disease. The Imperial Parliament exercises for Ireland legislative functions, but it is almost powerless upon opinion — it allays no discontent, and attracts no affection. Political talent, which for many years Avas at least as abundant among Irishmen as in any equally numerous section of the people, has been steadily de- clining ; and the marked decadence in this respect among the representatives of the nation reflects but too truly the absence of public spirit in their consti- tuents. The upper classes have lost their sympathy with and their moral ascendency over their tenants, and are thrown for the most part into a policy of mere obstruction. The genuine national enthusiasm never X INTRODUCTION. flows in the channel of imperial politics. With great multitudes sectarian considei-ations have entirely super- seded national ones, and their representatives are ac- customed systematically to subordinate all party and all political questions to ecclesiastical interests ; and while calling themselves Liberals, they make it the main object of their home politics to separate the different classes of their fellow-countrymen during the period of their education, and the main object of their foreign policy to support the temporal power of the Pope. With another and a still larger class the prevailing feeling seems to be an indifference to all Parliamentary proceedings ; an utter scepticism about constitutional means of realising their ends ; a blind, persistent hatred of England. Every cause is taken up with an enthu- siasm exactly proportioned to the degree in which it is supposed to be injurious to English interests. An amovmt of energy and enthusiasm which if rightly directed would suffice for the political regeneration of Ireland is wasted in the most insane projects of dis- loyalty ; while the diversion of so much public feeling from Parliamentary politics leaves the Parliamentary arena more and more open to corruption, to place- hunting, and to imposture. This picture is in itself a very melancholy one, but there are other circumstances which greatly heighten the effect. In a very ignorant or a very wretched population it is natural that there should be much vague, unreasoning discontent ; but the Irish people are at present neither Avretched nor ignorant. Their economical condition before the famine was indeed such that it might well have made reasonable men despair. With the land divided into almost microscopic farms, INTRODUCTION. XI with a population multiplying* rapidly to the extreme limits of svibsistence, accustomed to the very lowest standard of comfort, and marrying earlier than in any other northern country in Europe, it was idle to look for habits of independence or self-reliance, or for the culture which follows in the train of leisure and com- fort. But all this has been changed. A fearful famine and the long-continued strain of emigration have re- duced the nation from eight millions to less than five, and have effected, at the price of almost intolerable suffering, a complete economical revolution. The popu- lation is now in no degree in excess of the means of subsistence. The rise of wages and prices has diffused comfort through all classes. The greater part of Ireland has been changing from arable into pasture land, for which it is pre-eminently fitted ; and this most important transformation, which almost con- vulsed English society in the sixteenth century, and elicited the bitterest lamentations from Bacon and More, has been of late years effected in Ireland upon a still larger scale without producing any considerable suffering. It is following in the train of a natural movement of emigration, springing no longer from dis- tress or from landlord tyranny, but partly from a healthy spirit of industrial ambition impelling young men to the great fields of enterprise in the new Avorld with which they are no longer unacquainted, and partly fi'om a feeling of natural affection drawing the older members of a family to the distant homes which their cliildren have established. Probably no country in Em-ope has advanced so rapidly as Ireland within the last ten years, and the tone of general cheerfulness, the improvement of the houses, the dress, and the Xll INTRODUCTION. general condition of the people must have struck every observer. Ireland is no doubt still very poor if compared with England, or even "with Scotland ; but its poverty consists much more in the absence of great wealth than in the presence of great misery. It has been recently stated that while paupers are in England as one to twenty, and in Scotland as one to twenty- three of the population, in Ireland they are only as one to seventy-four.* At the same time industrial habits have been rapidly spreading. The custom of early marriages, which lay at the root of the economical evils of Ireland, has, according to recent statistics, been seriously checked ; and the standard of comfort is far higher and the spirit of industrial progress far more active than in any previous portion of the century. If industrial improvement, if the rapid increase of mate- rial comforts among the poor, could allay political dis- content, Ireland should never have been so loyal as at present. Nor can it be said that ignorance is at the root of the discontent. The Irish people have always, even in the darkest period of the penal laws, been greedy for knowledge, and few races show more quickness in ac- quiring it. The admirable system of national educa- tion established in tlie present century is beginning to bear abundant fruit, and among the younger genera- tion at least, the level of knowledge is quite as high as in England. Indeed, one of the most alarming features of Irish disloyalty is its close and evident connection with education. It is sustained by a cheap literature, written often with no mean literary skill, which pene- trates into every village, gives the people their first ' See ' Fawcett on Pauperism,' p. 27. INTRODUCTION. XIH political impressions, forms and directs their enthu- siasm, and seems likely in the long leisure of the pastoral life to exercise an increasing power. Close ob- servers of the Irish character will hardly have failed to notice the great change which since the famine has passed over the amusements of the people. The old love of boisterous out-of-door sports has almost disappeared, and those who would have once sought their pleasures in the market or the fair now gather in groups in the public-house, where one of their number reads out a Fenian newspaper. Whatever else this change may portend, it is certainly of no good omen for the future loyalty of the people. It was long customary in England to underrate this disaffection by a>scribing it to very transitory causes. The quarter of a century that followed the Union was marked by almost perpetual disturbance, but this it was said was merely the natural ground-swell of agita- tion which followed a great reform. It was then the popular theory that it was the work of O'Connell, who was described during many years as tlie one obstacle to the peace of Ireland, and whose death was made the subject of no little congratulation, as though Irish dis- content had perished with its organ. It was as if, the ^olian harp being shattered, men wrote an epitaph upon the wind. Experience has abundantly proved the folly of such theories. Measured by mere chrono- logy, a little more than seventy years have passed since the Union ; but famine and emigration have com- pressed into those years the work of centuries. The character, feelings, and conditions of the people have been profoundly altered. A long course of remedial legislation has been carried, and during many years the XIV • INTRODUCTION. national party has been without a leader and without a stimulus. Yet, so far from subsiding, disloyalty in Ireland is probably as extensive, and is certainly as malignant, as at the death of O'Connell, and in many respects the public opinion of the country |^as palpably deteriorated. O'Connell taught an attach- ment to the connection, a loyalty to the Crown, a respect for the rights of property, a consistency of Liberalism, which we look for in vain among his suc- cessors ; and that faith in moral force and constitu- tional agitation which he made it one of his greatest objects to instil into the people has almost vanished with the failure of his agitation. The causes of this deep-seated disaffection I have en- deavoured in some degree to investigate in the following essays. To the merely dramatic historian the history of Ireland will probably appear less attractive than that of most other countries, for it is somewhat deficient in great characters and in splendid episodes ; but to a philosophic student of history it presents an interest of the very highest order. In no other liistory can we trace more clearly the chain of causes and effects, the influence of past legislation, not only upon the mate- rial condition, but also upon the character of a nation. In no other history especially can we investigate more fully the evil consequences which must ensue from dis- regarding that sentiment of nationality which, whether it be wise or foolish, whether it be desirable or the re- verse, is at least one of the strongest and most enduring of human passions. This, as I conceive, lies at the root of Irish discontent. It is a question of nationality as truly as in Hungary or in Poland. Special grievances or anomalies may aggravate, but do not cause it, and INTRODUCTION. XV they become formidable only in as far as tbey are con- nected with it. What discontent was felt against the Protestant Established Church was felt chiefly because it was regarded as an English garrison sustaining an anti-national system ; and the agrarian difficulty never assumed its full intensity till by the Eepeal agitation the landlords had been politically alienated from the people. The evils of the existing disloyalty are profoundly felt in both nations. Nature and a long and inex- tricable union of interests have made it imperatively necessary for the two countries to continue under the same rule. No reasonable man who considers their relative positions can believe that England would ever voluntarily relinquish the government of Ireland, or that Ireland could ever establish her independence in opposition to England, unless the English navy were utterly shattered. Even in the event of the dissolution of the Empire, Irish separation could only be achieved at the expense of a civil war, which would probably re- sult in the massacre of a vast section of the Irish people, would drive from the country much of its intelligence and most of its capital, and would inevi- tably and immediately reduce it to a condition of the most abject misery. Nor would any class suffer more than the class by which revolutions are usually made. For poor men of energy and talent, the magnificent field of Indian and colonial administration, which is now thrown open to competition, offers a career of ambition incomparably surpassing in splendour tliat which any other European nation can furnish ; and Irishmen have fully availed themselves of it. Though their country is but a small one, it now plays no inconsiderable part XVI INTKODUCTION. among men ; for while Irish emigration is leavening the New World, Irish administrators under the British Crown are organising in no small degree the empires or the republics of the future. All this noble career for talent and enterprise would be destroyed by sepa- ration ; every element of Irish greatness would dwindle or perish ; the energies of the pf!ople, confined to the narrow circle of a small and isolated State, would be wasted in petty quarrels, sink into inanity, or degenerate into anarchical passions. These would be the consequences of the separation of Ireland from the British Empire. That such a se- verance is almost impossible may be readily admitted ; but still, in a great European convulsion, Ireland might be a serious danger to England. Even in time of peace its discontent necessitates a heavy military expenditure, and the emigration from its shores is multiplying enemies to England through the New World. In foreign policy it is a manifest source both of weakness and discredit. For many years English Liberals have made it a main principle of their foreign policy to advocate the settlement of all disputes between rulers and their subjects in accordance with the desires of the latter ; and the fact that in a portion of their own country the existing form of government is notoriously opposed to the wishes of the people supplies their adversaries with an obvious answer. In home politics, the presence in Parliament of a certain number of members who are alienated from the general interests of the Empire, and actuated by a spirit out of harmony with that of the constitution, is a serious danger ; and it acquires additional gravity as parties disintegrate or tend to equilibrium. It INTRODUCTION. XVH lowers the tone of Liberalism, leads to unnatural coali- tions and surprises, and is a constant temptation to rival leaders to purchase this support by unworthy con- cessions. Apart from the possible horrors of rebellion, the mere existence of a widespread disloyalty restricts the flow of capital which is essential to the full de- velopment of Irish resources ; and the direction of so large an amount of the enthusiasm of the country in opposition to the law, and the diversion of much more into sectarian channels, vitiates and debases all political life. At the same time a constant fever of political agitation is sustained. For a long time it was the custom to send to Ireland officials who were utterly inexperienced, or who, on account of their characters, would have been tolerated nowhere else. This system, which O'Connell compared to that of country barbers making their apprentices take their first lessons in shaving upon a beggar, and which in the last century elicited a very striking protest from Lord Northington,^ can hardly be said to continue, but an equally mischievous one remains. The Irish diffi- culty has an irresistible attraction to party leaders who desire to raise some question that may embarrass or displace a JNIinistry — to theorists who have crotchets to display or political experiments to try — to revolution- ists who wish to set in motion some subversive policy which they think may eventually be extended to ' When appointed Lord-Lieutenant in 1783, he wrote to F&x: 'I must confess that it is a very wrong meabiire of English government to make this country their first step in politics, as it usually has been ; and I am sure men of abilities, knowledge, business, and experience ought to be employed here, both in the capacity of Lord-Lieutenant and Secretary, not gentlemen taken wild from Brookes's to make their debut in public life.' — Lord HusselVs Life of Fox, vol. ii. p. 23. XVUl INTEODUCTION. England. Writers who have never even crossed the Channel, and who are totally unacquainted with the practical working of Irish institutions and with the cha- racter of the people, dogmatise on the subject with the utmost confidence, and throw in fresh brands of discord at every period of crisis. More perhaps than anything else, the country needs repose, but, in addition to its own elements of anarchy, a torrent of irritating extra- neous influences is constantly agitating it. The three great requisites of good government for Ireland are that it should be strong, that it should be just, and that it should be national. It should be strong as opposed to that miserable system which resists every measure of popular demand as long as the country is quiet, and then concedes it without qualification as the prize of disloyalty and crime, and which has made it a settled maxim among Irishmen that the favours of the Government are bestowed upon every class in direct proportion to the dangers that are apprehended from it. It should be just as opposed to that system which at one time leans wholly to Catholics or to tenants, and at another time wholly to Protestants or to landlords, which will suffer an illegal procession in one province that would be rigidly repressed in another, and which subordinates all questions of patronage or principle, and even in some instances the very execution of the laws, to the exigencies of party politics. By such systems the respect for law has been fatally weakened, and their abandonment is the first condition of political health. But, in addition to this, it appears to me to be per- fectly evident, from the existing state of public opinion in Ireland, that no Government will ever command the real affection and loyalty of the people which is not in INTRODUCTION. XIX some degree national, administered in a great measure by Irishmen and through Irish institutions. If the present discontent is ever to be checked, if the ruling power is ever to carry with it the moral weight which is essential to its success, it can only be by calling into being a strong local political feeling, directed by men who have the responsibility of property, who are attached to the connection, and who at the same time possess the confidence of the Irish people. As in Hungary, as in Poland, as in Belgium, national instil tutions alone will obtain the confidence of the nation, and any system of policy which fails to recognise this craving of the national sentiment will fail also to .strike a chord of true gratitude. It may palliate, but it cannot cure. It may deal with local symptoms, but it cannot remove the chronic disease. To call into active political life the upper class of Irishmen, and to enlarge the sphere of their political power — to give, in a word, to Ireland the greatest amount of self-government that is compatible with the unity and the security of the Empire — should be the aim of every statesman. To do this is, unfortunately, extremely difficult. At present the very materials and essential conditions of self-government are in a great degree wanting. There was a time when the attachment of the oc- cupiers of the soil to their landlords was probably as warm in Ireland as in any other country, but a long series of causes, which I have endeavoured to trace in the following pages, have greatly diminished it, and the schism of classes, and the wild notions on the subject of landed property which have of late years been diffused, constitute a serious danger. The motives of interest that connect Ireland with England XX INTUODUCTION. are sufficient to secure the co-operation of the two countries as long as Irish opinion is directed by pro- perty and intelligence, but they are not likely to weigh with unprincipled adventurers, or with ignorant and unreasoning disloyalty. At the same time, sectarian feeling runs so high in politics that it is probable that one of the first acts of an Irish Parliament would now be to build up a wall of separation between Protestants and Catholics by the destruction of united education. Under such circumstances a sudden change of system is probably to be deprecated, and it is only by slow, cau- tious, and gradual steps that self-government can be in some degree restored. By steadily opposing the ten- dency to centralisation, which has produced so many evils in Ireland, by transferring private business from the overworked Parliament of the Empire to cheaper and perhaps more competent local tribunals, by gradu- ally enlarging the sphere of local government, and by encouraging and bringing into activity the political talent of the country, a sound public opinion may be slowly formed. Local government in Ireland, in as far as it exists, presents on the whole a very remarkable and very satisfactory contrast to the political condition of the country. The public institutions are probably quite as well managed as those of England, or indeed of any other coimtry. The magistracy, the police, and the poor-law administration are eminently efficient, and the comparatively small amount of pauperism is partly due to the good management of the latter. One of the latest signs of the deplorable local government in England has been the epidemic of small-pox which -has followed the general neglect of the law about vaccina- tion ; but in Ireland no such epidemic has raged, and INTRODUCTION. XXI the fact is ascribed chiefly to the much better enforce- ment of the law. One of the most important recent movements in the direction of prison reform has been due to the success of the reformatory system which has been established in Ireland. Undetected agrarian crime, the imtrustworthiness of juries in cases on which public feeling is strongly excited, the scan- dalous tone of a certain section of the press, and the frequency of religious or political riots still disgrace the country ; but the first and last of these evils have been restricted within very narrow territorial limits ; the second miglit be greatly mitigated by the intro- duction of the Scotch jury system, under which unani- mity is not necessary for a verdict ; and the general average both of serious crime and of vice is lower than in England. It would be a gross injustice to the country to infer that its political condition reflects accurately its social condition, or that the relations of landlords and tenants are habitually hostile. If it be true that the desire for some measure of self- government is not likely to be extinguished or dimi- nished in Ireland, it is evident that many influences are in operation which must tend towards its realisa- tion. Of the two great Irish measures which have been passed within the last few years, it will probably be found that the one disestablishing the Protestant Church will have effects little contemplated by the bulk of its sup- porters. The question was always mainly an English one. Since the tithes were commuted into a land-tax, paid exclusively by the landlords, the great body of XXll INTRODUCTION. the Irish people have cared very little on the subject. The Protestant clergy -were usually popular and useful ; with tlie exception of priests and converts, few people in Ireland grudged them their endowments ; and if it had not been for English party interests, and for the radicalism of British Dissent, they might long have continued. If, indeed, the Church funds had been divided between the rival sects, the conciliatory effect of the measure might have been very great. The partial payment of the priests — which a long series of eminent statesmen of different parties, from Pitt to Lord Russell, have concurred in recommending — would have attached the most influential class in Ireland indissolubly to the throne, would have appreciably raised their social position, and, by relieving the poorer Catholics of their most oppressive burdens, would have been felt with gratitude in every house- hold. If the independence of the priesthood had been fully guaranteed, the Irish objections to such a mea- sure would probably have been surmounted ; but English, and especially Scotch, public opinion made it impossible. Tlie Radicals, who desired the abolition of the Irish Establishment mainly as a step to the abolition of the English one — the Puritans, whose hatred of Catholicism was even stronger than their hatred of Establishments — interposed their veto, and the Church Bill was carried in a form which was of little or no practical benefit to the Catholics, who have accordingly received it with general indifference. But its effect upon the Protestants has been extremely great. They have been cut loose from their old moorings. The object the defence of which was a main end of their policy has disappeared, and they are INTRODUCTION. XXlll certainly more disposed than at any period since the Union to throw themselves into the general current of Irish sentiment. At the same time, the representative bodies in which the Irish gentry are learning to assemble to deliberate upon their Church affairs are forming habits which may be extended to politics. In spite of frequent and menacing reactions, it is probable that sectarian animosity will diminish in Ireland. The general intellectual tendencies of the age are certainly hostile to it. With the increase of wealth and know- ledge there must in time grow up among the Catholics an independent lay public opinion, and the tendency of their politics will cease to be purely sacerdotal. The establishment of perfect religious equality and the settlement of the question of the temporal power of the Pope have removed grave causes of irritation, and united education, if it be steadily maintained and honestly carried out, will at length assuage the bitter- ness of sects and perhaps secure for Ireland the inesti- mable benefit of real union. The division of classes is at present perhaps a graver danger than the di- vision of sects. But the Land Bill of Mr. Glad- stone cannot fail in time to do much to cure it. If it be possible in a society like our own to create a yeoman class intervening between landlords and tenants, the facilitieo now given to tenants to purchase their tenancies will create it ; and if, as is probable, it is economically impossible that such a class should now exist to any considerable extent, the tenant class have at least been given an unexampled security — they have been rooted to the soil, and their interests have been more than ever identified with those of their landlords. The division between rich and poor XXIV INTRODUCTION. is also rapidly ceasing to coincide with that between Protestant and Catholic, and thus the old lines of demarcation are being gradually efifaced. A consider- able time must elapse before the full effect of these changes is felt, but sooner or later they must exercise a profound influence oh opinion ; and if they do not extinguish the desire of the people for national institu- tions, they will greatly increase the probability of their obtaining them. L. THE LEADEKS OF PUBLIC OPINION IK IRELAND. JONATHAN SWIFT. Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin in the year 1667. His father (who had died a few months before) had been steward of the King's Inn Society. His mother was an English lady of a Leicestershire family, remark- able for the strictness of her religious views, and for the energy and activity of her character. At the early age of six, Swift was sent to a school at Kilkenny, where he remained till he was fourteen, when he en- tered the University of Dublin. His position there was exceedingly painful, and lie remembered it with bitterness to the end of his life. His sole means of subsistence were the remittances of his uncle Godwin ; and those remittances, owing to the poverty — or, as Swift believed, the miserly disposition — of his uncle, were doled out in the most niggardly manner. He found it impossible to maintain the position of a gen- tleman. He was precluded from all the luxuries, and could with difficulty procure the necessaries of life. 2 2 JONATHAN SWIFT. Notwithstanding' the extreme frugality with which he managed his slender resources, he was on one occasion left absolutely destitute, and was relieved only by the unexpected arrival of a present from a cousin, who was a merchant at Lisbon. The conduct of a young man under such circumstances often furnishes no obscure intimation of the prevailing character of his after-life. Goldsmith, when struggling with extreme poverty, at the University, lived in the most reckless enjoyment, spending what money he had with profuse generosity, disregarding as far as possible the studies of his course, and only employing his fine talents in writing street- ballads, which he sold to supply his more pressing wants. Johnson, in a similar position, grew morose, and turbulent, and domineering. He defied the dis- cipline, but availed himself fully of the intellectual advantages of, college, and astonished and delighted his tutors by the extent and the accuracy of his in- formation. Swift, like Johnson, was completely soured by adver- sity, and, like Groldsmith, he treated the academic studies with supreme contempt. He systematically violated all college rules — absenting himself from night-roll, chapel, and lectures, haunting public- houses, and in e\ery way defying discipline. He considered mathematics, logic, and metaphysics use- less and accordingly positively refused to study them. Dr. Sheridan (who was a good mathematician) tells us that in after-life he had attained some proficiency in the first of these subjects, but the hatred and contempt he entertained for it never diminished. His ignorance of logic was so great that at his degree ex- amination he could not even frame a syllogism, and accordingly was unable to pass the examination, and only obtained his degree ' by special favour' — a fact HIS LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY. 3 which is still remembered with pleasure by the under- graduates who are examined beneath his portrait. Yet, even at this time, his genius was not undeveloped or unemployed. He studied history, he wrote odes, and, above all, he composed his ' Tale of a Tub.' The first draft of this wonderful book he showed to his college friend Warren when he was only nineteen, but he afterwards amplified and revised it considerably, and its publication did not take place till 1704. He also acquired at this time those pedestrian habits which continued through life, and exercised so great an influ- ence upon his mind. He traversed on foot a consider- able portion of England and Ireland, mingling with the very lowest classes, and sleeping at the lowest public-houses. The traces of this habit may be seen on almost every page of his writings. To this period of his life we probably owe the taste for coarse, vulgar illustrations, by which his noblest works are disfigured, as well as much of that minute observation, that keen and accurate knowledge of men, which is one of their greatest charms. To the end of his life he delighted in mixing with men of the lowest classes, and no great writer ever understood better the art of adapting his style to their tastes and understandings. To the same period of his life we may trace the careful and penu- rious habits which in his old age developed into an intense avarice. Upon leaving the University, the first gleam of prosperity, though at first hardly of happiness, shone upon his path. His mother was related to the wife of Sir W. Temple, and this circumstance procured for him the position of amanuensis at Moor Park, which he held for several years. Sir W. Temple was at this time near the close of his oareer. He enjoyed the reputation of a considerable 4 JONATHAN SWIFT. statesman and of a very great diplomatist, and Lis character was in truth much more suited for nego- tiation than for the rougher forms of statesmanship. With great abilities and much kindness of heart, he was too languid, unambitious, and epicurean to attain the highest place in English politics ; and his bland, patronising courtesy, liis refined and somewhat fasti- dious taste, as well as his instinctive shrinking from turmoil, controversy, and violence, denoted a man who was more fitted to shine in a court than in a par- liament. He described in one of his Essays ' coolness of temper and blood, and consequently of desires,' as ' the great principle of virtue,' and his disposition almost realised his ideal. He had, however, a consi- derable knowledge of men and books, and a sound and mioderate judgment in politics ; and his life, if it was distinguished by no splendid virtues, and characterised by a little selfishness and a little cowardice, was at least singularly pure in an age when political purity was very rare. He had surrounded himself in his old age with beautiful gardens, and objects of art and refinement ; and he dallied in a feeble way with litera- ture, writing in admirably pure, graceful, and melo- dious English, somewhat vapid essays on politics and gardens, on Chinese literature and the Evil of Extremes. With a character of this kind Swift could have little sympathy. For good or for evil, intensity was always one of his leading characteristics. It was shown alike in his friendships and his enmities, in his ambitions and his regrets. Though not susceptible to the com- mon passion of love, a liquid fire seemed coursing- through his veins. That ' sseva indignatio ' which he recorded in his epitaph, the fierce ambition, the in- domitable pride, the intense hatred of wrong, which he invariably displayed, must have often made him HIS ORDINATION. 5 strangely at variance with his courtly patron. His position was extremely galling, for he was at first only treated as a kind of upper servant. He was shy and awkward, and felt, as he afterwards confessed, keenly a word of disapprobation from Temple. His college habits doubtless gave an additional roughness to his manners ; and the ill health, which had already begun to prey upon him, an additional acerbity to his temper. However, as time advanced, his position at Moor Park improved. He devoted himself most assiduously to study for several years, and thus compensated for his idleness at the University. His favourite subjects appear to have been the classics and French litera- ture ; and he read them with the energy of enthusiasm. In 1692 he took his degree of Master of Arts at Oxford, for which University he ever after entertained feelings of grateful regard. He also rose rapidly in Sir W. Temple's estimation, and hoped, through his influence, soon to obtain an independent position. He believed, however (whether justly or unjustly we need not too curiously enquire), that Temple's patronage was very languid, and he at last left Moor Park in anger, and proceeded to Ireland to be ordained. He there found, to his inexpressible dismay, that a letter of recom- mendation from Temple was an indispensable preli- minary to ordination. For months he shrank from the humiliation of asking the letter, but at last he wrote for and received it. He was ordained, and almost im- mediately after he obtained a small preferment at a place called Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor. Temple, however, in the meantime, had found that Swift's pre- sence was absolutely necessary to his enjoyment. The extreme amiability of his disposition prevented him from retaining any feelings of bitterness, and he made overtures which soon drew the young clergyman from a 6 JONATHAN SWIFT. retirement that was as unsuited to liis happiness as to his genius. Swift returned to England, and lived with Temple till the death of the latter, which took place four years after. During this time he was treated not as a dependent, but as a friend. He was admitted into his patron's confidence ; his genius was fully recog- nised ; and the bias of his mind determined for life. 