of solitude sharpened his asperity. He was not, however, totally deserted; some men of learning, and some women of elegance, often visited him; and he wrote from time to time either verse or prose.

As his years increased, his fits of giddiness and deafness grew more frequent, and his deafness made conversation difficult; they grew likewise more severe till, in 1736, as he was writing a poem called the "Legion Club," he was seized with a fit so painful, and so long continued, that he never after thought it proper to attempt any work of thought or labour.

He was always careful of his money, and was therefore no liberal entertainer; but was le frugal of his wine than of his meat. When his friends of either sex came to him in expectation of a dinner, his custom was to give every one a shilling, that they might please themselves with their provision. At last he would refuse even a bottle of wine.

Having thus excluded conversation, and desisted from study, he had neither business nor amusement; for, having determined never to wear spectacles, he could make but little use of books in his latter years: his ideas therefore, being neither renovated by discourse nor increased by reading, wore gradually away, and left his mind vacant to the vexations of the hour, till at last his anger was heightened into madness.

He however permitted one book to be published, which had been the production of former years, "Polite Conversation," which appeared in 1738.

"The Directions for Servants" was printed soon after his death.

He grew more violent, and his mental powers declined till (1741) it was found necessary that legal guardians should be appointed to his person and fortune. His madness was compounded of rage and fatuity. The last face that he knew was that of Mrs. Whiteway, and her he ceased to know in a very little time. His meat was brought him cut into mouthfuls; but he would never touch it while the servant staid, and at last, after it had stood perhaps an hour, would eat it walking; for he continued his old habit, and was on his feet ten hours a day.

Next year (1742) he had an inflammation in his left eye, which swelled it to the size of an egg, with boils in other parts; he was kept long waking with the pain, and was not easily restrained by five attendants from tearing out his eye.

The tumour at last subsided; and a short interval of reason ensuing, in which he knew his physician and his family, gave hopes of his recovery; but in a few days he sunk into lethargic stupidity, motionless, heedless, and speechless. But it is said that after a year of total silence, when his housekeeper, on the 30th of November, told him that the usual bonfires and illuminations were preparing to celebrate his birth-day, he answered, It is all folly; they had better let it alone.

It is remembered, that he afterwards spoke now and then, or gave some intimation of a meaning; but at last sunk into perfect silence which continued

till about the end of October 1744; when, in his seventy-eighth year, he expired without a struggle. The following observations respect his prose works, his person, and private habits.

"His "Tale of a Tub," says Johnson, "has little resemblance to his other pieces. It exhibits a vehemence and rapidity of mind, a copiousness of images, and vivacity of diction, such as he afterwards never possessed, or never exerted."

"In his other works is found an equable tenour of easy language, which rather trickles than flows. His delight was in simplicity. That he has in his works no metaphor, as has been said, is not true; but his few metaphors seemed to be received rather by necessity than choice. He studied purity; and though perhaps all his strictures are not exact, yet it is not often that solecisms can be found; and whoever depends on his authority may generally conclude himself safe. His sentences are never too much dilated or contracted.”

"His style was well suited to his thoughts, which are never subtilized by nice disquisitions, decorated by sparkling conceits, elevated by ambitious sentences, or variegated by far-sought learning

"Of his duty as a Dean he was very observant. He managed the revenues of his church with exact œconomy; and it is said by Delany, that more money was under his direction laid out in repairs than had ever been in the same time since its first erection. Of his choir he was eminently careful; and, though he neither loved nor understood music, he took care that all the singers were well qualified.

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"He came to church every morning, preached commonly in his turn, and attended the evening anthem, that it might not be negligently performed.

"He read the service rather with a strong nervous voice than in a graceful manner; his voice was sharp and high-toned rather than harmonious.

"He entered upon the clerical state with hope to excel in preaching, but complained that from the time of his political controversies he could only preach pamphlets.

"The person of Swift had not many recommendations. He had a kind of muddy complexion, which, though he washed himself with oriental scrupulosity, did not look clear. He had a countenance sour and severe, which he seldom softened by any appearance of gaiety. He stubbornly resisted any tendency to laughter.

"To his domestics he was naturally rough; and a man of rigorous temper, with that vigilance of minute attention which his works discover, must have been a master that few could bear.

"He did not spare the servants of others. Once, when he dined alone with the Earl of Orrery, he said of one that waited in the room, That man has, since we sat at table, committed fifteen faults.

"In his œconomy he practised a peculiar and offensive parsimony without disguise or apology.

"He was frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle; and if the purpose to which he destined his little accumulations be remembered, with his distribution of occasional charity, it will perhaps

expence

appear, that he only liked one mode of better than another, and saved only that he might have something to give."

"He told stories with great felicity, and delighted in doing what he knew himself to do well. He was therefore captivated by the respectful silence of a steady listener, and told the same tale too often.

"He did not, however, claim the right of talking alone; for it was his rule, when he had spoken a minute, to give room by a pause for any other speaker."

"In the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the critic can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions, easiness and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. There seldom occur a hard-laboured expression or a redundant epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good style, they consist proper words in proper places.

of

"To divide this collection into classes, and shew how some pieces are gross, and some are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant, who certainly wrote often not to his judgment, but his humour.

"It was said in a preface to one of his Irish editions, that Swift had never been known to take a single thought from any writer ancient or modern.