THE

WORKS

OF

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

A NEW EDITION

IN TWELVE VOLUMES.

WITH

AN ESSAY ON HIS LIFE AND GENIUS,

By ARTHUR MURPHY, Esq.

VOLUME THE EIGHTH.

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SWIFT.

An account of Dr. Swift has been already collected, with great diligence and acuteness, by Dr. Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be expected to say much of a life, concerning which I had long since communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with so much elegance of language and force of sentiment.

JONATHAN Swift was, according to an account said to be written by himself *, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin on St. Andrew's day, 1667: according to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman, who was minister of a parish in Herefordshiret. During his life the place of his birth was undetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the Irish; but would occasionally call himself an Englishman. The question may, without much regret, be left in the obscurity in which he delighted to involve it.

* Mr. Sheridan in his Life of Swift observes, that this account was really written by the Dean, and now exists in his own handwriting in the library of Dublin College. R.

+ Spence's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 273. VOL. VIII.

B