At the Kilkenny school, and especially at Dublin University, he
detested the curriculum, reading only what appealed to his own nature; but,
since a degree was necessary to his success, he was compelled to accept it
as a favor from the examiners, whom he despised in his heart. After
graduation the only position open to him was with a distant relative, Sir
William Temple, who gave him the position of private secretary largely on
account of the unwelcome relationship.

Temple was a statesman and an excellent diplomatist; but he thought himself
to be a great writer as well, and he entered into a literary controversy
concerning the relative merits of the classics and modern literature.
Swift's first notable work, _The Battle of the Books_, written at this time
but not published, is a keen satire upon both parties in the controversy.
The first touch of bitterness shows itself here; for Swift was in a galling
position for a man of his pride, knowing his intellectual superiority to
the man who employed him, and yet being looked upon as a servant and eating
at the servants' table. Thus he spent ten of the best years of his life in
the pretty Moor Park, Surrey, growing more bitter each year and steadily
cursing his fate. Nevertheless he read and studied widely, and, after his
position with Temple grew unbearable, quarreled with his patron, took
orders, and entered the Church of England. Some years later we find him
settled in the little church of Laracor, Ireland,--a country which he
disliked intensely, but whither he went because no other "living" was open
to him.

In Ireland, faithful to his church duties, Swift labored to better the
condition of the unhappy people around him. Never before had the poor of
his parishes been so well cared for; but Swift chafed under his yoke,
growing more and more irritated as he saw small men advanced to large
positions, while he remained unnoticed in a little country church,--largely
because he was too proud and too blunt with those who might have advanced
him. While at Laracor he finished his _Tale of a Tub_, a satire on the
various churches of the day, which was published in London with the _Battle
of the Books_ in 1704. The work brought him into notice as the most
powerful satirist of the age, and he soon gave up his church to enter the
strife of party politics. The cheap pamphlet was then the most powerful
political weapon known; and as Swift had no equal at pamphlet writing, he
soon became