nd. From there he visited London
on a mission in behalf of the Episcopal Church in Ireland. He
quarreled with the Whigs, became a Tory, and assisted that party by
writing many political pamphlets. The Tory ministry soon felt that it
could scarcely do without him. He dined with ministers of state, and
was one of the most important men in London; but he advanced the
interests of his friends much better than his own, for he got little
from the government except the hope of becoming bishop. In 1713 he was
made dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In 1714, Queen Anne
died, the Tories went out of power, and Swift returned to Ireland, a
disappointed man. He passed the rest of his life there, with the
exception of a few visits to England.

[Illustration: MOOR PARK. _From a drawing._]

When English politicians endeavored to oppress Ireland with unjust
laws, Swift championed the Irish cause. A man who knew him well, says:
"I never saw the poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to as
those of his cathedral." He gave up a large part of his income every
year for the poor. In Dublin he was looked upon as a hero. When a
certain person tried to be revenged on Swift for a satire, a
deputation of Swift's neighbors proposed to thrash the man. Swift sent
them home, but they boycotted the man and lowered his income L1200 a
year.

During the last years of his life, Swift was hopelessly insane. He
died in 1745, leaving his property for an asylum for lunatics and
incurables.

[Illustration: SWIFT AND STELLA. _From the painting by Dicksee._]

The mysteries in Swift's life may be partly accounted for by the fact
that during many years he suffered from an unknown brain disease. This
affection, the galling treatment received in his early years, and the
disappointments of his prime, largely account for his misanthropy, for
his coldness, and for the almost brutal treatment of the women who
loved him.

Swift's attachment to the beautiful Esther Johnson, known in
literature as Stella, led him to write to her that famous series of
letters known as the _Journal to Stella_, in which he gives much of
his personal history during the three sunniest years of his life, from
1710 to 1713, when he was a lion in London. Thackeray says: "I know of
nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some
of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls his 'little
language' in his _Journal to Stella_."

A Tale of a Tub and the B