nd attained extraordinary popularity by his _Drapier's
Letters_, directed against the introduction of "Wood's halfpence." In
1726 he visited England and joined with Pope and Arbuthnot in publishing
_Miscellanies_ (1727). In the same year, 1726, he _pub._ _Gulliver's
Travels_, his most widely and permanently popular work. His last visit to
England was paid in 1727 and in the following year "Stella," the only
being, probably, whom he really loved, _d._ Though he had a circle of
friends in Dublin, and was, owing to his championing the people in their
grievances, a popular idol, the shadows were darkening around him. The
fears of insanity by which he had been all his life haunted, and which
may account for and perhaps partly excuse some of the least justifiable
portions of his conduct, pressed more and more upon him. He became
increasingly morose and savage in his misanthropy, and though he had a
rally in which he produced some of his most brilliant, work--the
_Rhapsody on Poetry_, _Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift_, and; the
_Modest Proposal_ (a horrible but masterly piece of irony)--he gradually
sank into almost total loss of his facilities, and _d._ on October 19,
1745.

The character of S. is one of the gloomiest and least attractive among
English writers. Intensely proud, he suffered bitterly in youth and early
manhood from the humiliations of poverty and dependence, which preyed
upon a mind in which the seeds of insanity were latent until it became
dominated by a ferocious misanthropy. As a writer he is our greatest
master of grave irony, and while he presents the most humorous ideas, the
severity of his own countenance never relaxes. The _Tale of a Tub_ and
_Gulliver's Travels_ are the greatest satires in the English language,
although the concluding part of the latter is a savage and almost insane
attack upon the whole human race. His history is a tragedy darkening into
catastrophe, and as Thackeray has said, "So great a man he seems that
thinking of him is like thinking of an Empire falling."

S. was tall and powerfully made. His eyes, blue and flashing under
excitement, were the most remarkable part of his appearance.

SUMMARY.--_B._ 1667, _ed._ at Trinity Coll., Dublin, entered household of
Sir W. Temple at Moor Park 1692, and became his sec., became known to
William III., and met E. Johnson (Stella), left T. in 1694 and returned
to Ireland, took orders and wrote _Tale of a Tub_ and _Battle of Books_
(_pub._ 17