rs. He was
ready to proceed to M.A. when his uncle Godwin became insane. The
troubles of 1689 also caused the closing of the University, and Jonathan
Swift went to Leicester, where mother and son took counsel together as to
future possibilities of life.

The retired statesman, Sir William Temple, at Moor Park, near Farnham, in
Surrey, was in highest esteem with the new King and the leaders of the
Revolution. His father, as Master of the Irish Rolls, had been a friend
of Godwin Swift's, and with his wife Swift's mother could claim
cousinship. After some months, therefore, at Leicester, Jonathan Swift,
aged twenty-two, went to Moor Park, and entered Sir William Temple's
household, doing service with the expectation of advancement through his
influence. The advancement he desired was in the Church. When Swift
went to Moor Park he found in its household a child six or seven years
old, daughter to Mrs. Johnson, who was trusted servant and companion to
Lady Gifford, Sir William Temple's sister. With this little Esther, aged
seven, Swift, aged twenty-two, became a playfellow and helper in her
studies. He broke his English for her into what he called their "little
language," that was part of the same playful kindliness, and passed into
their after-life. In July, 1692, with Sir William Temple's help,
Jonathan Swift commenced M.A. in Oxford, as of Hart Hall. In 1694,
Swift's ambition having been thwarted by an offer of a clerkship, of 120
pounds a year, in the Irish Rolls, he broke from Sir William Temple, took
orders, and obtained, through other influence, in January, 1695, the
small prebendary of Kilroot, in the north of Ireland. He was there for
about a year. Close by, in Belfast, was an old college friend, named
Waring, who had a sister. Swift was captivated by Miss Waring, called
her Varina, and would have become engaged to marry her if she had not
flinched from engagement with a young clergyman whose income was but a
hundred a year.

But Sir William Temple had missed Jonathan Swift from Moor Park.
Differences were forgotten, and Swift, at his wish, went back. This was
in 1696, when his little pupil, Esther Johnson, was fifteen. Swift said
of her, "I knew her from six years old, and had some share in her
education, by directing what books she should read, and perpetually
instructing her in the principles of honour and virtue, from which she
never swerved in any one action or moment of her life. She was sickl