even months after the death of his father,
who had come to practise there as a lawyer. The boy went to school at
Kilkenny, and afterwards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree
with difficulty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, by the
recommendation of his mother, Swift was received into the family of Sir
William Temple, who had known Mrs. Swift in Ireland. He left his patron in
1693, and the next year took orders in Dublin. But he threw up the small
Irish preferment which he got and returned to Temple, in whose family he
remained until Sir William's death in 1699. His hopes of advancement in
England failing, Swift returned to Ireland, and took the living of
Laracor. Hither he invited Hester Johnson,(23) Temple's natural daughter,
with whom he had contracted a tender friendship, while they were both
dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to England, Swift now
passed nine years at home.

In 1709 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to Ireland, during
which he took possession of his deanery of St. Patrick, he now passed five
years in England, taking the most distinguished part in the political
transactions which terminated with the death of Queen Anne. After her
death, his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over, Swift returned
to Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In this time he wrote the
famous _Drapier's Letters_ and _Gulliver's Travels_. He married Hester
Johnson (Stella) and buried Esther Vanhomrigh (Vanessa) who had followed
him to Ireland from London, where she had contracted a violent passion for
him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, which he quitted for the last
time on hearing of his wife's illness. Stella died in January, 1728, and
Swift not until 1745, having passed the last five of the seventy-eight
years of his life with an impaired intellect and keepers to watch him.(24)

You know, of course, that Swift has had many biographers; his life has
been told by the kindest and most good-natured of men, Scott, who admires
but can't bring himself to love him; and by stout old Johnson,(25) who,
forced to admit him into the company of poets, receives the famous
Irishman, and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition,
scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the
street. Dr. Wilde, of Dublin,(26) who has written a most interesting
volume on the closing years of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the most
malignant of his biog