m which we have
quoted a few lines of mock melancholy, he breaks out of the funereal
procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own
grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune,
and even hope.

I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to Temple, in which,
after having broke from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteously
towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for
testimonials for orders. "The particulars required of me are what relate
to morals and learning--and the reasons of quitting your Honour's
family--that is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They
are left entirely to your Honour's mercy, though in the first I think I
cannot reproach myself for anything further than for _infirmities_. This
is all I dare at present beg from your Honour, under circumstances of life
not worth your regard: what is left me to wish (next to the health and
prosperity of your Honour and family) is that Heaven would one day allow
me the opportunity of leaving my acknowledgements at your feet. I beg my
most humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your Honour's lady
and sister."--Can prostration fall deeper? Could a slave bow lower?(40)

Twenty years afterwards, Bishop Kennet, describing the same man, says,
"Dr. Swift came into the coffee-house and had a bow from everybody but me.
When I came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr.
Swift was the principal man of talk and business. He was soliciting the
Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a place
for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake, with my Lord
Treasurer, that he should obtain a salary of 200_l._ per annum as member
of the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in
to the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had something to say
to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold watch, and telling the
time of day, complained that it was very late. A gentleman said he was too
fast. 'How can I help it,' says the doctor, 'if the courtiers give me a
watch that won't go right?' Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the
best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation
of Homer into English, for which he would have them all subscribe; 'For,'
says he, 'he shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for
him.'(41) Lord Treasurer, a