nce they flattered him and
courted his society. He became the intimate friend and companion of
Oxford and Bolingbroke. He dined with the prime minister every Sunday,
and in fact as often as he pleased. He rarely dined at home, and almost
lived in the houses of the highest nobles, who welcomed him not only for
the aid he gave them by his writings, but for his wit and agreeable
discourse. At one time he was the most influential man in England,
although poor and without office or preferment. He possessed two or
three livings in Ireland, which together brought him about L500, on
which he lived,--generally in London, at least when his friends were in
power. They could not spare him, and he was intrusted with the most
important secrets of state. His insolence was superb. He affected
equality with dukes and earls; he "condescended" to accept their
banquets. The first time that Bolingbroke invited him to dine, his reply
was that "if the Queen gave his lordship a dukedom and the Garter and
the Treasury also, he would regard them no more than he would a groat."
This assumed independence was the habit of his life. He indignantly
returned L100 to Harley, which the minister had sent him as a gift: he
did not work for money, but for influence and a promised bishopric. But
the Queen--a pious woman of the conventional school--would never hear of
his elevation to the bench of bishops, in consequence of the "Tale of a
Tub," in which he had ridiculed everything sacred and profane. He was
the bitterest satirist that England has produced. The most his powerful
friends could do for him was to give him the deanery of St. Patrick's in
Dublin, worth about L800 a year.

Swift was first brought to notice by Sir William Temple, in the reign of
William and Mary, he being Sir William's secretary. At first he was a
Whig, and a friend of Addison; but, neglected by Marlborough and
Godolphin,--who cared but little for literary genius,--he became a Tory.
In 1710 he became associated with Harley, St. John, Atterbury, and
Prior, in the defence of the Tory party; but he never relinquished his
friendship with Addison, for whom he had profound respect and
admiration. Swift's life was worldly, but moral. He was remarkably
temperate in eating and drinking, and parsimonious in his habits. One of
his most bitter complaints in his letters to Stella--to whom he wrote
every day--was of the expense of coach-hire in his visits to nobles and
statesmen. It would seem th