at he creditably discharged his clerical
duties. He attended the daily service in the cathedral, and preached
when his turn came. He was charitable to the poor, and was a friend to
Ireland, to whose people he rendered great services from his influence
with the Government. He was beloved greatly by the Irish nation, in
spite of his asperity, parsimony, and bad temper. He is generally
regarded by critics as a selfish and heartless man; and his treatment of
the two women whose affections he had gained was certainly inexplicable
and detestable. His old age was miserable and sad. He died insane,
having survived his friends and his influence. But his writings have
lived. His "Gulliver's Travels" is still one of the most famous and
popular books in our language, in spite of its revolting and vulgar
details. Swift, like Addison, was a great master of style,--clear,
forcible, and natural; and in vigor he surpassed any writer of his age.

It was the misfortune of the Duchess of Marlborough to have this witty
and malignant satirist for an enemy. He exposed her peculiarities, and
laid bare her character with fearless effrontery. It was thus that he
attacked the most powerful woman in England: "A lady of my acquaintance
appropriated L26 a year out of her allowance for certain uses which the
lady received, or was to pay to the lady or her order when called for.
But after eight years it appeared upon the strictest calculation that
the woman had paid but L4, and sunk L22 for her own pocket. It is but
supposing L26 instead of L26,000, and by that you may judge what the
pretensions of modern merit are when it happens to be its own
paymaster." Who could stand before such insinuations? The Duchess
afterwards attempted to defend herself against the charge of peculation
as the keeper of the privy purse; but no one believed her. She was
notoriously avaricious and unscrupulous. Swift spared no personage in
the party of the Whigs, when by so doing he could please the leaders of
the Tories. And he wrote in an age when libels were scandalous and
savage,--libels which would now subject their authors to punishment. The
acrimony of party strife at that time has never since been equalled.
Even poets attacked each other with savage recklessness. There was no
criticism after the style of Sainte-Beuve. Writers sought either to
annihilate or to extravagantly praise. The jealousy which poets
displayed in reference to each other's productions was as unreaso