er not diligent or not happy. It
must disappoint every reader's expectation, that, when at the usual time
he claimed the bachelorship of arts, he was found by the examiners too
conspicuously deficient for regular admission, and obtained his degree,
at last, by _special favour_; a term used in that university to denote
want of merit.

Of this disgrace it may easily be supposed that he was much ashamed,
and shame had its proper effect in producing reformation. He resolved,
from that time, to study eight hours a day, and continued his industry
for seven years, with what improvement is sufficiently known. This part
of his story well deserves to be remembered; it may afford useful
admonition and powerful encouragement to men whose abilities have been
made for a time useless by their passions or pleasures, and who, having
lost one part of life in idleness, are tempted to throw away the
remainder in despair.

In this course of daily application he continued three years longer at
Dublin; and in this time, if the observation and memory of an old
companion may be trusted, he drew the first sketch of his Tale of a Tub.

When he was about one-and-twenty, 1688, being, by the death of Godwin
Swift, his uncle, who had supported him, left without subsistence, he
went to consult his mother, who then lived at Leicester, about the
future course of his life; and by her direction solicited the advice and
patronage of sir William Temple, who had married one of Mrs. Swift's
relations, and whose father, sir John Temple, master of the Rolls in
Ireland, had lived in great familiarity of friendship with Godwin Swift,
by whom Jonathan had been to that time maintained.

Temple received with sufficient kindness the nephew of his father's
friend, with whom he was, when they conversed together, so much pleased,
that he detained him two years in his house. Here he became known to
king William, who sometimes visited Temple when he was disabled by the
gout, and, being attended by Swift in the garden, showed him how to cut
asparagus in the Dutch way.

King William's notions were all military; and he expressed his kindness
to Swift by offering to make him a captain of horse.

When Temple removed to Moor-park, he took Swift with him; and when he
was consulted by the earl of Portland about the expedience of complying
with a bill then depending for making parliaments triennial, against
which king William was strongly prejudiced, after having in vain tri