table two days a week, and found his
entertainments gradually frequented by more and more visitants of
learning among the men, and of elegance among the women. Mrs. Johnson
had left the country, and lived in lodgings not far from the deanery. On
his publick days she regulated the table, but appeared at it as a mere
guest, like other ladies.

On other days he often dined, at a stated price, with Mr. Worral, a
clergyman of his cathedral, whose house was recommended by the peculiar
neatness and pleasantry of his wife. To this frugal mode of living, he
was first disposed by care to pay some debts which he had contracted,
and he continued it for the pleasure of accumulating money. His avarice,
however, was not suffered to obstruct the claims of his dignity; he was
served in plate, and used to say, that he was the poorest gentleman in
Ireland that ate upon plate, and the richest that lived without a coach.

How he spent the rest of his time, and how he employed his hours of
study, has been inquired with hopeless curiosity. For who can give an
account of another's studies? Swift was not likely to admit any to his
privacies, or to impart a minute account of his business or his leisure.

Soon after, 1716, in his forty-ninth year, he was privately married to
Mrs. Johnson, by Dr. Ashe, bishop of Clogher, as Dr. Madden told me, in
the garden. The marriage made no change in their mode of life; they
lived in different houses, as before; nor did she ever lodge in the
deanery but when Swift was seized with a fit of giddiness. "It would be
difficult," says lord Orrery, "to prove that they were ever afterwards
together without a third person."

The dean of St. Patrick's lived in a private manner, known and regarded
only by his friends; till, about the year 1720, he, by a pamphlet,
recommended to the Irish the use, and, consequently, the improvement of
their manufacture. For a man to use the productions of his own labour is
surely a natural right, and to like best what he makes himself is a
natural passion. But to excite this passion, and enforce this right,
appeared so criminal to those who had an interest in the English trade,
that the printer was imprisoned; and, as Hawkesworth justly observes,
the attention of the publick being, by this outrageous resentment,
turned upon the proposal, the author was by consequence made popular.

In 1723 died Mrs. Van Homrigh, a woman made unhappy by her admiration of
wit, and ignominiously disting