ect he took delight in revolving
ideas, from which almost every other mind shrinks with disgust. The
ideas of pleasure, even when criminal, may solicit the imagination; but
what has disease, deformity, and filth, upon which the thoughts can be
allured to dwell? Delany is willing to think that Swift's mind was not
much tainted with this gross corruption before his long visit to Pope.
He does not consider how he degrades his hero, by making him at
fifty-nine the pupil of turpitude, and liable to the malignant influence
of an ascendant mind. But the truth is that Gulliver had described his
yahoos before the visit; and he that had formed those images had nothing
filthy to learn.

I have here given the character of Swift as he exhibits himself to my
perception; but now let another be heard who knew him better. Dr.
Delany, after long acquaintance, describes him to lord Orrery in these
terms:

"My lord, when you consider Swift's singular, peculiar, and most
variegated vein of wit, always intended rightly, although not always so
rightly directed; delightful in many instances, and salutary even where
it is most offensive: when you consider his strict truth, his fortitude
in resisting oppression and arbitrary power; his fidelity in friendship;
his sincere love and zeal for religion; his uprightness in making right
resolutions, and his steadiness in adhering to them; his care of his
church, its choir, its economy, and its income; his attention to all
those that preached in his cathedral, in order to their amendment in
pronunciation and style; as also his remarkable attention to the
interest of his successors, preferably to his own present emoluments;
his invincible patriotism, even to a country which he did not love; his
very various, well-devised, well-judged, and extensive charities,
throughout his life; and his whole fortune (to say nothing of his
wife's) conveyed to the same christian purposes at his death; charities,
from which he could enjoy no honour, advantage, or satisfaction of any
kind in this world; when you consider his ironical and humorous, as well
as his serious schemes, for the promotion of true religion and virtue;
his success in soliciting for the first-fruits and twentieths, to the
unspeakable benefit of the established church of Ireland; and his
felicity (to rate it no higher) in giving occasion to the building of
fifty new churches in London:

"All this considered, the character of his life will appear lik