him aloud, he had
something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his gold
watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it was very late. A
gentleman said he was too fast. 'How can I help it,' says the Doctor,
'if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right?' Then he
instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope
(a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English, for which
he would have them all subscribe: 'For,' says he, 'he shall not begin to
print till I have a thousand guineas for him.' Lord Treasurer, after
leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow
him,--both went off just before prayers." There's a little malice in the
Bishop's "just before prayers."

This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is harsh, though not
altogether unpleasant. He was doing good, and to deserving men too, in
the midst of these intrigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand
anecdotes of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand was
constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man--he was cautious about
his money, but ready.--If you were in a strait would you like such a
benefactor? I think I would rather have had a potato and a friendly word
from Goldsmith than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and a
dinner. He insulted a man as he served him, made women cry, guests look
foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his benefactions into poor
men's faces. No; the Dean was no Irishman--no Irishman ever gave but
with a kind word and a kind heart.

It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of St.
Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning regularly, but
with such secrecy that the guests in his house were never in the least
aware of the ceremony. There was no need surely why a church dignitary
should assemble his family privily in a crypt, and as if he was afraid of
heathen persecution. But I think the world was right, and the bishops
who advised Queen Anne, when they counselled her not to appoint the
author of the "Tale of a Tub" to a bishopric, gave perfectly good advice.
The man who wrote the arguments and illustrations in that wild book,
could not but be aware what must be the sequel of the propositions which
he laid down. The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who chose
these as the friends of his life, and the recipients of his confidence
and affection, must have