Temple in England, he entered
the ministry of the Irish Church. During the early years of the
century he spent much time in London, and took an active part in
bringing about that political revolution which seated the Tories
firmly in power during the last four years of the reign of Queen
Anne. His services in that connection on the _Examiner_ newspaper
were so great that it would be difficult to dispute the assertion,
which has been made, that he was one of the mightiest journalists
that ever wielded a pen. He also stood loyally by his party in his
great pamphlets, _The Conduct of the Allies_ (1711), _The Barrier
Treaty_ (1712), and _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_ (1714). When the
time came for his reward, he received not, as he had hoped, an
English bishopric, but the deanery of St. Patrick's in Dublin. On
resuming his residence in Ireland he was at first very unpopular, but
his patriotic spirit as shown in the _Drapier Letters_ (1723-1724),
written in connection with a coinage scheme known as "Wood's
halfpence", not only caused the withdrawal of the obnoxious project
but also made Swift the idol of all classes of his countrymen. In
many others of his writings he showed that pro-Irish leaning which
caused Grattan to invoke his spirit along with that of Molyneux on
the occasion already referred to. Nothing more mordant than the irony
contained in his _Modest Proposal_ has ever been penned. In his plea
for native manufactures he struck a keynote that has vibrated down
the ages when he advised Irishmen to burn everything English except
coal!

Swift's greater works are _The Battle of the Books_, his contribution
to the controversy concerning the relative merits of the ancients and
the moderns; the _Tale of a Tub_, in which he attacked the three
leading forms of Christianity; and, above all, _Gulliver's Travels_.
In this last work he let loose the full flood of his merciless satire
and lashed the folly and vices of mankind in the most unsparing way.
He also wrote verses which are highly characteristic and some of them
not without considerable merit. His life was unhappy and for the last
five years of it he was to all intents and purposes insane. His
relations with Stella (Hester Johnson) and Vanessa (Esther
Vanhomrigh) have never been quite satisfactorily explained. The
weight of evidence would seem to show that he was secretly married to
Stella, but that they never lived together as husband and wife. Many
novels and pla