f Swift's position and
career, rather than attempting a criticism on his works,
Thackeray held his audience from first to last. He gave a
vivid picture of the early life and loneliness of the great
satirist amidst the exasperating servilities and insults
endured from Temple's household, as also of the turbulent
political bravo coming up to London to carve for himself a
pathway among lords whom he despised. In this part of the
lecture it was felt that, while satirizing that condition of
political corruption which made Swift a bravo, and used him
as such, the censor still touched upon living foibles; at
the allusion to the South Sea Bubble, with its railway
parallel, we observed some fair shoulders wince! Nor were
religious cant and formalism untouched in the admirable
picture of Swift's sacrifice of his life to an hypocrisy.
The audience was of the elite--Thomas Carlyle, Macaulay,
Milman, Milnes, Sir Robert Inglis, the Duke and Duchess of
Argyle, the Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Constance Leveson
Gower, Lady Lichfield, with many others, not a few lovely
women, and several men well known in literature and art."

Of his second lecture we quote the _Times_:

"The heroes of his second lecture were Congreve and Addison.
For Congreve, while he admitted the brilliancy of his wit,
he evinced no great respect. He characterized him as the
greatest literary "swell" that ever lived. With an air of
greatness, Congreve put on his best clothes, stalked among
wits who all thronged to admire him, however eminent they
might be, and approached fine ladies with a certainty of
conquest. The "I am the great Mr. Congreve!" was the
complacent ejaculation which seemed to break through all he
said and did. His character as a man of gallantry was
illustrated by citations from his poems, in which he
adulates or insults the ladies whom he immortalizes, and
every where appears as the irresistible seducer, sure to be
victorious in the end. And who could resist that very great
Mr. Congreve, with his very fine coat, squeezing a hand,
covered with diamonds, through the ringlets of a dishevelled
periwig? Of the moral principle of his comedies Mr.
Thackeray spoke with disgust, and traced the worship of
youth and recklessness, and the disrespect of old age, which