and the whole population formed the steady resolution never to receive a single piece of Wood's coin. The Printer of the "Letters" was imprisoned; but the Grand Jury refused to find an indictment, and a reward of £300 was offered in vain for the discovery of the author. The result was, the patent was annulled, the coin withdrawn, and Swift constituted the Idol and the Oracle of his country, to the hour of his death. With respect to the merit of the "Drapier's Letters," it will suffice to quote the opinion of Isaac Hawkins Browne, who designates them "the most perfect pieces of oratory ever composed since the days of Demosthenes."

Having achieved this triumph over Wood and his half-pence, Swift retired to Quilca, a country house, belonging to his friend, Dr. Sheridan, and for some time amused him in projecting and executing alterations and improvements there, and also in finishing and revising "Gulliver's Travels." In 1726 he went to England, where he was received with open arms by Bolingbroke, Bathurst, Arbuthnot, Gay, and Pope. He took up his abode at the house of the latter, and assigned to him the task of selecting and arranging the materials for three volumes of Miscellanies, their joint production. During this visit he waited upon Sir Robert Walpole, with a view to interest him in the cause of Ireland; and (it has been said) to endeavor to obtain for himself Church preferment in England: but Walpole had been prepossessed against him and his views of Irish affairs by the representations of Archbishop Boulter, and they parted with cool civility, no point being gained by either party in the conference.

"It

In August, Swift returned to Dublin, where his arrival was celebrated with the most public demonstrations of joy and respect: and in November, the "Travels of Gulliver" were published anonymously. This celebrated work immediately engrossed the attention of the whole kingdom: it was read, admired, and discussed, by all ranks. offered," says Sir Walter Scott, "personal and political satire to the readers in high life, low and coarse incident to the vulgar, marvels to the romantic, wit to the young and lively, lessons of morality and policy to the grave, and maxims of deep and bitter misanthropy to neglected age, and disappointed ambition."

In 1727 Swift visited England for the last time, and spent the summer among his early friends. His hopes of preferment, and his prospects of reviving political influence, were now at an end; and when he returned to what he always considered his land of exile, to his discontent and chagrin was added severe affliction, by the death of the being to whom he was most attached. His health became affected, and his temper more than ever unequal and morose: he rallied occasionally, and from time to time gratified the animosity he cherished against Queen Caroline and Walpole, by attacking them, and their favorites and dependents, with the same wit and irony that distinguished his better days. At length, the disorders under which he had suffered at intervals all his life obtained the mastery, and he sunk into a state of mental aberration, pitiable in any point of view, but most awful when contrasted with the brilliant genius and unusual powers which had originally adorned his comprehensive mind. He died on the 29th of October, 1745, in his 78th year.

The domestic history of Swift has been the subject of much discussion, from the extraordinary circumstances attending his connection with Mrs. Esther Johnson, celebrated in his writings under the name of Stella. She was the daughter of Sir William Temple's Steward, and was about fourteen years old when Swift undertook the office of her preceptor. At Sir William's death, she resided for some time with Mrs. Dingley, a relation of the Temple family, and, when Swift settled at Laracor, accepted his invitation to fix her abode at Trim, a village in the vicinity of his living. She was then eighteen, of great personal attractions, and fervently attached to him, no doubt anticipated the speedy consummation of her wishes. But Swift, who could not be unconscious of the feelings he had excited, adapted his whole conduct toward her strictly to the character of a friend, and never met her but in the presence of a third person. When he left home for any time, she and her companion resided at his house, resuming their own lodgings immediately on his return. In this manner passed eight years, in the course of which her affection seemed gradually to increase, and she refused a very eligible offer of marriage from a Mr. Tisdal. When Swift went to London, in September, 1710, he was almost agonized at leaving her, and kept, during his absence, a Journal addressed to her, which fully evinces how completely she swayed every feeling of his heart. Nevertheless, an event took place which was every way calculated to distress her, and bring into question the sincerity of his professions. In London, Swift became acquainted with a widow lady, named Vanhomrigh, whose eldest daughter interesting him greatly by her temper and manners, he offered his assistance in completing her education. The progress of his pupil was astonishing: but at the end of two years, Swift was thrown into the greatest embarrassment, by her openly declaring her love for him, and demanding a

return.

He was at this time in his 47th year, and it is to be lamented that he suffered his vanity to overcome his sense of propriety, and encouraged hopes which he never intended to realize. Vanessa (as he called her) was not of the gentle and patient temper of Stella:-when Swift returned to Ireland, on the Queen's death, she followed him, contrary to his wish; and their meetings (allowed by all to have been perfectly platonic) caused Stella a jealousy, which brought on a severe indisposition. Swift, to soothe her and satisfy her scruples, agreed to marry her, on the condition of their living separately, as heretofore; and they were privately married (the ceremony being performed in the garden of the Deanery) by Dr. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, in 1716. After this he would willingly have estranged himself from Vanessa, but found it impracticable. She, having some suspicion of the real fact, wrote to Mrs. Johnson, and the answer she received, together with Swift's resentment upon discovering her proceeding, threw her into a fever which terminated her existence in 1723. Her scarcely less unfortunate rival did not survive her many years; her spirits and her frame, blighted and wasted, by "hope deferred," and bitter disappointment, she died prematurely in 1728.

The conduct of Swift toward these ill-fated women, however it may be accounted for, or extenuated, will always remain a blot upon his memory: in spite of the most diligent research, a mystery still envelopes it, which physical and philosophical attempts at explanation have failed to disperse. In all other relations, Swift appears to have been a worthy and estimable man. His works (the enumeration of which would carry us beyond our prescribed bounds) are all examples of great ingenuity, and intellectual power: of his poems, "Cadenus and Vanessa," "Baucis and Philemon," and his "Imitations of Horace," are of the highest order; and the "Tale of a Tub," the "Drapier's Letters," and "Gulliver's Travels," have conferred immortality on his name by merit peculiar to themselves.

PHILIP YORKE, Earl of Hardwicke, was born at Dover, in 1690. He was educated under Mr. Morland, of Bethnal Green, entered of the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar in 1714.-In 1718 he was returned Member of Parliament for Lewes; and the following year was appointed Solicitor-General. In 1723 he became Attorney-General, and in 1733 Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, shortly after which he received the title of Baron Hardwicke. He succeeded Lord Talbot in 1736 as Lord High Chancellor; and finally, in 1754, was created Earl of Hardwicke. He has transmitted to posterity an unblemished name as a Lawyer, a Judge, and a Statesman. In private life he was benevolent and pious; and his gentle and engaging manners gained him the affection, as his public virtues secured him the esteem of all who knew him. As an orator, he was clear, graceful, and impressive: cogent in argument, and perspicuous in arrangement. After suffering severely for some months from dysentery, he died, at the age of seventy-three, on the 6th of March, 1764.

THOMAS TICKELL, son of the Rev. Richard Tickell, Vicar of Bridekirk, near Carlisle, was born in 1686. He entered Queen's College, Oxford, in 1701, was made Master of Arts in 1708, and chosen Fellow two years afterward. A copy of verses in praise of the Opera of "Rosamond," introduced him to the notice of Addison, and a sincere and lasting friendship between them was the result. While the negotiations which preceded the Peace of Utrecht were yet pending, Tickell published his poem "On the Prospect of Peace," with the view to reconcile the nation to the sacrifice of some immediate advantages rather than continue the war. It sold rapidly, reaching in a very short time a sixth edition; and Addison, who, with the Whigs, was strongly opposed to such a measure, however he might disapprove of the subject of the Poem, was generous enough to give high praise to it as a composition, in the "Spectator." Tickell afterward wrote a poem addressed "To the supposed Author of the Spectator," and another, on the arrival of George I, entitled the "Royal Progress." He had also previously, attacked the Chevalier and his adherents, in a political piece called "An Epistle to a Gentleman at Avignon," which was much read, and which tended to mark him out for favor on the accession of the House of Hanover.

When Addison went to Ireland as Secretary to the Earl of Sunderland, he took Tickell with him as an assistant in his official duties; and on his becoming Secretary of state in 1717, he made his friend Under Secretary. Upon the death of Addison, in 1719 Tickell edited his Collected Works, and prefixed to them an Elegy to the memory of his patron, of pre-eminent beauty and pathos. In 1725, Tickell was made Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland, and the following year he married, in Dublin.

He held his official appointment until his death, which took place at Bath, in April, 1740. Beside the pieces already noticed, he wrote some "Verses on Cato," an "Imitation of the Prophesy of Nereus," "Kensington Garden," and a very pathetic ballad, "Colin and Lucy." He was also (nominally) the author of a translation of the first Book of the "İliad," published in opposition to Pope's, and a contributor to the "Guardian." He was an elegant, if not a powerful, writer; an amiable man, convivial but moderate; spirited in his conversation, and of a kind and affectionate heart.

AMBROSE PHILIPS was descended from a respectable family in Leicestershire. While at St. John's College, Cambridge, he published his "Six Pastorals," which were very popular; and, it is supposed caused some little jealousy to Pope. The style of them, however it might approach the true Doric, was, unluckily, very apt for ludicrous associations, and Pope exerted all his wit and irony to hold them up to ridicule: this he accomplished effectually in the "Guardian." The attack greatly irritated Philips, and he sought revenge in insult, by suspending a rod over the seat which Pope usually occupied at Button's Coffee-house. Pope failed not to retaliate; and, in the "Prologue" to his Satires, describes Philips as

"The Bard whom pilfer'd Pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian Tale for half-a-crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year."

And Swift fixed upon him the nickname of "Namby-pamby," in allusion to his numerous short-line verses. Upon Philips leaving the University, he became intimate with Addison and Steele, and he printed, in the "Tatler," a "Poetical Letter from Copenhagen;" a piece of sterling merit, which extorted praise even from Pope. It is likely that at this period his circumstances were rather precarious, since he undertook, for Tonson, a translation of the "Persian Tales," from the French, at (it is said) a very low price. His Tragedy, "The Distressed Mother," (partly a translation of Racine's "Andromaque,") brought him into much notice: Steele had highly extolled it in the "Spectator" (No. 290) before it appeared; and Addison afterward (in No. 335) carried Sir Roger de Coverley to its representation. Philips produced two other Tragedies, "The Briton," and "Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester," which excited little attention, and are now forgotten. Although from his zealous support of the Whigs, he was justified in anticipating a suitable reward upon the accession of George I, and had been greatly disappointed by obtaining merely the insignificant situations of Justice of the Peace, and Commissioner of Lotteries, he did not relax in his exertions, but commenced the "Freethinker," in which he had, for one of his co-adjutors, Dr. Boulter, then minister of a parish church in Southwark. This circumstance established his fortune. Dr. Boulter, on his elevation to the see of Armagh, took his former associate with him to Ireland, as his Secretary, and obtained for him a seat in the House of Commons. In 1726 he was appointed Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, and in 1733 he became a Judge of the Prerogative Court. Philips continued in Ireland until 1748, when desirous of spending the remainder of his days in England, he purchased an annuity of £400, and returned to London. He had just completed a republication of his Poems, when he was seized with paralysis, and died June 18, 1749, in his seventy-eighth year. Philips is reported to have been a worthy man, but ludicrously solemn in his demeanor, and grandiloquent in his conversation. Of his productions, the "Winter Scene," above noticed, the "Hymn to Venus," and the "Fragment of Sappho," are, perhaps, all that can be considered above mediocrity.

LAURENCE EUSDEN, son of Dr. Eusden, Rector of Spalsworth, Yorkshire, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took orders, and was appointed Chaplain to Lord Willoughby de Broke. He gained the patronage of Lord Halifax, by a Latin Version of his Lordship's Poem "On the Battle of the Boyne," and he appears to have been anxious to prove himself worthy of it. He contributed to both the "Spectator" and the "Guardian," wrote some verses in commendation of Addison's "Cato," and .n Epithalamium on the marriage of the Duke of Newcastle with Lady Henrietta Godolphin. This last, no doubt, procured for him the Laureateship, which the Duke (then Lord Chamberlain) gave him on the death of Rowe, in 1718.

Little has been preserved, concerning Eusden, beyond the numerous satirical allusions to his office, to be found in the writings of the day: with him the title of Poet Laureate began to fall into disesteem: nor have the unquestionable talents of some who succeeded him tended materially to retrieve it. The eminent man* who at present holds the appointment, has, however, by divesting it of the degrading reiteration of adulatory Birth-day Odes, not only vindicated the independence and dignity of his own literary fame, but has established a foundation for future respectability to his successors.

Eusden died at Coningsby, in Lincolnshire (of which place he was Rector), in September, 1730, his faculties and health falling a sacrifice to the pernicious habit of intoxication. His poems, a few of which are printed in Nicholls's Collection, are not calculated to arrest attention: his Versions of Claudian, in the "Spectator," are his happiest efforts.

WILLIAM FLEETWOOD was born in 1656. He was educated at Eton school, and elected to King's College, Cambridge. Having taken orders, he was appointed Chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, and became Fellow of Eton College, and Rector of St. Austin's, London. He was subsequently chosen Lecturer of St. Dunstan's, Fleet-street, and nominated a Canon of Windsor. Desirous of literary leisure, he resigned his living and lectureship in 1705, and retired to a small rectory near Eton, where he engaged deeply in the study of History and Antiquities. From this he was unexpectedly called, by Queen Anne nominating him to the see of St. Asaph; and, on the accession of George I, his attachment to the cause of Liberty, and the Protestant Religion, was rewarded by the valuable bishopric of Ely. During his whole career, his labors were unremitted; forty-two of his publications are noticed in the Biographia Britannica, comprising Antiquities, History, and Theology: in all of which are displayed profound classical learning, judicious and acute criticism, and extensive acquaintance with Historical and Ecclesiastical Antiquities. When his friends, the Whigs, went out of office in 1710, he openly avowed his dislike of the measures of the Tories, by publishing a "Fast Sermon," containing severe reprobation of their conduct; and in 1712 he published four other sermons, "On the deaths of Queen Mary, the Duke of Gloucester, and King William, and on the Queen's (Anne's) Accession, with a Preface." The Sermons had been previously preached with much approbation, and were not assailable; but the Preface was condemned by the House of Commons, to be burnt by the common hangman.

This injudicious proceeding only made the Work more popular: Steele printed the Preface in the "Spectator;" and, as the Bishop remarked, "conveyed about 14,000 of them into people's hands that would otherwise never have seen or heard of it." This Preface, with some introductory observations by Steele, form No. 384:-"The paper was not published until 12 o'clock, that it might come out precisely at the hour of the Queen's breakfast, and that no time might be left for deliberating about serving it up with that meal as usual." -Bishop Fleetwood died at Tottenham, in 1723, aged 67.

His biographer (Morgan) says, "His various merits entitle him to the character of a great and good man: as a Prelate, he did honor to his station, by his dignified and orudent deportment: to the poor and necessitous he was a generous benefactor, and was a liberal encourager of every truly charitable design. To the interest of Civil and Religious Liberty he was ardently attached. He was modest, humble, uncensorious, and calm and meek in his temper; but at the same time possessed a degree of cool and sedate courage, which he did not fail to exhibit on proper occasions: and, to crown the whole, he was a bright pattern of innocence of life, integrity of heart, and sanctity of

manners."

JOHN HENLEY was born in 1692, at Melton Mowbray, of which parish his father was Vicar. Having prosecuted his studies very zealously at Cambridge, he returned to his native town, and became assistant, and afterward master, of the school there, which he conducted with great credit. Having taken his degree of Master of Arts, and obtained Priests' Orders, he for some time officiated as curate at Melton; until an uncontrollable desire for celebrity induced him to visit the metropolis. In London he published some Translations from Pliny, Vertot, and Montfaucon; and was presented by the Earl of Macclesfield with a Benefice of £80 a year. He also had a Lectureship in the city; acquired much popularity as a preacher; assisted Dr. Burscough, afterward Bishop of Limerick, in his duties; and became Chaplain to Lord Molesworth. Disappointed in some expectations which he had formed of advancement, he threw up his benefice and lectureship, and opened an Oratory in Portsmouth-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields; where, on Sundays (according to his own account) he preached on Theology, and on Wednesdays on all other Sciences; his audience paying one shilling each for admission His orations soon degenerated into ribaldry, buffoonery, and blasphemy, and he resorted to the meanest and most fraudulent expedients to obtain a maintenance. On one occasion, it is said, he collected a numerous congregation of Shoemakers, by advertising that he would show them how to make a pair of shoes in a few minutes; and this he did by cutting off the tops of a pair of boots. Hogarth caricatured him; and the celebrated George Alexander Steevens was a constant visitor at his chapel for the purpose of giving him annoyance. Pope has "damned him to everlasting fame" in his "Dunciad:"

"Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods; neither said nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
Oh! great restorer of the good old Stage,
Preacher at once, and Zany of the Age!
Oh! worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes!
A decent PRIEST, where MONKEYS were the Gods."

He died October 14, 1756, an object of universal contempt. The promise of his early days quickly faded: while at Melton, he wrote a poem entitled "Esther," and commenced what he termed his "Universal Grammar:" of which he completed ten languages, with a "proper introduction to every tongue." While at Cambridge he sent two Letters to the "Spectator;" and, toward the close of his career, was author of a political paper of the most venal and worthless character, called "The Hyp Doctor."

JAMES HEYWOOD was a wholesale Linen-draper on Fish-street Hill, and a man of high respectability in the city of London. He paid the customary fine of £500 upon declining the office of Alderman of Aldgate Ward, to which he was elected; and, having lived in the enjoyment of his faculties and health until his ninetieth year, died at his house in Austin Friars, in July, 1776.

Mr. Heywood was in the early part of his life a great politician, and contracted a habit, singularly inconvenient to persons in discourse with him, for which he is commemorated with much humor by Steele, in the "Guardian."

"There is a silly habit among many of our minor orators, who display their eloquence in the several Coffee-houses, to the no small annoyance of considerable numbers of her Majesty's spruce and loving subjects: and that is a humor they have got of twisting off your buttons. These ingenious gentlemen are not able to advance three words until they have got fast hold of one of your buttons; but as soon as they have procured such an excellent handle for discourse, they will indeed proceed with great elocution. I know not how well some may have escaped, but for my part I have often met with them to my cost; having, I believe, within these three years last past been argued out of several dozens, insomuch as I have for some time ordered my Tailor to bring me home with every suit a dozen, at least, of spare ones, to supply the place of such as from time to time are detached, as a help to discourse, by the vehement gentlemen before mentioned. I remember, upon the news of Dunkirk's being delivered into our hands, a brisk little fellow, a politician and an able engineer, had got into the middle of Button's Coffee-house, and was fortifying Graveling for the service of the most Christian King with all imaginable expedition. The work was carried on with such success that, in less than a quarter of an hour's time, he had made it almost impregnable; and, in the opinion of several worthy citizens who had gathered around, full as strong both by sea and land as Dunkirk ever could pretend to be. I happened, however, unadvisedly, to attack some of his outworks, upon which, to show his great skill likewise in the offensive part, he immediately made an assault upon one of my buttons, and carried it in less than two minutes, notwithstanding I made as handsome a defense as was possible. He had likewise invested a second, and would certainly have been