which was peculiarly formed to express the stronger passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror, that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered by flingivg a letter on the table; and instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed yet cherished hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is uncertain, but the lime does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.' *

Even Stella, though believed by her friends to have been ultimately united to Swift, dropped into the grave without any public recogpition of the tie; they were married, it is said, in secrecy in the garden of the deanery, when on her part all but life bad faded away. The fair sufferers were deeply avenged. But let us adopt the only charitable-perhaps the just-interpretation of Swift's conduct; the malady which at length overwhelmed his reason might then have been lurking in his frame; and consciousness of the fact kept him single. Some years before Vanessa's death, a scene occurred which has been related by Young, the author of the Night Thoughts.' Swist was walking with some friends in the neighbourhood of Dublin. Per

ceiving he did not follow us,' says Young, 'I went back, and found bim fixed as a statue, and earnestly gazing upward at a noble elm, which in its uppermost branches was mucli decayed. Pointing at it, Je said : “ I shall be like that tree; I shall die at the top."' The same presentiment finds expression in his exquisite imitation of Horace (Book ii. Satire 6), made in conjunction with Pope: I're often wished that I had clear

All this is mine bnt till I die; For life six hundred pounds a year, I can't but think 'twould sound more A handsome house to lodge a friend,

clever, A river at my garden's end,

To me and to my heirs for ever. A terrace-walk, and half a rood

If I ne'er got or lost a groat
Of land, set out to plant a wood.

By any trick or any fault;
Well, now I have all this and more, And if I pray by reason's rules,
I ask not to increase my store;

And not like forty other fools,
But here a grievance seems to lie, As thus: “Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker!

The talents of Vanessa may be seen from her letters to Swift, They are further evinced in the following Ode to Spring, in which she alludes to her unhappy attachmeui: Hail, blushing goddess. beauteous Spring! And shared with me those joys sereno. 1. ho in thy jocund train dost bring

When, unperceived, the lambent fire Loves and graces-smiling hours

of friendship kindled new desire ; Balmy breezes- fragrant towers;

Still listening to his tunelul tougue, Come, with tints of roseate hue,

The truths which angels might have sung, Nature's iaded charms renew!

Divine imprest their gentle sway, Yet wby should I thy presence hail? Aud sweetly stole my soul away. To inc no more the breathing gale

My guide, instructor, lover, friend, Comes fraught with sweets, no more the Dear names, in one idea blend ; rose

Oh! still conjoined, your incense rise, With such transcendent beauty blows, And waft sweet odours to the skies! As when Cadeaus blest the scene,

To grant me this and t'other acre; Preserve, Almighty Providence!
Or if it be thy will and pleasure,

Just what you gave me, competence, Direct my plough to find a treasure ! And let me in these shades compose But only what iny station fits,

Something iu verse is true as prose. And to be kept in my right wits ;

Swift was at first disliked in Ireland, but the ‘Drapier's Letters' and other works gave him unbounded popularity. His wish to serve Ireland was one of his ruling passions; yet it was something like the instinct of the inferior animals towards their offspring ; waywardDess, contempt, and abuse were strangely mingled with affectionate attachment and ardent zeal. Kisses and curses were alternately on his lips. Ireland, however, gave Swift her own heart—he was more than king of the rabble. Atter various attacks of deafness and giddiness, his temper became ungovernable, and his reason gave way. Truly and beautifully has Scott said, 'the stage darkened ere the curtain fell.'

The sad story of his latter days melts and overawes the imagination. Fils of lunacy were succeeded by the dementia of old age. For three years he uttered only a few words and broken interjections. Ile would often attempt to speak, but could not recollect words to express his meaning, upon which he would sigh heavily. Babylon in ruins (to use a simile of Addison's) was not a more melancholy spectacle than this wreck of a mighty intellec:! In speechless silence his spirit passed away, October 19, 1745. He was interred in St. Patrick's Cathedral, amidst the tears and prayers of bis courtry.

An inscription on his tomb, composed by himself, records his cxertions for liberty and his detestation of oppression.* The særa indignatio of which he spoke as lacerating his heart,' says Thackeray, “and which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone, as if the wretch who lay under that stone, waiting God's judgment, had a right to be angry, breaks out from him in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him.' Swift believed he had a right to be angry--angry against oppression, against triumphant wrong, corruption, and hypocrisy. * Doest thou well to be angry ?' was the question asked of the Hebrew prophet of old, and he answered: 'I do well.' So tlought Swift, often self-deludel, mistaking hatred for duty, faction for patriotism ; misled by passion, by egotism, and caprice.

Swift's fortune, amounting to about £10,000, he left chiefly to found a lunatic asylum in Dublin.

He
gave

the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
To shew, by onc satiric touch,

No nation wanted it so much.
Gulliver's Travels' and the Tale of a Tub'must erer be the

men.

* Hic depositum est corpus JONATHAN Swift, S. T. P., hujus ecclesiæ Cathedralis Decani, ubi seva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit. Abi viator et imitare, si poteris strenuam pro virili libertatis vindicem, &c.

chief corner-stones of Swift's fame. The purity of his prose style renders it a model of English composition. He could wither with his irony and invective; excite to mirth with his wit and invention; transport as with wonder at liis marvellous powers of grotesque and lutlicrous combination, bis knowledge of human nature-piercirg quite through the deeds of men—and his matchless power of feigning reality, and assuming at pleasure different characters and situations in life. He is often disgustingly coarse and gross in bis style and subjects; but he is never licentious; his grossness is always repulsive, not seductive.

Swift's poetry is perfect, exactly as the old Dutch artists were perfect painters He never attempted to rise above this visible diurnal sphere.' He is content to lash the frivolities of the age, and to depict its absurdities. In his too faithful representations, there is much to condemn and much to admire. Who has not felt the truth and humour of his City Shower,' and his description of 'Morning? Or the liveliness of his 'Grand Question Debated,' in which the kniglit, his lady, and the chambermaid, are so admirably drawn? His most ambitious flight is his ' Rhapsody on Poetry,' and even this is pitched in a pretty low key. Its best lines are easily remembered : Not empire to the rising sun,

Not bastard of a pedler Scot; By valour, conduct, fortune won ; Not boy brought up to cleaning shoes, Not highest wisdom in debates

The spawn of Bridewell or the stew's ; For framing laws to govern states; Not infants dropt, the spurious pledges Not skill in sciences profound,

Of gipsies littering under hedges,
So large to grasp the circle round, Are so disqualified by fate
Such heavenly influence require, To rise in church, or law, or state,
As how to strike the Muses' lyre. As he whom Phoebus in his ire
Not beggar's brat on bulk begot ; Hath blasted with poetic fire.

Swift's Verses on his own Death are the finest example of his peculiar poetical vein. Is predicts what his friends will say of his illness, his death, and his reputation, varying the style and the topics to suit each of the parties. The versification is easy and flowing, with nothing but the most familiar and common-place expressions. There are some little touches of homely pathos, wbich are felt like trickling tears, and the effect of the piece altogether is electrical: it c:urries with it the strongest conviction of its sincerity and truth; and we see and feel-especially as years creep on-how faithful a depicter of human nature, in its frailty and weakness, was the misanihropic Dean of St. Patrick's.

A Description of the Morning.
Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach
Appearing showed the ruddy morn's approach. ...
The slipshod 'prentice from his master's door
Had pared the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirled her mop with dexterous airs,
Prepared to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps begun to trace
The kennel's edge, where wheels bad woru the placa.

The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drowned in shriller notes of chimney-sweep:
Duns at his lordship’s gate began to meet,
And brick-dust Moll had screamed through half the street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees;
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And school-boys lag with satchels in their hands.

Description of a City Shower.
Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower.
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Returning home at night, you'll find the sink
Strike your offended sepse with double stink.
If you be wise, then go not far to dine;
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage :
Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen;
He dainns the climate, and complains of spleen.

Meanwhile the south, rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liquor than it could contain,
And, like a drunkard, gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,,
While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope ;
Such is that sprinkling, which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop-but not so clean;
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she, singing, still whirls on her mop:
Not yet the dust had shunned the unequal strife,
But aided by the wind, fought still for life,
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,
'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade ?
Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain
Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain !

Now in contiguous drops the flood comes dowu,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while ry spout 's a-broach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides..
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds; he trembles from within.
So wheu Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed-
Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them through
Laocoon struck thc outside with his spear,

And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.

Now from all parts the swelling kennels tiow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filths of all hues and odours seem to tell
What street they sailed from by their sight and smelt.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluence joined at Snowhill ridge,
Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn Bridge.
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,

Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.
Baucis and Philemon.— Imitated from the Eighth Book of Ooid-

Written about 1708. In ancient times, as story tells,

Not fit to live on Christian ground, The saints would often leave their cells, They and their houses shall be drowned: And stroll about, but hide their quality, While you shall see your cottage rise, To try good people's hospitality.

And grow a church before your eyes.' It happened on a winter night

They scarce had spoke, when fair and As authors of the legend write

soft, Two brother-hermits, saints by trade, The roof began to mount aloft ; Taking their tour in masquerade, Aloft rose every beam and raster, Disguised in tattered habits, went The heavy wall climbed slower after, To a small village down in Kent;

The chimney widened and grew higher: Where, in the stroller's canting strain, Became a steeple with a spire. They begged from door to door in vain; The kettle to the top was hoist, Tried every tone might pity win,

And there stood fastened to a joist;
But not a soul would let them in.

But with the up-side down, to shew
Our wandering saints in woful state, Its inclination for below:
Treated at this ungodly rate,

In vain; for some superior force,
Having through all the village past, Applied at bottom, stops its course;
To a small cottage came at last,

Doomed ever in suspense to dwell,
Where dwelt a good old honest yeoman, 'Tis now po kettle, but a beli.
Called in the neighborhood Philemon, A wooden jack, which had almost
Who kindly did the saints invite

Lost by disuse the art to roast,
In his poor hut to pass the night.

A sudden alteration feels, And then the hospitable sire

Increased by new intestine wheels; Bid Goody Baucis mend the fire,

And, what exalts the wonder more, While he from out the chimney took The number made the motion slower; A flitch of bacon off the hook,

The flier, thongh it had leaden feet, And freely from the fattest side

Turned round so quick you scarcé could Cut out large slices to be fried;

see't; Then stepped aside to fetch them drink, But, slackened by some secret power, Filled a large jug up to the brink, Now hardly moves an inch an hour. And saw it fairly twice go round;

The jack and chimney, near allied, Yet-what was wonderful-they found Had never left each other's side: 'I'was still replenished to the top,

The chimney to a steeple grown, As if they ne'er had touched a drop. The jack would not be left alone, The good old couple were amazed, But, up against the steeple reared, And often on each other gazed :

Became a clock, and still adhered: For both were frightened to the heart, And still its love to household cares, And just began to cry: "What art?' By a shrill voice at noon, declares ; Then softly turned aside to view

Warning the cook-maid not to burn Whether the lights were burning blue. That roast meat, which it cannot turn. The gentle pilgrims poon aware on't, The groaning chair began to crawl, Told them their calling and their errant: Like a huge snail, along the wall; Good folks, you need not be afraid, There stuck aloft in public view, We are but sairts,' the hermits said; And with small change a pulpit grew.' No hurt shall coine to you or yours;

The porringers, that in a row B., for that pack of churlish boors, Hung high, and inade a glittering show,