of the highest nobles, who welcomed him not only for the aid he gave them by his writings, but for his wit and agreeable discourse.  At one time he was the most influential man in England, although poor and without office or preferment.  He possessed two or three livings in Ireland, which together brought him about L500, on which he lived,—­generally in London, at least when his friends were in power.  They could not spare him, and he was intrusted with the most important secrets of state.  His insolence was superb.  He affected equality with dukes and earls; he “condescended” to accept their banquets.  The first time that Bolingbroke invited him to dine, his reply was that “if the Queen gave his lordship a dukedom and the Garter and the Treasury also, he would regard them no more than he would a groat.”  This assumed independence was the habit of his life.  He indignantly returned L100 to Harley, which the minister had sent him as a gift:  he did not work for money, but for influence and a promised bishopric.  But the Queen—­a pious woman of the conventional school—­would never hear of his elevation to the bench of bishops, in consequence of the “Tale of a Tub,” in which he had ridiculed everything sacred and profane.  He was the bitterest satirist that England has produced.  The most his powerful friends could do for him was to give him the deanery of St. Patrick’s in Dublin, worth about L800 a year.

Swift was first brought to notice by Sir William Temple, in the reign of William and Mary, he being Sir William’s secretary.  At first he was a Whig, and a friend of Addison; but, neglected by Marlborough and Godolphin,—­who cared but little for literary genius,—­he became a Tory.  In 1710 he became associated with Harley, St. John, Atterbury, and Prior, in the defence of the Tory party; but he never relinquished his friendship with Addison, for whom he had profound respect and admiration.  Swift’s life was worldly, but moral.  He was remarkably temperate in eating and drinking, and parsimonious in his habits.  One of his most bitter complaints in his letters to Stella—­to whom he wrote every day—­was of the expense of coach-hire in his visits to nobles and statesmen.  It would seem that he creditably discharged his clerical duties.  He attended the daily service in the cathedral, and preached when his turn came.  He was charitable to the poor, and was a friend to Ireland, to whose people he rendered great services from his influence with the Government.  He was beloved greatly by the Irish nation, in spite of his asperity, parsimony, and bad temper.  He is generally regarded by critics as a selfish and heartless man; and his treatment of the two women whose affections he had gained was certainly inexplicable and detestable.  His old age was miserable and sad.  He died insane, having survived his friends and his influence.  But his writings have lived.  His “Gulliver’s Travels” is still one of the most famous and popular books in our language, in spite of its revolting and vulgar details.  Swift, like Addison, was a great master of style,—­clear, forcible, and natural; and in vigor he surpassed any writer of his age.