We must not omit to mention that, while the controversy about Phalaris was raging, Swift, in order to show his zeal and attachment, wrote the Battle of the Books, the earliest piece in which his peculiar talents are discernible.  We may observe that the bitter dislike of Bentley, bequeathed by Temple to Swift, seems to have been communicated by Swift to Pope, to Arbuthnot, and to others, who continued to tease the great critic long after he had shaken hands very cordially both with Boyle and with Atterbury.

Sir William Temple died at Moor Park in January 1699.  He appears to have suffered no intellectual decay.  His heart was buried under a sundial which still stands in his favourite garden.  His body was laid in Westminster Abbey by the side of his wife; and a place hard by was set apart for Lady Giffard, who long survived him.  Swift was his literary executor, superintended the publication of his Letters and Memoirs, and, in the performance of this office, had some acrimonious contests with the family.

Of Temple’s character little more remains to be said.  Burnet accuses him of holding irreligious opinions, and corrupting everybody who came near him.  But the vague assertion of so rash and partial a writer as Burnet, about a man with whom, as far as we know, he never exchanged a word, is of little weight.  It is, indeed, by no means improbable that Temple may have been a freethinker.  The Osbornes thought him so when he was a very young man.  And it is certain that a large proportion of the gentlemen of rank and fashion who made their entrance into society while the Puritan party was at the height of power, and while the memory of the reign of that party was still recent, conceived a strong disgust for all religion.  The imputation was common between Temple and all the most distinguished courtiers of the age.  Rochester, and Buckingham were open scoffers, and Mulgrave very little better.  Shaftesbury, though more guarded, was supposed to agree with them in opinion.  All the three noblemen who were Temple’s colleagues during the short time of his sitting in the Cabinet were of very indifferent repute as to orthodoxy.  Halifax, indeed, was generally considered as an atheist; but he solemnly denied the charge; and, indeed, the truth seems to be that he was more religiously disposed than most of the statesmen of that age, though two impulses which were unusually strong in him, a passion for ludicrous images, and a passion for subtle speculations, sometimes prompted him to talk on serious subjects in a manner which gave grave and just offence.  It is not unlikely that Temple, who seldom went below the surface of any question, may have been infected with the prevailing scepticism.  All that we can say on the subject is, that there is no trace of impiety in his works, and that the case with which he carried his election for an university, where the majority of the voters were clergymen, though it proves nothing as to his opinions, must, we think, be considered as proving that he was not, as Burnet seems to insinuate, in the habit of talking atheism to all who came near him.