From “The Life of Swift.”

SWIFT was in person tall, strong, and well made, of a dark complexion, but with blue eyes, black and bushy eyebrows, nose somewhat aquiline, features which remarkably expressed the stern, haughty, and dauntless turn of his mind. He was never known to laugh, and his smiles are happily characterized by the well-known lines of Shakespeare. Indeed, the whole description of Cassius might be applied to Swift:—

	“————————He reads much,
	He is a great observer, and he looks
	Quite through the deeds of men.—
	Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort,
	As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit
	That could be mov’d to smile at any thing.”

  The features of the Dean have been preserved in several paintings, busts, and medals. In youth he was reckoned handsome, Pope observed that though his face had an expression of dullness, his eyes were very particular. They were as azure, he said, as the heavens, and had an unusual expression of acuteness. In old age the Dean’s countenance conveyed an expression which, though severe, was noble and impressive. He spoke in public with facility and impressive energy; and as his talents for ready reply were so well calculated for political debate, it must have increased the mortification of Queen Anne’s ministers, that they found themselves unable to secure him a seat on the bench of Bishops. The government of Ireland dreaded his eloquence as much as his pen.

  His manners in society were, in his better days, free, lively, and engaging, not devoid of peculiarities, but bending them so well to circumstances that his company was universally courted. When age and infirmity had impaired the elasticity of his spirits and the equality of his temper, his conversation was still valued, not only on account of the extended and various acquaintance with life and manners, of which it displayed an inexhaustible fund, but also for the shrewd and satirical humor which seasoned his observations and anecdotes. This, according to Orrery, was the last of his powers which decayed, but the Dean himself was sensible that, as his memory failed, his stories were too often repeated. His powers of conversation and of humorous repartee were in his time regarded unrivaled; but, like most who have assumed a despotic sway in conversation, he was sometimes silenced by unexpected resistance. He was very fond of puns. Perhaps the application of the line of Virgil to the lady who threw down with her mantua a Cremona fiddle is the best that ever was made:—

“Mantua, væ miseræ nimium vicina Cremonæ!”

  The comfort which he gave an elderly gentleman who had lost his spectacles was more grotesque: “If this rain continues all night, you will certainly recover them in the morning betimes:

“Nocte pluit tota—redeunt spectacula mane.”

  His pre-eminence in more legitimate wit is asserted by many anecdotes. A man of distinction not remarkable for regularity in his private concerns, chose for his motto, “Eques haud male notus.” “Better known than trusted,” was the Dean’s translation, when someone related the circumstance.

  Swift had an odd humor of making extempore proverbs. Observing that a gentleman, in whose garden he walked with some friends, seemed to have no intention to request them to eat any of the fruit, Swift observed, it was a saying of his dear grandmother,

	“Always pull a peach
	When it is within your reach,”

and helping himself accordingly, his example was followed by the whole company. At another time, he framed an “old saying and true” for the benefit of a person who had fallen from his horse into the mire:—

	“The more dirt,
	The less hurt.”

The man rose much consoled; but as he was a collector of proverbs himself, he wondered he had never before heard that used by the Dean upon the occasion. He threw some useful rules into rhyming adages; and indeed, as his “Journal to Stella” proves, had a felicity in putting rhymes together on any trifling occasion, which must have added considerably to the flow and facility of his poetical compositions.

  In his personal habits he was cleanly, even to scrupulousness. At one period of his life he was said to lie in bed till eleven o’clock, and think of wit for the day; but latterly he was an early riser. Swift was fond of exercise, and particularly of walking. And although modern pedestrians may smile at his proposing to journey to Chester, by walking ten miles a day, yet he is said to have taken this exercise too violently, and to a degree prejudicial to his health. He was also a tolerable horseman, fond of riding, and a judge of the noble animal, which he chose to celebrate, as the emblem of moral merit, under the name of Houyhnhnm. Exercise he pressed on his friends, particularly upon Stella and Vanessa, as a sort of duty; and scarce any of his letters conclude without allusion to it; especially as relating to the preservation of his own health, which his constitutional fits of deafness and giddiness rendered very precarious. His habit of body in other respects appears to have been indifferent, with a tendency to scrofula, which, perhaps, hastened his mental disorder. But the immediate cause was the pressure of water upon the head, as appeared upon dissection after death.

  Of his learning we have already spoken; it seems to have both been extensive and useful, but not profoundly scholastic. Of modern languages he spoke and wrote French with facility, and understood Italian. His Latin verses indicate an imperfect knowledge of prosody, and no great command of the language in which they are written. The poem called “Rupes Carberiæ,” has, in particular, been severely criticized. It is seldom that Swift alludes to English literature; yet it is evident he had perused with attention those classics to which his name is now added. How carefully he had read Milton appears from his annotations on the “Paradise Lost,” for the benefit of Stella. Chaucer also appears to have been his favorite, for I observe among his papers a memorandum of the oaths used in the “Canterbury Tales,” classed with the personages by whom they are used. It appears from a note upon Mr. Todd’s edition of Milton, that Swift was a peruser of the ancient romances of chivalry. But he never mentions the romances and plays of the period in which he lived, without expressing the most emphatic contempt. To the drama, particularly, he was so indifferent, that he never once alludes to the writings of Shakespeare, nor, wonderful to be told, does he appear to have possessed a copy of his works. After noticing this, it will scarce be held remarkable that the catalogue of his library only contains the works of three dramatic authors, Ben Jonson, Wycherley, and Rowe, the last two being presentation copies from the authors, in 1700 and 1702. History and classical authors formed the Dean’s favorite studies, and, during the decay of his faculties, his reading was almost entirely confined to Clarendon.

  Swift loved the country, like most men of genius, but rather practiced rural occupations than rural sports. At Quilca, Gaulstown, and Markethill, he delighted in acting as a sort of overseer or bailiff to those employed in improving the property of his friends, and he dwells fondly in his “Journal” on his plantations and canal at Laracor.

  It does not appear from any part of his works, unless, perhaps, the Latin verses on the rocks of Carbery, that he was an admirer of the beautiful or romantic in landscapes; but he was a curious, though not a scientific, observer of any singular natural phenomena which came under his attention.

  The humor of stubborn independence which influenced the Dean’s whole character stamps it, at first examination, with a whole chain of paradoxes. A devout believer in the truths of Christianity, a constant observer of the rules of religion, and zealous even to slaying in the cause of the Church of England, Swift assumed an occasional levity of writing, speaking, and acting, which caused his being branded an infidel, a contemner of public ordinances, and a scoffer of church discipline. Nor was this all. A zealous friend of liberty in temporal politics, he acted during his whole life with the Tory party. Disliking Ireland even to virulent prejudice, he was the first and most effectual vindicator of her rights and liberties; and, charitable and benevolent to the extreme limits of a moderate revenue, he lay under the reproach of avarice and parsimony. An admirer of paradoxes, like Dr. Fuller, might have found points in his history, as well as opinions, capable of being placed in strong contrast. The first writer of his age was disgraced at college; the principal supporter of Queen Anne’s last administration, whose interest had made many a prelate, was himself unable to attain that dignity; and he who in his writings exhibited a tone of the most bitter misanthropy, was in active life a steady patriot, a warm friend, and a bountiful patron. He had also this remarkable fate as a political writer, that, although his publishers were in four instances subjected to arrest and examination,—although large rewards were twice offered for the discovery of the author of works generally and truly ascribed to him,—yet he never personally felt the grasp of power;

	“For not a Judas could be found,
	To sell him for three hundred pound.”

  Many of these apparent paradoxes arose from Swift’s stern and unbending pride of temper, which rather contemned and avoided public applause than studied to present his character under favorable colors to the general eye. Even his politeness assumed often a singular turn of cynicism, and much of his conduct in life reminds us of his favorite style of composition, that irony

	“Which he was born to introduce,
	Refined at first, and showed its use.”

  From the same cause he often exhibited, in his first address, a sternness and a bluntness of demeanor, which, detached from the mode in which he well knew how to repair the pain he had given, was harsh to his inferiors, and uncivil to those of higher rank. An anecdote which, though told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine with the Earl of Burlington, who was then but newly married. The Earl being willing, it is supposed, to have some diversion, did not introduce him to his lady, nor mention his name. After dinner, said the Dean, “Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing; sing me a song.” The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favor with distaste, and positively refused. He said, “She should sing, or he would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your poor English hedge parsons; sing when I bid you.” As the Earl did nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed, that she burst into tears, and retired. His first compliment to her when he saw her again, was, “Pray, madam, are you as proud and as ill natured now as when I saw you last?” To which she answered with great humor, “No, Mr. Dean; I’ll sing for you, if you please.” From which time he conceived great esteem for her. The Dean received with complaisance such praise as was delicately administered; but it belonged to his character to repel whatever was extravagant or coarse. When a man professed to love Swift better than all his friends and relations, he said, “The man is a fool.” And when Pope talked to him of a lady who admired him above all things, he replied, “Then I despise her heartily.” In fact, he seems rather to have expected his friends to gratify him by implicit compliance with his humor, however whimsical, than by any verbal flattery disguising perhaps from himself, that such servile compliance was the grossest sort of practical adulation.