against their careless sway, became distinctly apparent. He who hated Ireland and considered himself an exile in her, claimed for her an independence, a freedom she had never yet possessed, and inspired at once the subject and the ruling race with the sense that they had found a champion capable of all things, and through whom for the first time their voice might be heard in the world.

The immediate result was a popularity beyond bounds. The people he despised were seized with an adoration for him which was shared by the class to which he himself belonged-perhaps the first subject on which they had agreed. 'When he returned from England in 1726 bells were rung, bonfires lighted, and a guard of honour escorted him to the deanery. Towns voted him their freedom and received him as a prince. When Walpole spoke of arresting him, a prudent friend told the minister that the messenger would require a guard of 10,000 soldiers.' When a crowd collected to see an eclipse disturbed him with their noise, Swift sent out to tell them that the event was put off by order of the Dean, and the simple-minded populace dispersed obediently! Had he been so minded, and had he fully understood and loved the race over which his great and troubled spirit had gained such power, what might not have been hoped for Ireland, and what for his own soul, consuming itself in angry inactivity, yet with such a work before him had he but known! But it would have taken a miracle indeed to turn this Englishman born in Ireland, this political Churchman, and hater of Papists and Dissenters, into the saviour of the subject

race.

That he was, however, deeply struck by the impression of their misery, and that his soul, always so ready to break forth upon the cruelty, the falsehood, the barbarous misconception of men by men, found in their wrongs a subject upon which he could scarcely exaggerate, is apparent enough. His Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of the Poor in Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country is one of those pieces of terrible satire which lacerate the heart. Tears as of blood are in it, a passion of indignant pity and fury and despair. Eat them then, since there is nothing else to be done with them, he says, detailing with elaborate composure the way to do it, and the desirableness of such a supply of delicate food. The reader, unwarned and simple-minded, might almost with a gasp of horror take the proposal for genuine. But Swift's meaning was more terrible even than cannibalism. It was the conviction that these children, the noblest fruit of nature, were in truth its worst embarrassment, the fatal glut of a miserable race without bread for them or hope, that forced its dreadful irony upon him. And what picture could be more terrible than that of the childless old man with his bleeding heart, himself deserted of all that made life sweet, thus facing the world with scorn so infinite that it transcends all symbols of passion, bidding it consume what it had brought forth!

But Swift, unfortunately for himself and her, loved Ireland as little when he thus made himself her champion as he had done throughout his life. At all times his longing eyes were turned towards the country in which life was and power and friends and fame. Though he

was aware that he was growing old and ought to be 'done with this world,' he yet cries aloud his desire to 'get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage like a poisoned rat in a hole'—a terrific image, and one of those phrases that burn and glow with a pale light of despair. But he never got into that better world he longed for. The slow years crept over him and he lived on, making existence tolerable by such expedients as he could-a wonderful proof how the body will resist all the frettings of the soul, growing more angry, more desperate, more subject to the bitter passions which had broken forth even in his best days, as he grew older and had fewer reasons for restraining himself. At last the great Dean-the greatest genius of his age, the man of war and battle, of quip and jest, he who had thirsted to be doing through all his life-fell into imbecility and stupor, with occasional wild awakenings into consciousness which were still more terrible. He died, denuded of all things, in 1745, having lived till seventy-eight, in spite of himself.

‘Ubi sæva indignatio

Cor ulterius lacerare nequit '

is written on his tomb. No more can fiery wrath and indignation rend him where he lies by Stella's side in the aisle over against his chamber window. The touch of her quiet dust must have soothed, one would think, the last fever that lingered still in his, even after death had done its worst.

THE JOURNALIST

THE age of Queen Anne was one which abounded in paradoxes and loved them. It was an age when England was full of patriotic policy, yet every statesman was a traitor; when tradition was dear, yet revolution practicable; when speech was gross and manners unrefined, yet the laws of literary composition rigid, and correctness the test of poetry; it was full of high ecclesiasticism and high puritanism, sometimes united in one person. In it ignorance was most profound, yet learning most considered and prominent. An age when Parson Trulliber was not an unfit representative of the rural clergy, yet the public could be interested in such a recondite pleasantry as the Battle of the Books seems the strangest self-contradiction; yet so it was. In this paradoxical age no man lived who was a more complete paradox than Defoe. His fame is world-wide, yet all that is generally known of him is one or two of his shortest productions, and his busy life is ignored in the permanent place in literary history which he has secured. His characteristics as apart from his conduct are all those of an honest man; but when that most important part of him is taken into the question it is difficult to pronounce him anything but a knave. His distinguishing literary quality is a minute truth

fulness to fact which makes it almost impossible not to take what he says for gospel; but his constant inspiration is fiction, not to say in some circumstances falsehood. He spent his life in the highest endeavour that a man can engage in—in the work of persuading and influencing his country, chiefly for her good-and he is remembered by a boys' book, which is indeed the first of boys' books, yet not much more. Through these contradictions we must push our way before we can reach to any clear idea of Defoe, the London tradesman who by times composed almost all the newspapers in London, wrote all the pamphlets, had his finger in every pie, and a share in all that was done, yet got nothing out of it but a damaged reputation and an unhonoured end.

It is curious that something of a similar fate should have happened to the other and greater figure, his contemporary, his enemy, in some respects his fellowlabourer, another and still more brilliant slave of the government which in itself had so little that was brilliant-the great Dean whose name has already appeared so often in these sketches. Swift too, of all his books, is remembered by the book of The Travels of Gulliver, which, though full of a satirical purpose unknown to Defoe, has come to rank along with Robinson Crusoe. We may say, indeed, that these two books form a class by themselves, of perennial enchantment for the young, and full of a curious and enthralling illusion which even in age we rarely shake off. Swift rises into bitter and terrible tragedy, while Defoe sinks into matter-of-fact and commonplace; but