1. Charles Lamb, 2. Canada, 3. The Wedding Garment, 4. Temper: from an Old Maid's Album, 5. Story of a Family,-Chap. 17, 6. Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell, (5th Article,) 522 Sharpe's Magazine, แ 7. EUROPE: Foreign Policy; Prospects for Hungary, Examiner, POETRY.-To Pius IX., 527. SHORT ARTICLES.- Universal Liturgy; Borrowed Sermon, 494.- Western Eloquence Religious Levites, 500. — Omai, the Sandwich Islander, 511.- French Protection of Scot. land, 516. Scott of Amwell; Anson's Voyage; Poetical Magazine; Ancient Welsh Handel, 521. John Wilson, 525.- French Women and German Women, 526. PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. now becomes every intelligent American to be informed of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And this not only because of their nearer connection with ourselves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, through a rapid process of change, to some new state of things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute or foresee. Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Colonization, (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyages and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shall systematically and very fully acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreign affairs, without entirely neglecting our own. The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable to mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapid History, and Cominon Life, by the sagacious Spectator, progress of the movement-to Statesinen, Divines, Lawthe sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the yers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Chris- and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe that tian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with hope to make the work indispensable in every well-inthe best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, formed family. We say indispensable, because in this Fraser's, Tait's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Mag-day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite ase of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our must be gratified. variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies. The steamship has brought Europe, Asia and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Traveliers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff," by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the same time it will aspire to raise the standard of public taste. Agencies. -We are desirous of making arrangements, tion of this work- and for doing this a liberal commission will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselves in the business. And we will gladly correspond on this subject with any agent who will send us undoubted refer TERMS. The LIVING AGE is published every Saturday, by E. 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For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four or five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months. WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845. Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS, LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 279.-22 SEPTEMBER, 1849. From the North British Review. on the principle of combining into one narrative all that had been told of Swift by witnesses, many of whom were far from being quite faithworthy. It is really a curious thing to observe how accidentally mistakes arise. How the ambiguous language of one biographer being misunderstood by the next, the whole color of the narrative becomes insensibly changed. In Swift's case, there is really little that can be depended on in the statements of any of his biographers which is not directly affirmed in his own letters. The Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life; with an Appendix containing several of his Poems hitherto unpublished, and some Remarks on Stella. By W. R. WILDE, M. R. I. A., &c. 1849. THIS book contains a good deal that is new to the public. It corrects some mistakes as to Swift; it adds something to our means of judging of him, and is, on the whole, creditable to the diligence and the intelligence of its distinguished author. Mr. Wilde is the editor of the Dublin Medical Journal, and this volume is an enlargement of a professional essay, published in that useful periodical, in reply to some inquiries addressed to him by Dr. M'Kenzie of Glasgow, as to the character of the diseasement of his own, susceptible of confirmation from which clouded so many years of Dean Swift's life, and which exhibited its true character in the extinction of all mental power long before the period of his actual death. It was impossible for Mr. Wilde to examine the case of Swift as a mere medical question, without his being id to look into forgotten pamphlets and old repositories of the thousand trifles which the interest about a great man led fanciful people to preserve. From these sources he has revived some old recollections of Stella, and others connected with Swift, and has been fortunate enough to recover what we are inclined to think a genuine portrait of that lady, which is engraved for his volume. He has been also fortunate enough to find an old almanac with verses in Swift's hand-writing bound up within the same cover, and has, in this way, added a few poems of no great merit, and of doubtful authenticity, to the mass of Swift's works, already too large for each successive editor has increased the bulk of what he was bringing before the public, by every trifle, which, whether written by Swift or by any of his acquaintances, could by any pretence be connected with his name. The book, however, is of great value. An obscure disease which clouded with mystery much of Swift's life, which, while men forbore to call it insanity, perplexed every one of his friends with strange misgivings, and suggested to himself, with painful distinctness, its inevitable termination, is here traced with great distinctness, chiefly from such records as Swift's own letters afford. The inferences from the statements made by him, from time to time, through a period of full fifty years, are compared with those which an examination of his mortal remains, strangely exposed to observation a century after his death, suggested to competent observers. The chief value of Mr. Wilde's book is as a medical tract, but it incidentally illustrates some of the topics of Swift's domestic life which have been the subject of dispute; and this is of the more moment, as Scott's Life of Swift, an exceedingly entertaining volume, is framed CCLXXIX. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXII. 34 Of his early life, nothing whatever is known, except what he has himself told. Every addition to his record is demonstrably false; and every state external evidence, has been abundantly confirmed. Swift's stern and uncompromising veracity has been tested in every conceivable way. The vanity of his own relatives, anxious to be supposed capable of adding something to what the public already knew of a great man, has been rebuked by accidental circumstances, disproving all that they stated about the dean. Mr. Deane Swift's book is for the most part worthless. Lord Orrery's Biography of Swift, a book not without some interesting matter, is chiefly valuable as showing the sort of calumnies that prevailed during the latter years of Swift's life, and which were all reproduced in this weak and mischievous work. The book has all the appearance of having been dictated by malevolent feeling; and as its author had for a while a doubtful intimacy with Swift, it is probable that resentment for real or imaginary slights was not unconnected with the tone of depreciation manifested throughout. Lord Orrery was anxious to come before the public in the character of an author. Without any original powers, his only course was translation or criticism. He translated Pliny's epistles, but Melmoth distanced him there. He then remembered that there was no life of Swift, and he set about supplying the want. His acquaintance with Swift, which was the chief excuse for selecting this subject, had, however, been formed at a time when Swift was scarce himself-when his temper was soured with disappointment and utter hopelessness, and when his bodily and mental health was already greatly impaired. In fact, Lord Orrery had nothing to tell of Swift from his own knowledge; and to make a book, there was no way open to him except to heap together whatever he could collect of hearsay among the few who then remembered "the dean." The peculiar relation of Swift to the late ministry of Queen Anne, and the part he had afterwards taken in Irish politics, had made him the object of hatred *Deane Swift was a cousin of Jonathan's. He was co-heiress of Admiral Deane, the regicide. a son of his uncle Godwin's, one of whose four wives was By fatheridge, motheridge, To come from Gutheridge; In this church he has put In respect to his grandsire, &c. and suspicion to the party, who, when Lord Orrery wrote, possessed the whole power and patronage of the state. The libels published against him had thus a life more enduring than such things ordinarily have. All those were embodied in Lord Orrery's work. The work became very generally circulated, and was the text-book from which everything calculated to lower the dean's character has been derived. Lord Orrery's book was answered, In a letter from Pope to Swift, the former telland, for the most part, shown to be utterly unworthy of credit, by Delany, a surviving friend of ing a story of an Irishman to Swift, calls the hero of the tale Swift's countryman. In a letter Swift; but Delany's "Observations," we are told from Swift to Pope, (July, 1737,) we have the by Sheridan, had but little circulation. Delany's following passage, which exhibits the sense which answer was followed by another from Deane Swift. Swift gave to the word, if at any time he called Then came a formal life by Hawkesworth; and himself an Englishman, and which negatives Johnthen, Johnson's. We are obliged to mention these successive publications, as each materially influenced. Some of those who highly esteem you, and a son's ungenerous and unwarranted inference the more modern Lives of Swift, and as every one few who know you personally, are grieved to find of them originated errors which we hope to remove. Johnson's, published in his Lives of the Poets, tlemen of this kingdom"-he is writing from you make no distinction between the English genopens with an assertion which we must notice, as Dublin-" and the savage old Irish, (who are only the vulgar, and some gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom;) but the English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much speak better English, and are much better bred; more civilized than many counties in England. and and they think it very hard that an American, who is of the fifth generation from England, should be allowed to preserve that title, only because we have been told by some of them that their names three or four cousins here who were born in Porare entered in some parish in London. I have Eng-tugal, whose parents took the same care, and they it is calculated to effect our whole estimate of Swift: -- "Jonathan Swift was, according to an account said to be written by himself, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin on St. Andrew's day, 1667. According to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman, who was a minister of a parish in Herefordshire. During his life, the place of his birth was undetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the Irish, but would occasionally call himself an lishman." Swift was wholly incapable of the deception and falsehood which this narrative implies. Of himself, as of others similarly circumstanced, he was in the habit of speaking as of an Englishman accidentally born in Ireland; andas both his parents were English, and as no one of his progenitors was Irish, there does not seem anything unreasonable in his stating the fact as it was. The account, which states his birth to have been in Dublin, is in his own handwriting, and is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. Of the authenticity of that document, and of the truth of that statement, there can be no doubt. The pas sage Johnson quotes from Spence, no doubt exists in Spence's Anecdotes; but Spence made the mistake of confusing what Swift said of his grandfather, as if it had been said of his father. His grandfather, who was born in Leicester, was vicar of Goodrich in Herefordshire, and this Pope perfectly knew, as is proved by his amusing verses on Swift's putting up a monument to him, and presenting a cup to the church at Goodrich. On a pencilled elevation of the proposed monument, which Swift sent to Mrs. Howard, Pope wrote the following lines, which are preserved with an endorsement in Swift's hand: "Model of a monument for my grandfather, with Mr. Pope's roguery:" JONATHAN SWIFT are all of them Londoners." In a letter from Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, In the fourth Drapier's letter, Swift speaks of Molyneaux as "an English gentleman born here,” i. e., in Ireland. Swift's feeling was, that no right of an Englishman ought to have been lost by location or by birth in Ireland. This thought, and this alone, was what he expressed in very natural and very forcible language. The mistake of his meaning, for it does not appear to have been misrepresentation, has given a false coloring to every part of Johnson's narrative. The first three years of Swift's life were passed in England. His nurse, an Englishwoman, had some temptation to return to her own country, and she took the child with her. "At five years old he could read any chapter in the Bible; at six he was sent to school to Kilkenny, in Ireland, and at fourteen was admitted into the University of Dub- | him with deep humiliation; and though it did not lin, where, by the ill treatment of his nearest re- lead him to leave college for three years afterlations, he was so much discouraged and sunk in wards, it probably was among his motives for taking his spirits, that he too much neglected some parts his higher degrees at Oxford. Some confusion of his academic studies, for which he had no great has arisen in examining Swift's early career, from relish by nature, and turned himself to reading the fact of a cousin of his of the same surname history and poetry, so that, when the time came for having entered college on the same day with him, taking his degree of bachelor, although he had and the college entries respecting the two being so lived with great regularity and the due observance made as to render impossible in all cases to deterof the statutes, he was stopped of his degree for mine to whom they refer. His biographer, dulness and insufficiency, and at last hardly ad- Deane Swift, has built a strange story out of the mitted, in a manner little to his credit, which is way in which Swift's degree was given. He says called in that college speciali gratia. And this that Swift himself told him that the words were discreditable mark, as I am told," we are transcrib-misunderstood at Oxford; and that the introduction ing his own statement, "stands upon record in of them into the testimonial given by Dublin Coltheir college registry."* lege, was regarded by the Oxford men as a proof of the high regard with which Swift was honored in his parent university. The testimonium has been since produced. It contains no such words, nor are such ever inserted in a document of the kind. This disposes of Mr. Deane Swift as a witness, and, in disposing of him, a good deal of biographical rubbish is cleared away. Swift's support at school and in college was de The mark still exists. Swift entered college in April, 1682, and became one of a class which had for the most part entered in the October or November previous. As far as we can ascertain, there was at this period but little attention paid to classics in the course of education at Dublin University. It was ascertained, by an examination at entrance, that the pupil had read some prescribed books in Latin and Greek. The temptation of a scholar-rived from an uncle, Godwin Swift. Godwin ship in the third year of his course, which was the reward of proficiency in classics, was the sole inducement to make him continue this study, while all the permanent honors and emoluments which the college could bestow were given to what was then called Arts. For a period of four years education was conducted by prelections on Aristotelic logic, and in physics and ethics Aristotle was also the text-book. The college statutes did not allow any deviation from the course, and even the books to be used by the lecturer in instructing his pupils were rigorously fixed by statute. It was only in the reign of George the Third that an inconvenience, felt almost since the foundation of the college, was remedied, and power given to the governing part|resent it. There can be no doubt that at all times Swift, the first of the family that came to Ireland, was connected through one of his four wives with the Ormond family, and the duke made him his attorney-general of the Palatinate of Tipperary. "Godwin," says Swift, "was an ill pleader, but perhaps dextrous in the subtle parts of the law." In the manuscript from which these words are taken, is an interlineation before the word "dextrous" of the emphatic words, "a little too." Swift did not think of his uncle Godwin with There is no trace, we believe, of any kindly intimacy between the family of the successful barrister and the retired student. Swift's was a nature not unlikely to fancy neglect, and to love. of the body, in conjunction with the visitors, to self-will and caprice were among the orginal elemake such changes in the course of study as cir- ments of his character, and that from the first he cumstances might require. Swift was a boy of was ambitious. The appearance of wealth, and fourteen. At his school not one word of science the reality of some of the comforts of such an had been taught. The Irish schools never invaded establishment as his uncle's, must have now and the proper province of the university. He found then met the eye of the meditative boy, who little himself in a class that for six months before had thought with what real sacrifice this expenditure been exercised in the subtleties of a formal system was maintained, and how even the pittance apporaltogether new to him. There is reason, too, to tioned for his own maintenance and instruction in think that Swift's talents were of slow develop-college pressed on the resources of a generous and ment. It is scarce possible to imagine circum- improvident man, whose very occupation in the stances in which less was likely to be learned. management of the business of others was not His tutor's attention would, in the circumstances, unlikely to be accompanied with inattention to his be given to the more advanced pupils, and it can-own; at all events, the close of Godwin's career not surprise us if the neglected boy was satisfied with formal attendance, and lived in a world of his own thoughts and dreams. At that time, the test of proficiency afforded by quarterly examina- was his giving ear to some speculative tions of the students did not exist, and the logical projectors, who proposed to realize a fortune by disputations for an academic degree, which have making the worst iron in the kingdom. His latbecome a mere form, were then a serious thing. ter years were spent in a state of mental imbeciliSwift's failure seems to have been regarded by ty not unlike that which oppressed the close *Anecdotes of the Family of Swift by Dr. Swift. The of Swift's own life. Between the Swifts and the original manuscript is lodged in the University of Dublin. family of Sir William Temple there had been exhibited that he had not money either for himself or others. His mental faculties gave way. The cause, or perhaps the consequence, of mental disease, The companion of Tem ple was not unlikely to have enjoyed the luxury of fruits; for nowhere do we find such descriptions of all that could be brought to perfection in England as in Sir William's essay on gardening; and we almost think that a recollection of his account of his apricots and peaches, and yet more of his cherries, and the delight with which he dwells on Had some kindliness-we beleve also some obscure that it was stone-fruit. family connection. Godwin Swift was the intimate friend of Temple, who held a high office in the Court of Chancery in Ireland. The mother of Jonathan Swift was related, or claimed to be related, to Temple's wife. The cousin of Jonathan, who entered Dublin College on the same day with him, had made his way to Temple's, and was already chaplain there, when Jonathan, now twenty-them, might have led Scott into a mistake, for which one years of age-too young to be ordained, and we do not think he has any authority. The time looking round for means of support-after a short of Swift's first illness was in 1690. In the Life visit to his mother in Leicestershire, came with of Temple, perfixed to his works,* we find that some recommendations to Temple, by whom he about this period Sir William used to wait on seems to have been at once employed, probably as King William at Richmond and Windsor; and it secretary, if that word does not express a relation was no doubt in Swift's attendance on him on one more confidential than was at first established be- of these occasions that the illness occurred. tween them. It is probable that the statement Sir William's secretary read the essay to which given by Mr. Temple, nephew to Sir William we allude, written some five years before, or had Temple, is substantially true, that Swift was paid he heard Sir William conversing on the subject, a salary of twenty pounds a year as his amanuen- he would have been not disinclined to the use of sis. This is stated by Temple in language studi- ripe fruit, even as a part of medicinal treatment ously offensive, and manifestly colored by that of such ailments as he complained of. "I can dislike of Swift which actuated all the members say for myself at least," says the old gentleman, of the Temple family. In fact, the regard ex-" and all my friends, that the season of summer hibited by Sir William Temple to Swift, to whom fruits is ever the season of health with us, which he left his manuscripts, seems to have been re- I reckon from the beginning of June to the end of sented by the family. The language of solemn September; and for all sickness of the stomach courtesy, in which a distinction of rank seems to (from which others are judged to proceed) I do have been implied even in the ordinary intercourse not think any that are like me, the most subject to between equals, gives more color to Mr. Temple's them, shall complain whenever they eat thirty or statement than the facts themselves would perhaps forty cherries before meals, or the like proportion strictly warrant. Swift's first residence with of strawberries, white figs, soft peaches, or grapes Temple was at Sheen, and there he became ac- perfectly ripe. After Michaelmas, apples; which, quainted with Esther Johnson, a child of six years with cherries, are of all others the most innocent old, the daughter of a person who was employed food, and perhaps the best physic." In the same as housekeeper, or in some such capacity, by lady essay, we find the following passage :—“ I need Gifford, the sister of Temple. This child was say nothing of apples, being so well known among destined to be known in after days, by all who us; but the best of our climate, and I believe of knew anything of Swift, as the Stella of his all others, is the golden pippin." It is said that writings. She was a general favorite, and seems the cause to which Swift referred his illness is not to have been domesticated with Lady Gifford and adequate to account for its effects. Mr. Mason's Mr. Temple as a companion to a young rela-language is "I apprehend such causes are quite tive of theirs, of her own age, and was educated insufficient to produce such permanent effects. by the same masters. Intimacy, friendship, affection, any feeling but the passion which is called love, is likely to have grown up between Swift, who conducted parts of her education, and his young pupil. While with Temple, Swift first felt what Mr. Wilde regards as the commencement of the cerebral disease, which only terminated with life. Swift thought it but a disease arising from indigestion. Writing to Mrs. Howard, he says, "About two hours before you were born, I got my giddiness by eating a hundred golden pippins at a time at Richmond; and when you were four years and a quarter old, having made a fine seat about twenty miles further in Surrey, where I used to read, there I got my deafness; and these two friends have visited me, one or other, every year since; and being old acquaintances, have now thought fit to come together." Hawkesworth, and other biographers of Swift, have said that this surfeit of fruit occurred in Ireland; Scott, Swift, perhaps, experienced then, for the first time, the symptoms of an hereditary disease, and probably mistook that for the cause which was truly the consequence." Mr. Wilde who, however, differs from Mason as to the cause and the nature of the disease, says " From this period. a disease which, in all its symptoms, and by its fatal termination, plainly appears to have been (in its commencement at least) cerebral congestion, set in and exhibited itself in well marked periodic attacks, which year after year increased in intensity and duration." It is plain that, in spite of Temple's gout, and what his sister calls "spleen,' "-a favorite medical fiend of the day-in spite too of Swift's impatient spirit, little likely to endure from Temple's relatives the slights which his position left him without the power of effectually repelling, and which from the tone and temper of resentment in which they at all times speak of Swift, they *Edition of 1814. |