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From The Welcome Guest.
AROUT A DISSATISFIED GHOST.

I HAVE the misfortune to live in closer communion with stars and moonshine than is absolutely advisable, inhabiting, as I do, the top floor of a house in reduced circumstances, under the immediate superintendence of a corpulent widow lady, partial to "old Tom." The privacy of my literary but leafless Academus is invaded by uproars of the most atrocious character, produced by "old Tom" and the widow at certain seasons. My dwelling-place is sombre and unearthly in its aspect, full of draughts and darkness; my chairs are Asmodean, my windows shriek and howl like Bedlamites, the appearance of my very bed is spectral. But that is neither here nor there. Surrounded by such gloomy scenery I saw the Dissatisfied Ghost, whose visit to my solitude I am about to make public.

It was late in the evening when the Ghost came. I sat in my bed-chamber, half asleep and half awake; I had fallen into a snooze over a stray volume of Scott's "Life of Swift," and my finger was placed on a passage which describes the Dean, after his marriage with Hester Johnson, riding posthaste to Ceybridge to have that fatal dumb interview with Vanessa. I was dreaming of Whigs and Tories, sinecures, bishoprics, and Boodle's in the time of Queen Anne. I saw Jonathan Swift, a little dirty boy, bullying other little dirty boys in St. Patrick's Close. I saw him, with his Irish features and that ugly look in his eyes, bullying about Sir William Temple's door and borrowing money from the Lord Chancellor. I saw him, hoband-nob with Pope and Gay at Twickenham, discussing the raw material of "The Beggar's Opera." I heard him extemporizing scandal to Vanessa and talking sentiment to Stella. I saw Jonathan Swift in a hundred places at once-from Tom Sheridan's parlor to his own desolate Irish Deanery, and I said to myself, "The man is a rascal; his sentiment is as disgusting as his ribaldry. I don't like him." Remembering the man and the time, I thought of the famous dialogue in the play: "Your character ? No.-Your

honor? No. Your eternal salvation? No. -A thousand pounds? Ah, there you have me." I had no sympathy with him. He was a humbug.

and snuffed the candles. The house in reduced circumstances felt chilly. I relapsed into dreamland.

"The man was unhappy," thought I to myself, "though deservedly so. He lived long enough to experience the morbid chidings of a genius wasted in selfish pursuits; he was famous in life as well as after it, but he was miserable. His genius wont save him from my censure, he was unprincipled. He insulted womankind; he said foul things to innocence; of women, this Swift thought fit to write filthily. You, Sir Walter Scott, good-natured old trump that you are, ask me to sympathize with him. I wont and can't; he was a humbug."

There was a movement at my elbow; the marrow of my bones felt cold. I shivered, and snuffed the candles again. There was another movement behind me. I turned round and saw-the Ghost.

As palpable, real, fleshy a Ghost as ever walked the night: clearly, a Ghost well to do in the spiritual world. Internal conviction assured me that that shabby cassock and those draggled silk stockings were not human; otherwise, I should have taken him for an elderly stockbroker of eccentric tastes. He had clear blue eyes, blue and ghastly, bridged with bushy eyebrows; his complexion resembling my mellifluous Thames on a rainy day; there was cynicism in his fat double chin. On the whole, a slovenly ghost, ignorant of the earthly blessings of soap and water.

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Humph!" he ejaculated, looking at me fiercely from under his heavy eyebrows. I shook a little in my slippers; but, being by nature a courageous man, felt much less frightened than might have been anticipated. Still, I felt uncomfortable. The rain began to moan outside my window, the wind was tugging at the tiles above me; the candles were burning near the socket, and the spectral room looked more spectral than ever.

"Humph!" repeated the Ghost, fidgetting with a dirty finger in the waistcoat-pocket. "Well, sir, why do ye disturb me with your questions at this time of night ?"

I looked at my eccentric visitor with considerable amazement. He was evidently sober. But, I disturb the reverend gentleman!-plainly, a mad Ghost. He answered my thoughts with an angry twitch at his

I woke out of my meditation with a start, waistcoat.

"Don't tell me," he said, "don't tell me. | with a mingled look of awe and veneration; The world's a fool and a liar, sir; it lies he seemed flattered by the respect my timidagainst me, though it feared me once. You, ity paid him, and his features softened. sir, have the stupidity to believe it—you too consider me a humbug. You're an ass. I scorn ye."

This, to say the least of it was unpolite. The Ghost, who spoke with a very slight touch of the brogue, was far from well bred. But he went on, fiercely gesticulating, bullying at the back of my chair, growling in harsh gutturals to the accompaniment of wind and rain.

Yes, sir, you're an ass, a ninny; the world's an ass and a ninny; everybody's an ass and a ninny! Why can't the world let me sleep in peace? What have I done to merit this dirty treatment? I starved out blood and bone and brain for the world. She can't let me alone, sir. She's a vindictive, lying old hag, sir; by Heaven she is!" By this time the Ghost had talked himself into a tolerable passion. His blue eyes glared; his mouth foamed: he fidgetted at his waistcoat more than ever. I began to feel out of my element. Gradually he soothed down; but a dark look lingered in his blue eyes. He took a chair and wiped his perspiring forehead with a snuffy pockethandkerchief. Presently, I grew bolder, and watched his proceedings with feelings of intense interest. I felt more and more at home with him; that puffy, puffy anger of his looked so very human.

"But go on, sir," continued the Ghost, with a frown. "Ask your questions; I'm here to answer ye. You take me for a brute, a rascal-don't tell me a falsehood, I overheard ye. Come, out with it. Jonathan Swift isn't the man to stand talking here till cock-crow. Hang it, sir, what's the matter with ye? Do ye take me for my Lord Bolingbroke?" And the blue eyes grew bluer and bluer.

Jonathan Swift! The dissatisfied manes of the author of my immortal "Gulliver"! Here was a visitor with a vengeance. I thought of his last days, and quaked in my slippers. I cried peccavi to Nemesis, but it was no use. I might have put up tolerably well with a sane apparition; but with a petulant old Ghost lying under the imputation of lunacy, I felt uneasy. What had I to say for myself? Nothing; so I merely trembled and perspired. I glanced at him

"Now, sir, let us talk over this matter sensibly. Pshaw! what d'ye tremble at? I sha'n't eat ye. You take me for a ghoul, a vampire, a bloodsucker, eh? Open your mouth. What fault have ye to find with me?"

More bullying and blustering.

Resistance was impossible; I felt compelled by something within me to think over my charges against him. A thousand things flashed into my mind all at once: then they flashed out again, leaving a residuum of hard stories. I said mentally, and I couldn't help it, "Well, then, take your politics. You were a turncoat; your principles were buried under an ideal heap of profitable livings. Proof? Under the roof of Sir William Temple you professed to acquire the passions of the Revolutionist, and the principles of the Whig; you were worldly wise in doing so, for your leaders had power and place at their disposal. You defended Somers and the rest, when they were arraigned in 1701, but when their affairs still looked tolerably bright. When matters looked dangerous and the other party came into power, you shoved off Addison and Somers and rushed over to Toryism, like a humbug as you were. Finally, when the queen died and you lost all chance of gaining a bishopric, you turned tail again, and abused all the world indiscriminately. You know the rest.”

The Dissatisfied Ghost heard my mental remarks, fired up, and interrupted them. "Stop!" he cried; "don't go any further; for I understand ye. You talk stuff, sirthe old stuff; ask Tom Sheridan, jolly Tom, if I was unprincipled. I don't mean to say that I was better than my fellows, that I was absolutely perfect-totus teres atque rotundus. But mark ye, sir, I stuck by my party as long as my party stuck by me. My Lord Somers, indeed! Pray, sir, what connection had I with my Lord Somers, or any of the lot of 'em? I wrote a pamphlet about my lord and the other three, and I avowed it like a man who meant business. Scurvy were the thanks I got for it! I was a young man then; and if I thought fit to change my opinions in after life, what then? I did as the rest of them did. Damme, sir, I might have starved if I hadn't. I was a Church

of England man, a better man than any of | wrote or said was based upon the use and my brethren; if I didn't want ranting Low legality of popular opinion; and because a Church knaves to filch my pockets, my breth-parcel of mad lords and half-grown lordlings ren agreed with me. So I shook hands with were playing that silly game, was I going to Harley on principle, and played trump cards cut the cards for 'em? Sir, this is going a for the Tories. What had Somers done for little too far!" me? what had Joe Addison done for me? Was I going to sacrifice myself and my principles because Joe Addison liked me and found me useful? No, sir. Joe and I were friends till the end; Joe, I am proud to say, respected me. What beggarly benefit did I receive from the Tories? Didn't I lose a bishopric by writing right out what was in me? Pooh! pooh! They pitched into me in both Houses. The clergy, hang 'em! abused me; and because they abused me, Harley shoved me off with the beggarly rat-hole at St. Patrick's."

"You are avoiding the question," quoth I, still mentally. "But how about those outrageous passages in The Journal to Stella'? You cajole weak-headed recruits under your banner; you flatter and pander to them; then you abuse them to Miss Johnson, calling them knaves and fools. You libel my Lord Treasurer, while you borrow money from him. Finally, let me remind you of that ugly rumor, asserting your desire to assist Bolingbroke to bring in the Pretender."

"You talk like a jackanapes," growled the Ghost. "But come, I'll give ye a bit of my mind, sir. I hated the swindlers you talk about, every one of 'em; what's more, sir, they hated me. There was no love lost between us. Why, they treated me like a dog, and I bit them-hard, deep, and the wound galled. They trembled before my Lord Berkeley's chaplain, as they trembled before the Dean of St. Patrick's; and why? Because he spoke out for the people's rights and his own. Harkee, the scoundrels sought to stop my mouth with their beggarly deanery; but they failed, sir, they failed. Even my Lord Bolingbroke hated me, and because I knew his secrets. There sat my lord, guzzling over his cups with Dick Steele and a pack of other wine-bibbers, while I worked for him, crammed him, and sought to keep him sober. You know how I was rewarded; you know how my own country rewarded me. I, Jonathan Swift, connive at bringing in the card-playing, brainless boy over the Channel! Why, sir, every word I ever

He continued in this strain for several minutes. Evidently, there was no convincing him that he had played false cards. He sweated and bullied like the Dissatisfied Ghost that he was. I saw how far personal pique went to make up his account, as indeed most accounts, of the matter. By the by, I said to myself, "You wont tell me that you were a consistent divine; you can't."

The Ghost heard. He broke out into another passion.

"Tell that to your grandmother, sir, and not to Jonathan Swift. I was religious enough to feed hungry men and women at St. Patrick's Church. In big London, I smelt cant and blarney; so I sought to drag them from their hiding-places. I was a High Churchman, every inch of me; but some of my brethren were knaves, and I hinted so."

"Let me remind you, Dean, that you perpetrated a book-a very clever book, no doubt-called 'The Tale of a Tub.' Honest Churchmen found fault with both book and author; justly, I think."

"I tell ye again, sir, that I found cant and blarney under their ecclesiastical cassocks; and I wasn't the man to bow down and worship them, bad as ye think me. The slander of the world is blunt and meaningless—telum imbelle sine ictu. The world said I wasn't a Christian. Sir, I was a better Christian than the world, when she taught Irishmen to insult me at Dublin. I say that there's more Christianity in the book ye prate about than there was in all the churches bundled together. If I showed Cant her own image, and called Blarney by her right name, what then? Hang me, sir! the fellows-that Archbishop Sharpe among the number-knew how to recognize their own faces in my mirror. Neither priests nor laymen like to be called uncomely. Consequently, they said I was no Christian, and you believe them. They lied, sir."

"Polemics, sir," he added, after a moment, more calmly, "spoil piety. I made myself no better by writing polemical books i the world knew me only as a testy Irishman,

who dealt in sledge-hammer logic. I was a proud man and an ambitious-I'd better own it. But I was proud of my brains, sir, and had a nobler ambition than ye give me credit for. If I wanted a bishopric, I wanted it for right reasons. I wanted leisure to do something worthy the stuff of which God Almighty made me. The world involved me in her jars and quarrels. I wasted my precious brains in verse-writing and pamphleteering. My heart ached, and my brain had to crush it down. The world drove me mad, sir; the world taught me to hate myself; she teaches nincompoops like you to cast stones at me. I wish to rest in peace."

He paused again, wiped his brow, and continued, hotly,

"Bad or good, I wasn't the sycophant ye think me. I spoke out my mind like a man; if I wanted cash, I told my Lord Treasurer he owed it me. That was why they hated me, the mean-spirited blackguards. Where I found talent, I respected it; where I found stupidity with a title, I sneered at it. I taught fools with coronets to recognize the aristocracy of intellect. What if I bullied and blustered a little ? They hated me, and I couldn't help it. I taught them to know their level, sir. You say I had no love in me; there ye lie, sir. Ask Joe Addison, ask Tom Sheridan, ask the poor rascals I fed and clothed in Ireland, if I had no love in me. Fools didn't know it. Little Hester Johnson hardly knew it."

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"Surely," I said,catching at his last words, surely you don't mean to tell me that your conduct to Mrs. Johnson and to Miss Vanhomrigh was not that of a villain? If you can exonerate yourself, Dr. Swift, I shall only be too happy. But allow me to state, in the first place, that my notions of morality are very different from any you have yet propounded. I confess, indeed, the world did much to corrupt you; but you were a man of genius, and ought to have acted conscientiously. With regard to your connection with the unfortunate women alluded to, my mind, like that of the world, is made up. But still, I am at your service; defend yourself."

The Ghost rose from his chair, and began to pace up and down the room excitedly. whenever his eye caught mine, it sank abashed; I had cowed the apparition by my

coolness. He saw clearly that bullying was of no avail.

"People call me a woman-hater. Fools! I was rather fond of the little creatures than otherwise. But I was as proud as Lucifer; I chose to look higher than saucer-eyes, patches, and ball-room dolls. I liked them, I say, just as ye like sunshine when you've nothing else to do but to bask in it. I had a head on my shoulders, and bishop or no bishop when I made up my mind to do a thing, I did it. I swore that no woman should hold reins in my house, and I kept my word. I wasn't the man to eat bitter olives, merely because they looked tempting on the outside. If they grew rotten was it my fault? No."

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"Hark ye! Place yourself in my shoes for a moment. Think of Jonathan Swift, who taught a little bright-eyed thing at Temple's and patted her head once or twice perhaps, waking up, one fine morning, to find the bright-haired thing grown a goodlooking girl, head over ears in love with him. Circumspicite! What see ye, from the poor devil of a tutor's point of view? A prettyfaced child, with some hundred pounds in cash. Suppose you have a will of your own, which conquers your first mad impulse to marry her off-hand; you weigh matrimony against your chances in the world, and find the former wanting. You want something besides brats and love in a cottage. So you try to wean Miss of her passion; you do

"But Hester Johnson did know her own mind; she was a woman, not a sentimental girl. Not know her own mind!"

your best to drain it out of her. You don't tried to save myself, sir; but I couldn't. I succeed: who is to blame, then ? Why, sir, knew what was coming. I knew that I I don't exactly see why a man of genius is wasn't the man to make a wife happy. My bound to immolate himself, because a girl blood had been drained out of me; I was who doesn't know her own mind takes a the curse of all who knew me. Sir, you ask fancy to him." me who killed Hester Johnson? and I answer, the world, not Jonathan Swift, who was its instrument, killed her. Sic transit gloria mundi: poor little Stella died. I had never loved her; I liked her as a man likes fresh air; she was cleaner than your fine ladies of quality. If I had married her so many years before, she would have died so much the sooner. The little thing had seen only my bright side (bang it, sir, I had a bright side) and after our marriage she saw my dark side. What then? I had known it."

"Say she did, sir, say she did; what follows? I am putting the case to you as Swift, Hester Johnson's tutor, saw it. The world had kicked him up and down her dirty alleys; he had seen a good many women, principally bad or weak ones. He didn't think much of 'em. Had he any reason to believe this little chit any better than the rest? He said to himself, Miss here sets her cap at me; she offers me so many pounds English to marry her off-hand. But I'm not going to tie myself to the apronstrings of a woman.' He was wrong, I know; he found out that to his cost afterwards. He didn't throw flat rebellion into Miss' face. He tried to cure her of her folly by degrees; but he didn't succeed. As for the story about the girl Waryng, it was all humbug. He was free as air."

He paused for a moment, frowning at me from under those heavy eyebrows.

"What if I add," he went on, "that Hester's tutor had a heart big enough to understand how a marriage with his pupil would only make her miserable for life? Sir, if I misunderstood that girl, I at least understood myself. I struggled with Satan, partly for her sake, and gained the mastery. My victory proved fatal to the looker-on."

"Let us suppose all these statements to be true or plausible. Do they extenuate your conduct to Miss Johnson after she was your wedded wife ?"

"And Vanessa, Dean, what of her ?" I had grown quite familiar with the Dissatisfied Ghost.

"What of her, sir, what of her? quantum sufficit? Well, sir, look back a little. Esther Vanhomrigh meets Doctor Swift when he has made a bit of a name by exposing blarney. Young madam is young and given to verse-writing; she shows him her verses, and he touches 'em up a bit—with fair fatherly words. But by and by she takes it into her little head to fall in love with Mr. Preceptor. Mr. Preceptor's eyes are opened, and he tries to hang back. She offers to run away with and marry him. He remembers another little jade over in old Ireland, and offers Vanessa his friendship and esteemin other words, every rap of sentiment he has left to give her. She wont hear of it. Mr. Preceptor runs off to Ireland, and young madam follows him. What can he do? He is deliberating, when out comes Miss' letter. Stella is jealous and ill, sir; the letter upsets her. Mr. Preceptor is not an angel, so he

The Dissatisfied Ghost groaned ere he an- gets into a deuce of a passion." swered my question.

"You don't mean to tell me—"

"The world had maddened and enraged "I mean to tell ye that I was an old fool. me when I married her. I married her as a I went among the girls when I'd nothing else doctor would bleed a patient, to keep her in to do, and they victimized me. 'Od rot it, the land of the living. But the world had sir, what had I done that every half-grown soured me. I thought men knaves and Miss Impudence should adore me? I wagged women fools-and I made up my mind to live my tongue a little, chatting among 'em, and apart. Could Jonathan Swift, insulted and out came the girls to kneel at my feet and hardened as he was, dream of broken hearts? ask me to marry 'em. You tell me Vanessa I can't excuse that part of my life. I was died. What did she die for! Because Jonaworse than mad, then. I was hunted down than Swift offered her his friendship, and and driven into that marriage like a dog. I when she hunted him down like a dog got

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