not present itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have lived with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service, ate humble 67) pie and came back again; and so for ten years went on, gathering learning, swallowing scorn, and submitting with a stealthy rage to his fortune. Temple's style is the perfection of practised and easy good - breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, he professes a very gentlemanly acquaintance with it; if he makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelope 68) his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes), he steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park; and lets the King's party, and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out among themselves. He reveres the sovereign, (and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant a bow); he admires the Prince of Orange; but there is one person whose ease and comfort he loves more than all the princes in Christendom, and that valuable member of society is himself, Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus.70) One sees him in his retreat; between his studychair and his tulip beds *), clipping his apricots and pruning *) ... "The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man's happiness in the traquillity of his mind and indolence of body; for while we are composed of both, I doubt 71) both must have a share in the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages say the same things in very different words, so in several ages, countries, constitutions of laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very different expressions; what is called by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion; by the sceptics, indisturbance; by the Molinists 71a), quietism; by common men, peace of conscience, seems all to mean but great tranquillity of mind. For this reason Epicurus passed his life wholly in his garden: there he studied, there he exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking; but, above all, the ex his essays, the statesman, the ambassador no more; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, the fine gentleman and courtier at St. James's as at Shene; where in place 72) of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the Ciceronian majesty; or walks a minuet 73) with the Epic Muse; or dallies by the south wall74) with the ruddy nymph of gardens. Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious deal of veneration from his household, and to have been coaxed, and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about him, as delicately as any of the plants which he loved. When he fell ill in 1693, the household was aghast at his indisposition; mild Dorothea 75) his wife, the best companion of the best of men "Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate." As for Dorinda 75), his sister, "Those who would grief describe, might come and trace To see her weep, joy every face forsook, And grief flung sables on each menial 76) look. The humble tribe 77) mourned for the quickening soul, emption from cares and solicitude, seem equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body and mind. . . . Where Paradise was has been much debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it, as what was much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries. Strabo describing Jericho: 'Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtæ sunt etiam aliæ stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum centum, totus irriguus, ibi est Regis Balsami paradisus'." Essay on Gardens. In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose conduct and prudence he characteristically admires. ... "I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of plums; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon peaches and grapes; and a good plum is certainly better than an ill peach." Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the menials 76) into a mourning livery, a fine image? One of the menials wrote it, who did not like that Temple livery nor those twenty-pound wages. Cannot one fancy the uncouth young servitor, with downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, following at his Honour's heels in the garden walk; or taking his Honour's orders 78) as he stands by the great chair, where Sir William has the gout, and his feet all blistered with moxa? 79) When Sir William has the gout or scolds it must be hard work at the second table *); the Irish *) SWIFT'S THOUGHTS ON HANGING. "To grow old in the office of a footman, is the highest of all indignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes of a place at court, a command in the army, a succession to the stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you cannot obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your master's niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon the road, which is the only post of honour left you: there you will meet many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one, and making a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some instructions. "The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when you are going to be hanged; which, either for robbing your master, for house-breaking 80), or going upon the high-way, or in a drunken quarrel by killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and is owing to one of these three qualities: either a love of good fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits. Your good behaviour on this article will concern your whole community: deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations: a hundred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about the bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the Court; let nothing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a pardon for discovering your comrades: but I suppose all this to be in vain; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate: some of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt 81) and white cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon: take leave cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate: mount the cart with courage fall on your knees; lift up your eyes; hold a book in your hands, although you cannot read a word; deny the fact at the gallows; kiss and forgive the hangman, and so farewell; you shall be buried in pomp at the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of you; and your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown succeeds in your place .... secretary owned as much afterwards: and when he came to dinner, how he must have lashed and growled and torn the household with his gibes and scorn! What would the steward say about the pride of them Irish schollards 82) — and this one had got no great credit even at his Irish college, if the truth were known and what a contempt his Excellency's 83) own gentleman 84) must have had for Parson Teague 85) from Dublin. (The valets and chaplains were always at war. It is hard to say which Swift thought the more contemptible.) And what must have been the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the housekeeper's little daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences above all things above mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous Sir William in his square-toes and periwig, when Mr. Swift comes down from his master with rage in his heart, and has not a kind word even for little Hester Johnson? Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescension was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir William would 6) perpetually quote 87) Latin and the ancient classics à propos of his gardens and his Dutch statues and plates bandes 88), and talk about Epicurus 89) and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Cæsar, Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Mæcenas, Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. A propos of beans, he would mention Pythagoras's precept 90) to abstain from beans, and that this precept probably meant that wise men should abstain from public affairs. He is a placid Epicurean; he is a Pythagorean philosopher; he is a wise man that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so? One can imagine the downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, and the flash of scorn which they emit. Swift's eyes were as azure as the heavens; Pope91) says nobly (as everything Pope said and thought his friend was good and noble), "His eyes are as azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness in them." And one person 92) in that household, that pompous stately kindly Moor Park, saw heaven 93) no where else. But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pippins; and in a garden-seat which he devised for himself at Moor Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock of books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness which punished and tormented him through life. He could not bear the place or the servitude. Even in that poem of courtly condolence 94), from which we have quoted a few lines of mock melancholy, he breaks out of the funereal procession with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his own grief 95), cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and forsaken by fortune, and even hope. I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to Temple, in which, after having broke 96) from his bondage, the poor wretch crouches piteously towards his cage again, and deprecates his master's anger. He asks for testimonials for orders.97) "The particulars required of me are what relate 98) to morals and learning; and the reasons of quitting your Honour's family that is whether the last was occasioned by any ill action. They 99) are left entirely to your Honour's mercy, though in the first 100) I think I cannot reproach myself for anything further than for infirmities. This is all I dare at present beg from your Honour, under circumstances of life not worth your regard: what is left me to wish (next to the health and prosperity of your Honour and family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of leaving my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg my most humble duty and service be presented 101) to my ladies, your Honour's lady and sister."- Can prostration fall deeper? could a slave bow lower? *) *) "He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great man." Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the DEAN. "It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to himself." Preface to Temple's Works. On all public occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the subjoined. extracts from the Journal to Stella: "I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d-ailed him on Sunday: I made him a very proper speech; told him I observed he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; and one thing I warned him of never to appear cold to me, for I |