was very weak, but made a shift to sit up in bed. I asked him how he found himself that morning. Ah, Wull,' he replied, 'I am very bad indeed!'

He died in his 48th year. He lost many friends by his intemperate habits. The Countess of Hertford, to whom he dedicated his Spring, invited him to spend the summer at her seat near Marlborough. Lady Hertford was a writer of verses herself. According to Dr. Johnson, however, Thomson forfeited her friendship by carousing with her lord, instead of assisting her in her studies, and was never invited to her house again.

Thomson, notwithstanding his eloquent rebuke:

"Falsely luxurious! will not man awake," &c. was so extremely indolent, that half his mornings were spent in bed. Dr. Burney having called on him one day at two o'clock, expressed surprise at finding him still there, and asked how he came to lie so long? Ecod, mon, because I had no mot-tive to rise," was his sole answer.

66

WAS DEAN SWIFT MAD?

That Swift not only expired "a driv'ler and a show," but lived a madman, is what the world generally believes; but, Mr. W. R. Wilde, F.R.C.S.,* having stated all that is really known of Swift's sufferings and disease, asserts that up to the year 1742, Swift showed no symptom whatever of mental disease, beyond the ordinary decay of nature. Towards the end of that year the cerebral disease under which he had long laboured, by producing effusion, &c., destroyed his memory, rendered him at times ungovernable in his anger, and produced paralysis; but all this was the result of physical disease. It cannot be doubted that his not speaking was not the result of either insanity or imbecility, but arose either from the paralysis of the muscles by which the mechanism of speech is produced, or from loss of memory, such as frequently appears in cerebral disease; for he would often attempt to speak, but could not recollect words to express his meaning, when he would shrug up his shoulders, and sigh heavily. We have also the evidence of one of the few eye-witnesses of the Dean's condition at this period-that he never yet talked nonsense,

"The Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life." By W. R. Wilde F.R.C.S. Second Edition. 1849.

or said a foolish thing. The disease under which he laboured so long might be termed "epileptic vertigo," such as that described by Esquirol, an affection to which it is well known many men of strong intellect have been subject. For the last few years of his embittered existence-from his 75th to his 78th year-Swift's disease partook so much of the nature of senile decay, or the dementia of old age, that it is difficult to define by any precise medical term, his actual state. Mr. Wilde has very carefully examined the question; and although to this day it is difficult to persuade the great mass of the people in Dublin that the Dean was not one of the first inmates of his own madhouse (although the building was not erected till many years after his death)-yet, there is nothing to confirm the assertion, promulgated by Johnson, that Swift's "madness was compounded of rage and fatuity; Swift expired "a driv'ler and a show."

or that

It is remarkable that the last sufferings of Sir Walter Scott -one of Swift's biographers, and certainly not the most lenient one-present a striking parallel to the case of Swift in nearly every particular except in point of duration. When Scott was in his 58th year, he first began to feel those premonitory symptoms of incipient disease of the brain under which Swift laboured from the time he was 23. Many of Sir Walter's symptoms in the two closing years of his life, resemble those of Swift, and the post-mortem symptoms are very much alike.

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS-SWIFT AND BOSWELL.

One evening, Boswell tells us, at the Club, Johnson attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. "The Tale of a Tub is so much superior to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the author of it; there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life. I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver's Travels, 'When once you have thought of big and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.' I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, and tried to rouse those who were much more able to defend him; but in vain. Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of the Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his god, as he consulted it upon all occasions. He observed that

Swift put his name to two things (after he had a name to put): The Plan for the Improvement of the English Language, and the last Drapier's Letter.

"NABOTH'S VINEYARD."

"I'll send for your husband," said Swift to Mrs. Pilkington, "to dine with us, and in the meantime we'll go and take a walk in Naboth's vineyard." "Where may that be, sir?" said she. "Why, a garden," replied the Dean, "I cheated one of my neighbours out of."

DEAN SWIFT'S HOUSEKEEPING.

In Swift's last letter to Dr. Arbuthnot, (first printed in Cunningham's edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets,) is the following most touching account of his condition and prospects. He is endeavouring to excuse his not coming to see the Doctor:

"The great reason that hinders my journey to England is the same that drives you from Highgate-I am not in circumstances to keep horses and servants in London. My revenues, by the miserable oppressions of this kingdom, are sunk 300l. a-year; for tithes are become a drug, and I have but little rents from the Deanery-lands, which are my only sure payments. I have here (at Dublin) a large convenient house; I live at two-thirds cheaper here than I could there ; I drink a bottle of French wine myself every day, though I love it not; but it is the only thing that keeps me out of pain. I ride every fair day a dozen miles on a large strand, or turnpike-road. You in London have no such advantages. I can buy a chicken for a groat, and entertain three or four friends, with as many dishes, and two or three bottles of French wine, for ten shillings. When I dine alone, my pint and chicken, with the appendices, cost me about fifteenpence. I am thrifty in everything but wine, of which, though not a constant housekeeper, I spend between five and six hogsheads a-year. When I ride to a friend a few miles off, if he be not richer than I, I carry my bottle, and bread and chicken, that he may be no loser. I talk thus foolishly to let you know the reasons which, joined to my ill health, make it impossible for me to see you and my other friends. And perhaps this domestic tattle may excuse me, and amuse you.

I could not live with my Lord Bo- or Mr. Pope; they are both too temperate and too wise for me, and too profound and too poor. And how could I afford horses? And how could I ride over their cursed roads in winter, and be turned into a ditch by every carter or hackney-coach? Every parish minister in this city is governor of all carriages, so are the two Deans, and every carter, &c. makes way for us at their peril. Therefore like Cæsar, I will become of the first here, rather than the last among you. I forget that I am so near the bottom. I am now with one of my Prebendaries, five miles in the country, for five days. I brought with me eight bottles of wine, with bread and meat for three days, which is my club; he is a bachelor, with 3007. a-year. Pray God preserve you, my dear friend."

DEATH OF SWIFT AND POPE.

It has been well observed that Dr. Johnson, as a critic, deserves high praise for his pungent expression of the dictates of common sense. This is instanced throughout his Lives of the Poets, in his examination of particular biographical facts: these may be necessarily of a rather trivial nature; but most of the facts of any man's life are trivial, except to himself, and it is one of the first duties of biographical criticism to pass a rapid judgment or raise a passing doubt, so as to put these trivial facts before the reader's mind in the right light. It so happens that, both in the Life of Swift and in that of Pope, there is an example of this kind of criticism as applied to statements regarding the trivial subject of the poet's eating. Johnson tells us that Swift attributed the illness which tormented him through life to an indiscretion which he committed as a boy in eating too largely of fruit. Ninety-nine biographers out of a hundred would have let this statement pass. Swift might be expected to be the best judge of his own stomach; and if he said that he made himself ill with eating fruit, why should he be contradicted? But Johnson remarks, that "the original of diseases is commonly obscure. Almost every boy eats as much fruit as he can get without any great inconvenience." This is obvious, but it is also undeniable; and after we have read it, we feel very doubtful as to the cause of Swift's illness. In the same way he tells us Pope was very fond of good living, and that his kind friends ascribed his death to the free use of a silver saucepan in

which he used to boil lampreys. On this Johnson unanswerably observes, "That he loved too well to eat, is certain; but that his sensuality shortened his life will not be hastily concluded, when it is remembered that a conformation so irregular lasted six-and-fifty years, notwithstanding such pertinacious diligence of study and meditation."-Saturday Review.

AN INEXPLICABLE CLAIM.

Walpole relates: "A letter. has been sent to the Club at Stapleton's, directed to L. S. D! No mortal man could be found to expound these letters; not an Edipus in the whole society. At last a great adept, the sage John Manners, claimed the letter. His title was contested, for, though few clubs are Academies of Inscriptions, the members were clearsighted enough to see that L. S. D. did not signify John Manners. However, he pleaded his great experience in pounds, shillings, and pence, and insisted that the hieroglyphic letters in question, standing for those denominations, were more likely to be addressed to him than to any other fellow of the Society; and as far as great industry in appropriating to himself the things typified, nobody could deny the proposition; but as such a precedent would be dangerous, and might encourage him to seize every piece of paper that commenced with these letters, the occult packet was put in sequestration.

A SINCERE WISH.

Colonel Barré was blind of one eye, and the other was far from strong. Lord North was long blind. The Colonel paid his Lordship a visit, who received him kindly, saying, "Colonel Barré, nobody will suspect us of insincerity, if we say that we should always be overjoyed to see each other."

BLIND GENIUS.

The annals of the Blind are the annals of a wonderful people. We have had blind poets-the greatest of all, Milton. We have had blind men with inexhaustible memories, as James Wilson, who knew the Army and Navy List by heart, and used to inform his poorer friends, who had friends in either service. We have had-above the street class-blind musicians, as John Stanley, whom both Handel