SECTION VI.

Swift retires to Quilca-His friendship for Sheridan-He visits England-Has an audience of Walpole-Becomes known at the Prince of Wales's Court-Returns to Ireland and publishes Gulliver's Travels-He revisits England— And is recalled by Stella's indisposition-Her deathSwift breaks with the Court and Minister-His writings on Irish affairs-He quarrels with Lord Allen-Is intimate with Carteret-A Letter is forged in his name to the Queen-His Miscellaneous Prose Writings about this period-His Poems-His residence at Gossford with Sir Arthur Acheson, and the Verses which were written there.

WHEN Wood's project appeared to be on the verge of being abandoned, Swift, as if desirous of escaping from the popular applause which hailed him from every quarter, retreated with Mrs Dingley and Mrs Johnson to Quilca, a small country-house belonging to his intimate friend Dr Sheridan, in a wild and sequestered situation, about seven miles from the town of Kells. In this retirement, where the want of accommodation became the subject of one or two of those pieces of humour, which he has called family

trifles, he remained for several months. He seems to have meditated a final blow at Wood and his halfpence; but hearing the patent was resigned, he stopped the publication of the intended treatise. This was probably the seventh letter, which did not appear until the Dean's works were collected, in 1735. Meanwhile, the inadvertence of his friend Sheridan engaged him in a very troublesome affair, in which Swift laboured hard to protect and assist him.

Dr Sheridan, highly respectable for wit, learning, and an uncommon talent for the education of youth, and no less distinguished by his habits of abstraction and absence, and by a simplicity of character which ill suited with his worldly interest, had been Swift's friend of every mood and of all hours, since the Dean's final retirement into Ireland. A happy art of meeting and answering the raillery of his friend, and of writing with facility verses upon domestic jests or occasional incidents, amused Swift's lighter moments, while Sheridan's sound and extensive erudition enlightened those which were more serious. It was in his society that Swift renewed his acquaintance with classical learning, and perused the works which amused his retirement. In the invitations sent to the Dean, Sheridan was always included; nor was Swift to be seen in perfect good humour, unless when he made part of the company. Indeed, Sheridan under

stood the Dean's temper so well, and knew so happily how to arrest, by some sudden stroke of humour, those fits of violent irritability to which Swift's mind was liable, as his outward frame was to those of vertigo, that he was termed, among their common friends, the David who alone could play the evil spirit out of Saul. Swift was not insensible of the value of such a friend, nor unwilling to repay his services by every means in his power. His high rank and character enabled him to promote the flourishing state of Sheridan's school, which was then the first in the kingdom. But the improvidence of the generous but imprudent teacher, frustrated the kind intentions of his patron; for with a wife and increasing family, his expenses kept pace with his income; and Swift saw with regret that nothing but a removal from the capital would prevent his being ultimately in distressed circumstances. With this friendly purpose, the Dean obtained from the Lord-Primate Lindsay, an offer of the richly endowed school of Armagh for Sheridan. But the specious arguments of some persons who pretended to be the wellwishers of this unsuspicious and single-hearted character, prevailed upon him to decline this offer. He had leisure to reflect upon his folly, when, some years afterwards, the same individuals countenanced another school in opposition to his, and at length com

pelled him to abandon Dublin.* But before this event took place, Swift had availed himself of another opportunity to serve him.

Lord Carteret, notwithstanding the prosecution of Harding, and the proclamation offering a reward for the discovery of the Drapier, was a friend of Swift, and so far coincided in his political opinions, as to be a secret enemy of Walpole. Thus it was twice Swift's singular fortune to have proclamations sent forth against him, under the authority of ministers, who were not only his personal friends, but who approved in secret of the very treatises against which their public manifestoes were fulminated. Besides, Carteret felt that he had been sent to Ireland only to exercise a nominal vice-sovereignty, while the real power was lodged with the primate Boulter, and he was not averse to form a sort of independent party to balance, in some degree, those violent ministerialists by whom he was watched and surrounded. Accordingly, Swift had

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* In answer to a letter (Swift's Works, Vol. XVIII. p. 446.) in which Sheridan complains of his insidious friends, who lulled him asleep until they stole his school into the hands of a blockhead, Swift says, "I own you have too much reason to complain of some friends, who, next to yourself, have done you most hurt; whom I still esteem and frequent, although I confess I cannot heartily forgive. Yet certainly the case was not merely personal malice to you (although it had the same effects) but a kind of I know not what job, which one of them has heartily repented." I suspect Delany to be the person here indicated. He had no good-will to Sheridan.

afterwards occasion, in one of his most happy ironical compositions, to vindicate the lord-lieutenant from the charge of conferring favours and preferments upon persons disaffected to the king's government.

Through the recommendation of Swift, and from Carteret's own disposition to encourage learning, of which he was a perfect judge, Dr Sheridan was named one of the lord-lieutenant's chaplains, and presented with a small living near Cork. But, alas! while thus mounted on the first round of the ladder of preferment, he had the inadvertence to kick it from beneath him. When he went to Cork to be inducted in his living, Sheridan undertook to preach for Archdeacon Russel of that city, and, without considering that it was the anniversary of the accession of the House of Hanover, he selected a sermon, which had for the text, "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." It proved, at least, an evil day for Sheridan, who, as Swift expressed it, shot his fortune dead by chancemedley with this single text. Richard Tighe, a man, according to the Dean, of no great dimensions, either of body or mind, but mighty in zeal for the House of Hanover and Protestant succession, carried the report full speed to the Castle of Dublin, exaggerating the offence, by alluding to Sheridan's suspected disaffection. Swift, on the other hand, exerted every effort to save his friend from the too probable consequences of this inadvertence. He applied to the