His property he left to build a madhouse. It would seem as though he were guided in his determination by an anticipation of his own fate. He himself assigned another reason. He says in his poem on his own death:

He left the little wealth he had

To build a house for fools and mad,

To show by one satiric touch

No nation needed it so much.

The reputation of Swift has suffered from a variety of causes. Politically, he was the founder of an Irish movement which English writers treat, for the most part, with ridicule and contempt, and perhaps the greatest writer of an English party which has steadily been declining. He had also, like so many great men, the misfortune of reckoning among his acquaintances one of those vain and meddling fools who try to win a literary reputation by chronicling the weaknesses of great men. The Recollections of Lord Orrery' have furnished materials for much posthumous detraction; and the extreme coarseness of the writings of Swift, as well as the many repulsive and unamiable features of his character, have given great scope for the censures of the party writer or of the popular moralist.

In truth, the nature of Swift was one of those which neither seek nor obtain the sympathy of ordinary men. Through his whole life his mind was positively diseased, and circumstances singularly galling to a great genius and a sensitive nature combined to aggravate his malady. Educated in poverty and neglect, passing then under the yoke of an uncongenial patron and of an unsuitable profession, condemned during his best years to offices that were little more than menial, consigned after a brief period of triumph to life-long exile in a torpid country, separated from all his friends and

HIS CHARACTER AND GENIUS.

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baffled in all his projects, he learned to realise the bitterness of great powers with no adequate sphere for their display-of a great genius passed in every walk of worldly ambition by inferior men. His character was softened and improved by prosperity, but it became acrid and virulent in adversity. Hating hypocrisy, he often threw himself into the opposite extreme, and concealed his virtues as other men their vices. Possessing powers of satire perhaps as terrible as have ever been granted to a human being, he employed them sometimes in lashing impostors like Partridge, or arrogant lawyers like Bettesworth, but very often in unworthy personal or political quarrels. He flung himself unreservedly into party warfare, and was often exceedingly unscrupulous about the means he employed; and there is at least one deep stain on his private character; but he was capable of a very genuine patriotism, of an intense hatred of injustice, of splendid acts of generosity, of a most ardent and constant friendship, and it may be truly said that it was those who knew him best who admired him most. He was also absolutely free from those literary jealousies which were so common among his contemporaries, and from the levity and shallowness of thought and character that were so characteristic of his time.

Of the intellectual grandeur of his career it is needless to speak. The chief sustainer of an English Ministry, the most powerful advocate of the Peace of Utrecht, the creator of public opinion in Ireland, he has graven his name indelibly in English history, and his writings, of their own kind, are unique in English literature. It has been the misfortune of Pope to produce a number of imitators, who made his versification so hackneyed that they produced a reaction against his poetry in which it is often most unduly underrated.

Addison, though always read with pleasure, has lost much of his old supremacy. A deeper criticism, a more nervous and stimulating school of political writers have made much that he wrote appear feeble and superficial, and even in his own style it would be possible to produce passages in the writings of Goldsmith and Lamb that might be compared without disadvantage with the best papers of the 'Spectator.' But the position of Swift is unaltered. Gulliver' and the Tale of a Tub' remain isolated productions, unrivalled, unimitated, and inimitable.

6

HENRY FLOOD.

THE efforts of Swift had created a public opinion in Ireland, but had not provided for its continuance. A splendid example had been given, and the principles of liberty had been triumphantly asserted, but there was no permanent organ to retain and transmit the national sentiment. The Irish Parliament, which seemed specially intended for this purpose, had never been regarded with favour by Swift. He had satirised it bitterly as the Legion Club

Not a bowshot from the college,

Half the world from sense and knowledge;

and its constitution was so defective, and its corruption so great, that satire could scarcely exaggerate its faults. To fire this body with a patriotic enthusiasm, to place it at the head of the national movement, and to make it in a measure the reflex of the national will, was reserved for the subject of the present sketch.

Henry Flood was the son of the Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland. He entered Trinity College as a Fellow-Commoner, but terminated his career, as is still sometimes done, at Oxford. While at the University he applied himself with much energy to the classics, and especially to those studies which are advantageous to an orator in forming a pure and elevated style. For this purpose he learnt considerable portions of Cicero by heart. He wrote out Demosthenes and Æschines on the Crown, two books of the 'Paradise Lost,' a translation of two books of Homer, and

the finest passages from every play of Shakespeare. Like most persons who combine great ambition with great powers of expression, he devoted himself much to poetry; his principal production being an 'Ode to Fame,' which was much admired at the time, and is written in the formal, florid style that was then popular. He was also passionately addicted to private theatricals, which were very fashionable, and which contributed not a little to form his style of elocution.

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The portraits drawn by his contemporaries are exceedingly attractive. They represent him as genial, frank, and open; endowed with the most brilliant conversational powers, and the happiest manner, the most easy and best-tempered man in the world, as well as the most sensible.'1 His figure was exceedingly graceful, and his countenance, though afterwards soured and distorted by disease, was originally of corresponding beauty. He was of a remarkably social disposition, delighting in witty society and in field-sports, and readily conciliating the affection of all classes. Lord Mountmorres, who knew him chiefly in his later years, and was inclined to judge him with severity, describes him as a preeminently truthful man, and exceedingly averse to flattery. By his marriage he had obtained a large fortune, and was therefore enabled to devote himself exclusively to the service of the country. When we add to this, that he was a man of great eloquence, indomitable courage, and singularly acute judgment, it will be seen that he possessed almost every requisite for a great public leader.

He entered Parliament in 1759 as member. for Kilkenny, being then in his 27th year, and took his seat on the benches of the Opposition.

I have said that the Irish Parliament was at this

1 Grattan.