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skill, and the dogmas of Mr. Combe refuted by arguments that have as yet remained unanswered (a).

The pictures we have seen of Swift are all, with one exception, full-faced likenesses, and are chiefly decorated with the large, full-bottomed wig, which he usually wore. They, it is true, give an appearance of a high, commanding forehead; but, independent of the flattery of the artists, they in nowise prove the fact they appear to represent, for, by decorating the bust, which we have figured at page 62, with a similar headdress, and viewing it in front, we find it presents fully as elevated and expansive a frontal development as any of the pictures which we have seen of the Dean; and, moreover, the very engraving given in Sheridan's Life, to which we have already alluded, and which must have been from a drawing taken from the body after death, shows in its front view the same height of the frontal region exhibited in the pictures, and will, if encircled with the wig, give the usual outline of the Dean's head represented in all his portraits. The exception to which we have just referred is that engraved for Lord Orrery's work, the original of which is still in this city(b); it is a profile in crayons by Barber, taken when the Dean was probably about sixty, and is one of the only two portraits of him which we have seen or heard of without the periwig(c). This portrait, although not a perfect profile, corresponds accurately with the posthumous bust which we have represented, in the outline of the anterior portion of the head. Revenet, one of

(a) British Quarterly Review, vol. iv. See also the discussion of the subject in the Lancet for 1846, and Dr. Skae's letter in the Phrenological Journal for July, 1847.

(b) In the possession of our friend, Joseph Le Fanu, Esq., the descendant of Sheridan.

(c) The second of these pictures is that in the possession of the Maguire family, of Peter's-place. It is an admirable likeness, and must have been painted when the Dean was at least seventy. It is probably the last portrait of him ever taken. There was also a good copy of it lately offered for sale.

Lord Orrery's engravers, has laboured to throw a look of imbecility and weakness into this likeness, which the original in nowise possesses; a hint which his Lordship himself has improved upon in the portrait which he endeavoured to draw of his friend(a).

Of the busts of Swift, of which there are six well known in this city(6), we acknowledge that they rather strengthen the assertion of the phrenologists, for they exhibit six different forms of head, bearing but little resemblance to each other, although three or four of them were undoubtedly taken about the same time; yet they all more or less present the sloping forehead. But sculptors, even still less than painters, cannot be relied on for anatomical accuracy in the form of heads, and of this fact we might adduce many proofs. Although the forehead was so retiring that, at one of the meetings of the Dublin Phrenological Society it was stated, "that the man must have been apparently an idiot," in reality the capacity of the cranium was, as Mr. Hamilton has shown, very great.

Before we dismiss this portion of the subject, we may remark, that the evidences of Swift's "violent and furious lunacy," his “frantic fits of passion," and his "situation of a helpless changeling," quoted from Sir Walter Scott's Life by the Phrenological Journalists, as proving their position, are only to be

(a) It appears that different engravings were made for each edition of Orrery's work. The best is that by B. Wilson, in 1751; there was another by Wheatley, in 1752; the one by Revenet is prefixed to the third edition: it is a reverse of that by Wilson.

(b) We know of six busts of Swift in Dublin: that placed by T. Faulkner over the monument in St. Patrick's is a very admirable one, and it strikingly exhibits the sloping forehead, as any one may see who examines it by standing upon the steps of Archbishop Smith's monument, on the opposite side of the aisle; there are besides this, one at Charlemont House; one by Van Nost, in the possession of Mrs. Crampton of Kildare-street; one by Cunningham, belonging to Godwin Swift, Esq.; that in the University; and the small one belonging to Mr. Watkins, already described.

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SWIFT'S BIOGRAPHERS.

relied on so far as they accord with the extracts from those letters of Mr. Swift and Mrs. Whiteway which we have already given, for Sir Walter had no further means of knowing the Dean's condition.

The circumstance of Dean Swift's head exhibiting small intellectual and large animal propensities-little wit and great amativeness—has not yet been accounted for by the votaries of phrenology.

Throughout the previous pages we have not made references to the works from which we have derived our information, as they would require almost as much space as the text itself. Our principal authority was the first and last five volumes of Scott's edition of Swift's Works, particularly his epistolary correspondence. To these may be added, Orrery's, Hawkesworth's, Deane Swift's, Sheridan's, Johnson's, Faulkner's, Nicholl's, Berkeley's, Roscoe's, Wills's, and Mr. Monck Mason's biographies, which were published either separately, or attached to editions of his works.

A very remarkable and very general popular error exists with respect to one of Swift's biographers. Having met frequent allusions to "Delany's Life of Swift," and even seen quotations purporting to be from it, we anxiously sought for it, first in all the public libraries, and then among our literary friends, and, in the outset, the recovery of this very generally known work seemed comparatively easy; for notwithstanding that it was not contained in any of the catalogues of libraries, all the persons connected with these institutions informed us that they were perfectly familiar with it, and would certainly have it for us on our next visit. Most of the publishers and booksellers knew it, they said, by appearance, but were unable just at that moment to lay their hands upon it. Our literary acquaintances had all seen it, several had read it, and two of them went so far as to say they possessed it, and would send it to us in the morning. Still the book could not be procured either here or in London. The only difference of opinion among those most

DELANY'S LIFE OF SWIFT.

77

familiar with it was as to whether it was published in quarto or octavo. Having at length, after considerable search, assured ourselves that no such work had ever existed, our conviction was greatly staggered by finding in the first general catalogue published by the Royal Society, the following entry: " Delany, Patrick, A Supplement to Swift's Life, containing Miscellanies by the Dean, Sheridan, Johnson, &c., with notes by the Editor (J. Nicholls). 4to. London, 1779." This appeared all but conclusive; not quite so, however. Our friend, Dr. Madden, who was at the time in London, undertook to examine the work itself, and has thus answered our inquiries: "With regard to this work of Delany on Swift's life, which you were so long in search of, and which so many people speak of, but cannot show, lo! no such work of Delany's exists-no such work was ever written by Delany; the book described in the R. S. catalogue is wrongly described, for, on examining it, I find it is 'A Supplement to Swift's Life, containing Miscellanies by the Dean, Dr. Delany, Sheridan, Johnson, &c., with notes by the Editor. London. 4to. 1779.' In fact the thirteenth volume of the quarto edition of Swift's Works, edited by Mr. Nicholls, in 1779, some time after the death of Dr. Delany."

Delany did write two works, however, upon Swift, though not generally known to the learned; but neither of these were lives or biographies. The first was entitled, "Observations upon Lord Orrery's Remarks upon the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, containing several singular Anecdotes relating to the Character and Conduct of that great Genius, and the most deservedly celebrated Stella, in a series of Letters to his Lordship; to which are added the Original Pieces of the same Author (excellent in their kind) never before published." Dublin, printed for Robert Main, at Homer's Head, in Dame-street, 1754, 12mo., pp. 211. And another edition, in 8vo., was contemporaneously published by Reeve, at the Shakespear's Head, in London, pp. 310. It bears no name; but the letters J. R. are affixed to the preface, and it

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ST. PATRICK'S HOSPITAL.

is well known to be Delany's. Besides this spirited answer to Lord Orrery, the same writer, in 1755, published a tract refuting some statements contained in Deane Swift's work. And as these animadversions were personally levelled at Delany, and he answers them in the first person, and styles his tract, "A Letter to Deane Swift, Esq., on his Essay upon the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. J. Swift, by the Author of • Observations on Lord Orrery's Remarks,' &c." 8vo. London, Reeve, pp. 31; it fixes the authorship of the "Observations" upon Dr. Delany.

Sir Walter Scott's lengthened quotation from Dr. Delany is, with the exception of one paragraph, nowhere to be found in either of Delany's works. It is chiefly made up from Faulkner's and Hawkesworth's biographies, which, as far as this portion of the life of the Dean is concerned, are solely and entirely abstracted from Deane Swift's and Mrs. Whiteway's letters already alluded to. We could point out several sentences in this account of the Dean's last illness, which are verbatim the same in no less than five works, and that without the smallest acknowledgment.

There is an autograph letter from Sir Walter Scott to C. G. Gavelin, Esq., of this city, in the MS. Library, T. C. D., in which he states that he had nothing whatever to do with the publication or revision of the second edition of the "Works of Jonathan Swift."

Let us now briefly describe the origin and erection of St. Patrick's Hospital, bequeathed to us by Swift, the earliest, and one of the noblest charitable institutions of the country.

It has been supposed by his biographers that a presentiment of his insanity induced the Dean to devote his fortune to the erection of a lunatic asylum; and, probably from an expression in Orrery's work, that he was a fit inmate for his own asylum, it is generally believed that Swift was the first patient in the hospital, although it was not erected till several years after his death.