irritated by perpetual hardships, and constrained hourly to return the fpurns of contempt, and reprefs the infolence of profperity; and vanity furely may be readily pardoned in him, to whom life afforded no other comforts than. barren praises, and the confciousness of deferving them.

Those are no proper judges of his conduct, who have flumbered away their time on the down of plenty; nor will any wife man easily prefume to say, "Had I been in Savage's con"dition, I fhould have lived or written better "than Savage."

This relation will not be wholly without its ufe, if thofe, who languifh under any part of his fufferings, fhall be enabled to fortify their patience, by reflecting that they feel only thofe afflictions from which the abilities of Savage did not exempt him; or thofe, who, in confidence of fuperior capacities or attainments, difregard the common maxims of life, fhall be reminded, that nothing will fupply the want of prudence; and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will make knowledge ufeJefs, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.

A

S W I F

T.

N Account of Dr. Swift has been already

collected, with great diligence and acutenefs, by Dr. Hawkefworth, according to á scheme which I laid before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be expected to fay much of a life, concerning which I had long fince communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with fo much elegance of language and force of fentiment.

*

JONATHAN SWIFT was, according to an account faid to be written by himself, the fon of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was

* Mr. Sheridan in his Life of Swift obferves, that this account was really written by the Dean, and now exists in his own hand-writing in the library of Dublin College. E.

born

born at Dublin on St. Andrew's day, 1667: according to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the fon of a clergyman, who was minifter of a parifh in Herefordshire. During his life the place of his birth was undetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the Irish; but would occafionally call himself an Englishman. The queftion may, without much regret, be left in the obfcurity in which he delighted to involve it.

Whatever was his birth, his education was Trifh. He was fent at the age of fix to the fchool at Kilkenny, and in his fifteenth year (1682) was admitted into the Univerfity of Dublin.

In his academical ftudies he was either not diligent or not happy. It must disappoint every reader's expectation, that, when at the ufual time he claimed the Bachelorfhip of Arts, he was found by the examiners too confpicuously deficient for regular admiffion, and obtained his degree at laft by Special favour, a term ufed in that univerfity to denote want of merit.

Spence's Anecdotes, vol. II. p. 273.

Of