BY THE SAME AUTHOR. JOHNSON: HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND APHORISMS. Extracts from Press Notices. . An interesting and judicious life...."-The Times. This book is a sound piece of work. . . ."-The An excellent short biography. . . ."—The Westminster Review. We thank our author and are grateful to him. . . .” -The Whitehall Review. Full of interest and entertainment. . . ."-The Scottish Review. "Who that is familiar with the writings of Boswell and Hawkins, of Dr. George Birkbeck Hill and the Reverend James Hay, of Lord Macaulay and Mr. Leslie Stephen, can have forgotten their vivid descriptions of Dr. Johnson's undergraduate career at Pembroke College, Oxford?"From a Leading Article of The Daily Telegraph. "The Minister of Kirn has, in modest way, rendered no slight service to the memory of Samuel Johnson and to English Literature. . . ."-The Scotsman. THE MYSTERY OF HIS LIFE AND LOVE BY JAMES HAY, MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF KIRN, AUTHOR OF "JOHNSON'S CHARACTERISTICS," ETC. "Hated by fools, and fools to hate, Be this my motto and my fate." SWIFT. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED. 1891. [All rights reserved.] exacement this 4-24-35 30432 PREFACE. No life in the whole range of literature is so difficult to unravel as that of Jonathan Swift, nor has any man been more unfortunate in his interpreters. Indeed, it may be truthfully said of him that he is the best abused and most maligned in the literary world. Some of his biographers have been revilers, like Lord Orrery; others have been prejudiced, like Johnson; some have been incapable, like Hawkesworth; others have been dull, like Sheridan; some have been inaccurate, like Sir Walter Scott, for want of time; and others have been absurd, like Deane Swift, Esq., for want of judgment; while others have been malignant, like Winder, and have tried to blacken his character, who were not fit to blacken his shoes. Regarding his three principal biographers of last century-Orrery, Johnson, and Sheridan-it |