Part 16

Thus, passing and repassing between Laracor and London, now lording it over his Irish parishioners, and now filling the literary and Whig haunts of the great metropolis with the terror of his merciless wit and with talk behind his back of his eccentricities and rude manners, Swift spent the interval between 1702 and 1710, or between his thirty-sixth and his forty-fourth year. His position as a High-Church Whig, however, was an anomalous one. In the first place, it was difficult to see how such a man could honestly be in the Church at all. People were by no means strict in those days in their notions of the clerical character; but the _Tale of a Tub_ was a strong dose even then to have come from a clergyman. If Voltaire afterwards recommended the book as a masterly satire against religion in general, it cannot be wondered at that an outcry arose among Swift's contemporaries respecting the profanity of the book. It is true, Peter and Jack, as the representatives of Popery and Presbyterianism, came in for the greatest share of the author's scurrility; and Martin, as the representative of the Church of England, was left with the honours of the story; but the whole structure and spirit of the story, to say nothing of the oaths and other irreverences mingled with its language, were well calculated to shock the more serious even of Martin's followers, who could not but see that rank infidelity alone would be a gainer by the book. Accordingly, despite all that Swift could afterwards do, the fact that he had written this book left a public doubt as to his Christianity. It is quite possible, however, that, with a very questionable kind of belief in Christianity, he may have been a conscientious High-Churchman, zealous for the social defence and aggrandisement of the ecclesiastical institution with which he was connected. Whatever that institution was originally based upon, it existed as part and parcel of the commonwealth of England, rooted in men's habits and interests, and intertwined with the whole system of social order; and, just as a Brahmin, lax enough in his own speculative allegiance to the Brahminical faith, might still desire to maintain Brahminism as a vast pervading establishment in Hindostan, so might Swift, with a heart and a head dubious enough respecting men's eternal interest in the facts of the Judaean record, see a use notwithstanding in that fabric of bishoprics, deaneries, prebends, parochial livings, and curacies, which ancient belief in those facts had first created and put together. This kind of respect for the Church Establishment is still very prevalent. It is a most excellent thing, it is thought by many, to have a cleanly, cultured, gentlemanly man invested with authority in every parish throughout the land, who can look after what is going on, fill up schedules, give advice, and take the lead in all parish business. That Swift's faith in the Church included no more than this perception of its uses as a vast administrative and educational establishment we will not say. Mr. Thackeray, indeed, openly avows his opinion that Swift had no belief in the Christian religion. "Swift's," he says, "was a reverent, was a pious spirit--he could love and could pray;" but such religion as he had, Mr. Thackeray hints, was a kind of mad, despairing Deism, and had nothing of Christianity in it. Hence, "having put that cassock on, it poisoned him; he was strangled in his bands." The question thus broached as to the nature of Swift's religion is too deep to be discussed here. Though we would not exactly say, with Mr. Thackeray, that Swift's was a "reverent" and "pious" spirit, there are, as he phrases it, breakings out of "the stars of religion and love" shining in the serene blue through "the driving clouds and the maddened hurricane of Swift's life;" and this, though vague, is about all that we have warrant for saying. As to the zeal of his Churchmanship, however, there is no doubt at all. There was not a man in the British realms more pugnacious in the interests of his order, more resolute in defending the prerogatives of the Church of England against Dissenters and others desirous of limiting them, or more anxious to elevate the social position and intellectual character of the clergy, than the author of the _Tale of a Tub_. No veteran commander of a regiment could have had more of the military than the parson of Laracor had of the ecclesiastical _esprit de corps_; and, indeed, Swift's known dislike to the military may be best explained as the natural jealousy of the surplice at the larger consideration accorded by society to the scarlet coat. Almost all Swift's writings between 1702 and 1710 are assertions of his High-Church sentiments and vindications of the Establishment against its assailants. Thus in 1708 came forth his _Letter on the Sacramental Test_, a hot High-Church and anti-Dissenter pamphlet; and this was followed in the same year by his _Sentiments of a Church of England man with respect to Religion and Government_, and by his ironical argument, aimed at free-thinkers and latitudinarians, entitled _Reasons against Abolishing Christianity_. In 1709 he published a graver pamphlet, under the name of _A Project for the Advancement of Religion_, in which he urged certain measures for the reform of public morals and the strengthening of the Establishment, recommending in particular a scheme of Church-extension. Thus, with all his readiness to help the Whigs politically, Swift was certainly faithful to his High-Church principles. But, as we have said, a High-Church Whig was an anomaly which the Whigs refused to comprehend. Latitudinarians, Low Churchmen, and Dissenters, did not know what to make of a Whiggism in state-politics which was conjoined with the strongest form of ecclesiastical Toryism. Hence, in spite of his ability, Swift was not a man that the Whigs could patronise and prefer. They were willing to have the benefit of his assistance, but their favours were reserved for men more wholly their own. Various things were, indeed, talked of for Swift--the secretaryship to the proposed embassy of Lord Berkeley in Vienna, a prebend of Westminster, the office of historiographer-royal; nay, even a bishopric in the American colonies: but all came to nothing. Swift, at the age of forty-three, and certified by Addison as "the greatest genius of the age," was still only an Irish parson, with some 350_l._ or 400_l._ a year. How strange if the plan of the Transatlantic bishopric had been carried out, and Swift had settled in Virginia!

Meanwhile, though neglected by the English Whigs, Swift had risen to be a leader among the Irish clergy, a great man in their convocations and other ecclesiastical assemblies. The object which the Irish clergy then had at heart was to procure from the Government an extension to Ireland of a boon granted several years before to the clergy of England: namely, the remission of the tax levied by the Crown on the revenues of the Church since the days of Henry VIII. in the shape of tenths and first-fruits. This remission, which would have amounted to about 16,000_l._ a year, the Whigs were not disposed to grant, the corresponding remission in the case of England not having been followed by the expected benefits. Archbishop King and the other prelates were glad to have Swift as their agent in this business; and, accordingly, he was absent from Ireland for upwards of twelve months continuously in the years 1708 and 1709. It was during this period that he set London in a roar by his famous Bickerstaff hoax, in which he first predicted the death of Partridge, the astrologer, at a particular day and hour, and then nearly drove the wretched tradesman mad by declaring, when the time was come, that the prophecy had been fulfilled, and publishing a detailed account of the circumstances. Out of this Bickerstaff hoax, and Swift's talk over it with Addison and Steele, arose the _Tatler_, prolific parent of so many other periodicals.

The year 1710 was an important one in the life of Swift. In that year he came over to London, resolved in his own mind to have a settlement of accounts with the Whigs, or to break with them for ever. The Irish ecclesiastical business of the tenths and first-fruits was still his pretext, but he had many other arrears to introduce into the account. Accordingly, after some civil skirmishing with Somers, Halifax, and his other old friends, then just turned out of office, he openly transferred his allegiance to the new Tory administration of Harley and Bolingbroke. The 4th of October, not quite a month after his arrival in London, was the date of his first interview with Harley; and from that day forward till the dissolution of Harley's administration by the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, Swift's relations with Harley, St. John, and the other ministers, were more those of an intimate friend and adviser than a literary dependent. How he dined almost daily with Harley or St. John; how he bullied them, and made them beg his pardon when by chance they offended him--either, as Harley once did, by offering him a fifty-pound note, or, as St. John once did, by appearing cold and abstracted when Swift was his guest at dinner; how he obtained from them not only the settlement of the Irish business, but almost everything else he asked; how he used his influence to prevent Steele, Addison, Congreve, Rowe, and his other Whig literary friends, from suffering loss of office by the change in the state of politics, at the same time growing cooler in his private intercourse with Addison and poor Dick, and tending more to young Tory writers, such as Pope and Parnell; how, with Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, Harley, and St. John, he formed the famous club of the _Scriblerus_ brotherhood, for the satire of literary absurdities; how he wrote squibs, pamphlets, and lampoons innumerable for the Tories and against the Whigs, and at one time actually edited a Tory paper called the _Examiner_: all this is to be gathered, in most interesting detail, from his epistolary journal to Stella, in which he punctually kept her informed of all his doings during his long three years of absence. The following is a description of him at the height of his Court influence during this season of triumph, from the Whiggish, and therefore somewhat adverse, pen of Bishop Kennet:--

"When I came to the antechamber [at Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk and business, and acted as master of requests. He was soliciting the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a chaplain's place established in the garrison of Hull for Mr. Fiddes, a clergyman in that neighbourhood, who had lately been in jail, and published sermons to pay the fees. He was promising Mr. Thorold to undertake with my lord-treasurer that, according to his petition, he should obtain a salary of 200_l._ per annum as minister of the English church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., going in with the red bag to the Queen, and told him aloud he had something to say to him from my lord-treasurer. He talked with the son of Dr. Davenant, to be sent abroad, and took out his pocket-book, and wrote down several things as _memoranda_ to do for him. He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and, telling him the time of day, complained it was very late. A gentleman said he was too fast. 'How can I help it,' says the Doctor, 'if the courtiers give me a watch that won't go right?' Then he instructed a young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which he must have them all subscribe; 'for,' says he, 'the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.' Lord-treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him: both went off just before prayers."

Let us see, by a few pickings from the journal to Stella, in what manner the black-browed Irish vicar, who was thus figuring in the mornings at Court as the friend and confidant of Ministers, and almost as their domineering colleague, was writing home from his lodging in the evenings to the "dear girls" at Laracor.

_Dec. 3, 1710._ "Pshaw, I must be writing to those dear saucy brats every night whether I will or no, let me have what business I will, or come home ever so late, or be ever so sleepy; but it is an old saying and a true one, 'Be you lords or be you earls, you must write to naughty girls.' I was to-day at Court, and saw Raymond [an Irish friend] among the beefeaters, staying to see the Queen; so I put him in a better station, made two or three dozen bows, and went to church, and then to Court again to pick up a dinner, as I did with Sir John Stanley: and then we went to visit Lord Mountjoy, and just left him; and 'tis near eleven at night, young women, and methinks this letter comes very near to the bottom," &c. &c.

_Jan. 1, 1711._ Morning. "I wish my dearest pretty Dingley and Stella a happy new year, and health, and mirth, and good stomachs, and _Fr's_ company. Faith, I did not know how to write _Fr_. I wondered what was the matter; but now I remember I always write _Pdfr_ [by this combination of letters, or by the word _Presto_, Swift designates himself in the Journal] * * Get the _Examiners_, and read them; the last nine or ten are full of reasons for the late change and of the abuses of the last ministry; and the great men assure me that all are true. They were written by their encouragement and direction. I must rise, and go see Sir Andrew Fountain; but perhaps to-morrow I may answer _M.D.'s_ [Stella's designation in the Journal] letter: so good morrow, my mistresses all, good morrow. I wish you both a merry new year; roast beef, minced pies, and good strong beer; and me a share of your good cheer; that I was there or you were here; and you're a little saucy dear," &c. &c.

_Jan. 13, 1711._ "O faith, I had an ugly giddy fit last night in my chamber, and I have got a new box of pills to take, and I hope shall have no more this good while. I would not tell you before, because it would vex you, little rogues; but now it is better. I dined to-day with Lord Shelburn," &c. &c.

_Jan. 16, 1711._ "My service to Mrs. Stode and Walls. Has she a boy or a girl? A girl, hmm!, and died in a week, hmmm!, and was poor Stella forced to stand for godmother?--Let me know how accounts stand, that you may have your money betimes. There's four months for my lodging; that must be thought on too. And zoo go dine with Manley, and lose your money, doo extravagant sluttikin? But don't fret. It will just be three weeks when I have the next letter: that is, to-morrow. Farewell, dearest beloved _M.D._, and love poor, poor Presto, who has not had one happy day since he left you, as hope to be saved."

_March 7, 1711._ "I am weary of business and ministers. I don't go to a coffee-house twice a month. I am very regular in going to sleep before eleven. And so you say that Stella's a pretty girl; and so she be; and methinks I see her just now, as handsome as the day's long. Do you know what? When I am writing in our language [a kind of baby-language of endearment used between him and Stella, and called 'the little language'] I make up my mouth just as if I was speaking it. I caught myself at it just now. * * Poor Stella, won't Dingley leave her a little daylight to write to Presto? Well, well, we'll have daylight shortly, spite of her teeth; and zoo must cly Zele, and Hele, and Hele aden. Must loo mimitate _Pdfr_, pay? Iss, and so la shall. And so leles fol ee rettle. Dood Mollow. [You must cry There and Here and Here again. Must you imitate _Pdfr_, pray? Yes, and so you shall. And so there's for the letter. Good morrow.]"

And so on, through a series of daily letters, forming now a goodly octavo volume or more, Swift chats and rattles away to the "dear absent girls," giving them all the political gossip of the time, and informing them about his own goings-out and comings-in, his dinings with Harley, St. John, and occasionally with Addison and other old Whig friends, the state of his health, his troubles with his drunken servant Patrick, his lodging-expenses, and a host of other things. Such another journal has, perhaps, never been given to the world; and but for it we should never have known what depths of tenderness and power of affectionate prattle there were in the heart of this harsh and savage man.

Only on one topic, affecting himself during his long stay in London, is he in any degree reserved. Among the acquaintanceships he had formed was one with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh, a widowed lady of property, who had a family of several daughters. The eldest of these, Hester Vanhomrigh, was a girl of more than ordinary talent and accomplishments, and of enthusiastic and impetuous character; and, as Swift acquired the habit of dropping in upon the "Vans," as he called them, when he had no other dinner engagement, it was not long before he and Miss Vanhomrigh fell into the relationship of teacher and pupil. He taught her to think and to write verses; and, as among Swift's peculiarities of opinion, one was that he entertained what would even now be called very advanced notions as to the intellectual capabilities and rights of women, he found no more pleasant amusement, in the midst of his politics and other business, than that of superintending the growth of so hopeful a mind.

"His conduct might have made him styled A father, and the nymph his child: The innocent delight he took To see the virgin mind her book Was but the master's secret joy In school to hear the finest boy."

But, alas! Cupid got among the books.

"Vanessa, not in years a score, Dreams of a gown of forty-four; Imaginary charms can find In eyes with reading almost blind; She fancies music in his tongue, Nor farther looks, but thinks him young."

Nay, more: one of Swift's lessons to her had been that frankness, whether in man or women, was the chief of the virtues, and

"That common forms were not design'd Directors to a noble mind."

"Then," said the nymph,

"I'll let you see My actions with your rules agree; That I can vulgar forms despise, And have no secrets to disguise."

She told her love, and fairly argued it out with the startled tutor, discussing every element in the question, whether for or against--the disparity of their ages, her own five thousand guineas, their similarity of tastes, his views of ambition, the judgment the world would form of the match, and so on; and the end of it was that she reasoned so well that Swift could not but admit that there would be nothing after all so very incongruous in a marriage between him and Esther Vanhomrigh. So the matter rested, Swift gently resisting the impetuosity of the young woman, when it threatened to take him by storm, but not having the courage to adduce the real and conclusive argument--the existence on the other side of the channel of another and a dearer Esther. Stella, on her side, knew that Swift visited a family called the "Vans"; she divined that something was wrong; but that was all.

That Swift, the Mentor of ministers, their daily companion, at whose bidding they dispensed their patronage and their favour, should himself be suffered to remain a mere vicar of an Irish parish, was, of course, impossible. Vehement and even boisterous and overdone as was his zeal for his own independence--"If we let these great ministers pretend too much, there will be no governing them," was his maxim; and, in order to act up to it, he used to treat Dukes and Earls as if they were dogs--there were yet means of honourably acknowledging his services in a way to which he would have taken no exception. Nor can we doubt that Oxford and St. John, who were really and heartily his admirers, were anxious to promote him in some suitable manner. An English bishopric was certainly what he coveted, and what they would at once have given him. But, though the bishopric of Hereford fell vacant in 1712, there was, as Sir Walter Scott says, "a lion in the path." Queen Anne, honest dowdy woman,--her instinctive dislike of Swift strengthened by the private influence of the Archbishop of York, and that of the Duchess of Somerset, whose red hair Swift had lampooned--obstinately refused to make the author of the _Tale of a Tub_ a bishop. Even an English deanery could not be found for so questionable a Christian; and in 1713 Swift was obliged to accept, as the best thing he could get, the Deanery of St. Patrick's in his native city of Dublin. He hurried over to Ireland to be installed, and came back just in time to partake in the last struggles and dissensions of the Tory administration before Queen Anne's death. By his personal exertions with ministers, and his pamphlet entitled _Public Spirit of the Whigs_, he tried to buoy up the sinking Tory cause. But the Queen's death destroyed all; with George I. the Whigs came in again; the late Tory ministers were dispersed and disgraced, and Swift shared their fall. "Dean Swift," says Arbuthnot, "keeps up his noble spirit; and, though like a man knocked down, you may behold him still with a stern countenance, and aiming a blow at his adversaries." He returned, with rage and grief in his heart, to Ireland, a disgraced man, and in danger of arrest on account of his connexion with the late ministers. Even in Dublin he was insulted as he walked in the streets.