Note 3 — D E F O R M I T I E S, &c.

Swift had the splendid misfortune to be a man of genius. By a very singular felicity, he excelled both in verse and prose. He boasted, that no new word was to be found in his volumes; though, in glory above all writers of his time, he did not fancy that entitled him to ingross or insult conversation. He was no less remarkably clean, than some are remarkably dirty. His love of fame never led him into the lowest of all vices; and a sense of his own dignity made him respect the importance and the feelings of others. He often went many miles on foot, that he might be able to bestow on the poor, what a coach would have cost him. He raised some hundreds of families from beggary, by lending them five pounds a-piece only. He inspired his footmen with Celtic attachment. Whatever was his pride, he shewed none of it in 'the venerable presence of misery.' Though a poet he was free from vanity; though an author and a divine, his example did not fall behind his precepts; though a courtier, he disdained to fawn on his superiors; though a patriot, he never, like our successive generations of blasted orators, sacrificed his principles to his passions. 'His meanest talent was his wit.' His learning had no pedantry, his piety no superstition; his benevolence almost no parallel. His intrepid eloquence first pointed out to his oppressed countrymen, that path to Independence, to happiness, and to glory, which their posterity, at this moment, so nobly pursue. His treatise on the conduct of their foreign allies, first taught the English nation the dangers of a continental war, dispelled their delusive dreams of conquest, and stopt them in the full career to ruin.