THIS WEEK'S GREAT DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 248, 19 October 1928, Page 6

THIS WEEK'S GREAT DAY.

OCT. 19.—DEATH OF DEAN SWIFT.

(Copyrighted.) »

On October 19, 1745, Jonathan Swift, one of the greatest satirists in the annals of English literature and the author of "Gulliver's Travels " died at the age of seventy-eight. ' Both his parents were English, although his birthplace was Dublin, where he was born on November 30, 1667, a few months after the death of his father, who left his widow and child in poor eircumstancts, and he was related to two illustrious poets, namely, John Dryden and Robert Herrick. He received his early education at Kilkenny School, where he was a contemporary and friend of William Congreve, the dramatist, and at the age of fourteen he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he had an undistinguished career and only secured his degree by a special act of indulgence.

At the age of twenty-two lie went to live at Moor Park in England, where he acted as secretary to Sir William Temple, the -statesman and author, and there he first met Esther Johnson, Temple's natural daughter, whom Swift has immortalised as Stella in the wonderful letters and journal addressed to the woman whose name will ever be associated with his own. Five years later he returned to Ireland, where he entered the Church and secured a small living at Kilroot. It was there that he wrote his "Tale of a Tub," one of the finest pieces of satire in any lancuace. and "The Battle of the Books." 8

In 1698 ha returned to the service of Temple, who died in the following year, leaving Swift a small legacy and entrusting him with the publication of his posthumous writings. Having completed his task Swift returned to Ireland as chaplain to the Lord Deputy, and was later appointed Probend of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. It was during this period that he made frequent and lengthy visits to Ixmdon, where he became the associate of Addison, Steele, Pope and other great Whig writers, and he himself wrote numerous pamphlets, mostly on ecclesiastical matters.

His disgust at receiving no preferment from the Whigs led him to desert that party and attach himself to the Tories in 1710, and then for three years he engaged in a bitter political controversy. He attacked his former friends in a series of powerful papers, and in 1715 was rewarded by being made Dean of St. Patrick's. The death of Queen Anne brought about the eclipse of the Tory party and Swift returned to Ireland, which henceforward was his home, except for a few brief visits to England.

It is believed that he married Stella when he returned to Ireland, although they never lived together, and at the same time he ended his lengthy love affair with Esther Vanhomrigh, to whom he addressed his poem "Venus and Vanessa." He had no love or sympathy for the Irish people, and he regarded his residence in their midst as a banishment, but he gained a tremendous popularity among them by his vigorous championship of their numerous grievances against the English Government, notably in 1734, when he wrote six letters under the name of Drapier, which set the country in a flame and effected the withdrawal of an iniquitous patent for the making of Irish copper coinage.

It was in 1724 that he published "Gulliver's Travels," his best-known and most widely-read work, which, with many very necessary abridgements, is one of the most delightful children's books in the English language, although it was really written as a scathing satire on the Government of the day. In his later years Swift produced some of his brilliant writings, although they were penned at a time when his mighty intellect was shadowed by the approach of the insanity which darkened the last four years of his life. He was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, where his remains were laid to rest in the same coffin as his beloved Stella, who had predeceased him in 1728.-