he, too, had consulted the oracle, and found he would live until
October Twenty-sixth, and possibly longer.

On October Eighteenth, Franklin announced Dart's death, and explained
that it occurred promptly on time, all as prophesied.

Yet Dart lived to publish many almanacs; but Poor Richard got his
advertisement, and many staid, broad-brimmed Philadelphians smiled who
had never smiled before--not only smiled but subscribed.

Benjamin Franklin was a great and good man, as any man must be who
fathers another's jokes, introducing these orphaned children to the world
as his own.

Perhaps no one who has written of Swift knew him so well as Delany. And
this writer, who seems to have possessed a judicial quality far beyond
most men, has told us that Swift was moral in conduct to the point of
asceticism. His deportment was grave and dignified, and his duties as a
priest were always performed with exemplary diligence. He visited the
sick, regularly administered the sacraments, and was never known to
absent himself from morning prayers.

When Harley was Lord Treasurer, Swift seems to have been on the topmost
crest of the wave of popularity. Invitations from nobility flowed in upon
him, beautiful women deigned to go in search of his society, royalty
recognized him. And yet all this time he was only a country priest with a
liking for literature.

Collins tells us that the reason for his popularity is plain: "Swift was
one of the kings of the earth. Like Pope Innocent the Third, like
Chatham, he was one to whom the world involuntarily pays tribute."

His will was a will of adamant; his intellect so keen that it impressed
every one who approached him; his temper singularly stern, dauntless and
haughty. But his wit was never filled with gaiety: he was never known to
laugh. Amid the wildest uproar that his sallies caused, he would sit with
face austere--unmoved.

Personally, Swift was a gentleman. When he was scurrilous, abusive,
ribald, malicious, it was anonymously. Is this to his credit? I should
not say so, but if a man is indecent and he hides behind a "nom de
plume," it is at least presumptive proof that he is not dead to shame.

Leslie Stephen tells us that Swift was a Churchman to the backbone. No
man who is a "Churchman to the backbone" is ever very pious: the spirit
maketh alive, but the letter killeth. One looks in vain for traces of
spirituality in the Dean. His sermons are models of churchly commonplace
and full