vive the marriage.

[41] Victor's _Original Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems_, vol. i.,
p. 330.

[42] _Selections from Steele_, by Austin Dobson. Introduction, p. xxx.
Clarendon Press.

CHAPTER V.

JONATHAN SWIFT--JOHN ARBUTHNOT.

The booksellers who employed the most famous man of letters then living
(1777), to write the _Lives of the Poets_, selected the authors whose
biographies were to accompany the poems they proposed to publish. They
did not know the difference between versemakers and poets; but they
probably did know what authors of the rhyming tribe were likely to prove
the most popular. Dr. Johnson, who was then in his sixty-ninth year, was
willing to write the _Lives_ to order. He added, indeed, three or four
names to the list which had been given him; but he made no protest, and
contented himself, as he told Boswell, in saying that a man was a dunce
when he thought that he was one.

Among the biographies included by Johnson in the _Lives_, appears the
illustrious name of Swift. He was far indeed from being a dunce; but
just as certainly he was not a poet, unless the title be given to him by
courtesy. On the other hand, Swift ranks among the most distinguished
prose writers of his time--many critics consider him the greatest--and
he therefore finds his natural place in the prose section of this
volume.

[Sidenote: Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).]

Swift's life is an extraordinary psychological study, but it will
suffice to state here the bare outline of his career. He was a
posthumous child, and born in Dublin of English parents, November 30th,
1667. When a year old he was kidnapped by his nurse out of pure
affection, and carried off to Whitehaven, where she remained with the
child for three years. At the age of six the boy was sent to Kilkenny
school, and there he had William Congreve (1670-1729), the future
dramatist, for a schoolfellow. Neither at school nor at Trinity College,
Dublin, which he entered as a boy of fifteen, did Swift distinguish
himself, and he left the University in disgrace. At the Revolution he
found a refuge with his mother at Leicester, and she, through a family
relationship, obtained a position for her boy in the house of Sir
William Temple (1628-1698), who was accounted a great man in his own
day, and was famous alike for statecraft and literature. By many readers
he will be best remembered as the husband of the charming Dorothy
Osborne, whose innocently sweet love-l