On somebody's saying of a measure proposed, that the people would never bear it, Lord Oxford's answer was, "You don't know how far the good people of England will bear"a reply as applicable at the present moment as on the day Lord Oxford uttered it. Swift's intimacy with Lord Oxford commenced in October, 1709; in a poem, 1713, he says: "Tis (let me see) three years and more And in the same year: My Lord would carry on the jest, Swift's political service to Lord Oxford is well expressed in the saying that "he oiled many a spring which Harley moved." THE DEAN AND MISS BARTON, Among the admirers of the beautiful Miss Barton, the niece of Sir Isaac Newton, was Swift, who frequently visited her, and on one occasion "at her lodgings." She resided in the house of her uncle, until her marriage with Mr. John Conduitt, M.P., of Cranbury, in Hampshire. Miss Barton, (or Mrs. Barton, as she is called,) is often mentioned in Swift's Letters to Stella, with the same disregard for her affection that suffered the Dean to mention other of his female friends. Thus we find : "1710, Sept. 28. I dined to-day with Mrs. Barton alone at her lodgings." [This is the only place where Swift speaks of Mrs. Barton's lodgings, and it is important to observe that Newton was at that very time removing from Chelsea to St. Martin's-street, so that Mrs. Barton was, probably, occupying lodgings for a short time while the house was preparing for her uncle. It is quite clear, also, from the extracts dated October 9, 25, and November 28, 1711, that Mrs. Barton was living at Newton's house, in Leicester Fields.-Note: Appendix to Sir David Brewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton, vol. ii. p. 492.] Next, we find the following entries : 1710. Nov. 30.-To-day I dined with Mrs. Barton alone. 1710. Dec. 19.-I visited Mrs. Barton. 1711. Jan. 23.-I called at Mrs. Barton's, and we went to Lady Worsley's, where we were to dine by apppointment. 1711. March 7.-Mrs. Barton sent this morning to invite me to dinner, and there I dined, just in that genteel manner that S. & D. [Stella and Dingley] used, when they would treat some better sort of body than usual. 1711. April 3.-I was this morning to see Mrs. Barton. I love her better than anybody here, and see her seldomer. Why really now, so it often happens in the world that when one loves a body best-psha, psha, you are so silly with your moral observations. 1711. May 29.-Pr'ythee, don't you observe how strangely I have changed my company and manner of living? I never go to a coffeehouse; you hear no more of Addison, Steele, Harley, Lady Lucy, Mrs. Finch, Lord Somers, Lord Halifax, &c. 1711. July 6.-An ugly rainy day; I was to visit Mrs. Barton. 1711. Oct. 14.-I sat this evening with Mrs. Barton: it is the first day of her seeing company; but I made her merry enough, and we were three hours disputing upon Whig and Tory. She grieved for her brother (who had been drowned) only for form, and he was a sad dog. 1711. Oct. 25.-I sat this evening with Mrs. Barton, who is my near neighbour. 1711. Nov. 20.-I have been so teased with Whiggish discourse by Mrs. Barton and Lady Betty Germaine; never saw the like. They turn all this affair of pope-burning into ridicule, and indeed they have made too great clatter about it, if they had no real reason to apprehend some tumults. 1711. Nov. 28.-I am turned out of my lodging by my landlady, but I have taken another lodging hard by in Leicester Fields. Thus we see how Swift esteemed and loved Mrs. Barton : yet, there is a scandalous story that she resided with Lord Halifax as his mistress. (See Brewster's Life of Newton, vol. ii.) GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF SWIFT. Mr. Hannay, in his Satire and Satirists, shrewdly notes : "I doubt if even Swift's writings give us a fair notion of his powers; and incline to lay more stress on the personal impression made by him." "You best understand what a magnetism of force, of intellect, and of character, was about Swift, when you see how people wrote to him." Compare the following: "Sir, That you may enjoy the continuance of all happiness, is my wish; as for futurity, I know your name will be remembered when the names of kings, Lord-lieutenants, archbishops, and parliament-politicians, will be forgotten."-Carteret, (in 1735.) "Adieu! no man living preserves a higher esteem, or a more warm and sincere friendship for you than I do."-Bolingbroke, (1734.) "You have overturned and supported ministers, you have set kingdoms in a flame with your pen."-Bathurst, (1730.) By-the-bye, good Lord Bathurst seems to have understood the humour of Swift's Modest Proposal, &c., (for roasting children, see p. 105, ante) perfectly; and in a letter to the Dean, says that Lady Bathurst and he thought of beginning with their youngest boy. It was not a satire on matrimony, but on English government of Ireland. Swift has been unfairly sus pected of paying court to the Duchess of Queensberry; the court was on the side of the Duchess. There are so many points of Swift's history upon which we are not yet satisfactorily informed, that it is hard to make up one's mind upon the precise character of the man. Books, and tracts, essays and reviews, innumerable, have been written upon the Dean's shortcomings and excellences; yet in the multitude of books there is not always most truth; and it is a wicked practice of the world-when they do not know anything to think the worst. But, we are improving in these matters, and one of the latest views of Swift's character appears, to our thinking, the fairest it has neither the savage scorn of the assailant who gets up his case for working upon the passions of his readers or his audience, like a piece of stage-effect; nor has it the prudery and nicety which seek to over-estimate trifles, and magnify specks of character into huge transgressions; but it has the manliness and straightforwardness of a writer who has not taken for granted, but has conscientiously examined his subject, and employed honest means for arriving at the truth. Such is the merit of the following brief summary of Swift's character, by Mr. James Hannay, in his very able volume of lectures, Satire and Satirists: His [Swift's] "misanthropy," and the endless "Stella and Vanessa" controversy, are the two features about Swift which have most affected his reputation with posterity. He is the fiercest, and, take him all in all, the greatest of all the satirists and as for his scorn for the world, it did not prevent him loving and honouring his friends, from Pope down to Gay; it did not hinder him from being loved by the poor, whose gratitude may be set against whatever ill effect the story of his freaks of rudeness may have upon your opinion. I have not presumed to speak of him without making myself acquainted with these stories, and the other stories about him. I read him first years ago, when I had no possible interest in believing on one side or the other, and long before I dreamt that I should lecture upon him; and all I can say is, that an image of his general greatness of mind and character impressed itself upon me; upon which there might be specks, perhaps, the result of disease and misfortune, but not such as to warrant any one in maintaining that Swift was, taken all in all, a bad and unlovable man. SIR RICHARD STEELE. BIRTH OF STEELE-HIS ANCESTRY. RICHARD STEELE, the humourist, whose family on his father's side were English, but he had an Irish mother, was born on the 12th of March, 1671, in Dublin, where his father held the office of private secretary to the first Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Mrs. Steele was a Miss Devereux, of the county of Wexford;* who is described by her son, in the Tatler, No. 181, as a very beautiful woman, and of a very noble spirit." 66 Steele was the grandson of William Steele, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland under the Cromwells, and who was born at Sandbach, in Cheshire, in a moated house called Giddy Hall, long since removed. He was the eldest son of Richard Steele, of Sandbach, who was himself the second son of Thomas Steele, of Weston, in the same county. William was early removed by his father to Finchley, in Middlesex, where he resided in 1631, the year of his admission into Gray's Inn. He was called to the Bar in 1637, and was returned Member of Parliament for the port of Romney in 1640. In consequence of the zeal he displayed in all the proceedings against the king, he early secured the favour of Cromwell and the Parliament, by whom he was appointed Attorney-General for the Commonwealth; Recorder of London; Chief Baron of the Exchequer in England; and, lastly, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, which post he filled until the Restoration. He married Elizabeth Godfrey, by whom he had one son, Richard. According to another authority (Noble's Cromwells), he was married (probably a second time) to the widow of Michael Harvey, youngest brother of Dr. William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. He died in Dublin, and was buried in St. Werburgh's churchyard in that city. His son Richard, also a member of the bar, was admitted into the King's Inns, Dublin, on the 11th June, 1667; was secretary to the Duke of Ormond, and the father of Sir Richard Steele, as above stated. Sir Richard was twice married: by his first wife he had no issue; by his second wife he had two sons, Richard and Eugene, both of whom died before their father; and two daughters-one of whom, Elizabeth, was married to Baron Trevor, who left but one daughter named Diana. Hence this branch of the family became extinct. The second brother of Lord Chancellor Steele was * Nichols, however, infers the lady's name to have been Gascoigne. named Lawrence, who was one of the clerks of the Irish House of Commons between the years 1662 and 1679. From him have descended the "Steeles of Rathbride," whose pedigree is given in detail in Burke's Landed Gentry, of which family Dr. Wm. Edward Steele, of Dublin, is a member. Of George Steele, the third brother of the Chancellor, nothing whatever appears to be known.-Communications by Dr. Steele to Notes and Queries, 2nd S., Nos. 291 and 295. STEELE LOSES HIS FATHER. When in his fifth year, Steele had the misfortune to lose his father; and that his death sorely touched the affectionate boy was narrated by him in after-life, in the Tatler, No. 181, wherein he thus describes this loss as his earliest recollection and his earliest grief. "The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and calling papa; for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embrace, and told me in a flood of tears, 'Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him underground, whence he never would come to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport; which, methought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, that, before I was sensible what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since." STEELE AT THE CHARTER-HOUSE. The Duke of Ormond, the patron of Steele's father, was one of the Governors of the old school of Charter-house, near Smithfield, where, as soon after his father's death as he could be entered, Richard Steele was sent as gown-boy. Respecting him the following entries exist in the books of the Charter-house; for which information Dr. Steele is indebted to the kindness of the present Principal of that institution : |