When English politicians endeavored to oppress Ireland with unjust laws, Swift championed the Irish cause. A man who knew him well, says: "I never saw the poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to as those of his cathedral." He gave up a large part of his income every year for the poor. In Dublin he was looked upon as a hero. When a certain person tried to be revenged on Swift for a satire, a deputation of Swift's neighbors proposed to thrash the man. Swift sent them home, but they boycotted the man and lowered his income £1200 a year. During the last years of his life, Swift was hopelessly insane. He died in 1745, leaving his property for an asylum for lunatics and incurables. [Illustration: SWIFT AND STELLA. _From the painting by Dicksee._] The mysteries in Swift's life may be partly accounted for by the fact that during many years he suffered from an unknown brain disease. This affection, the galling treatment received in his early years, and the disappointments of his prime, largely account for his misanthropy, for his coldness, and for the almost brutal treatment of the women who loved him. Swift's attachment to the beautiful Esther Johnson, known in literature as Stella, led him to write to her that famous series of letters known as the _Journal to Stella_, in which he gives much of his personal history during the three sunniest years of his life, from 1710 to 1713, when he was a lion in London. Thackeray says: "I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls his 'little language' in his _Journal to Stella_." A Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books.--Swift's greatest satire, the greatest prose satire in English, is known as _A Tale of a Tub_. The purpose of the work is to uphold the Episcopalians and satirize opposing religious denominations. For those not interested in theological arguments, there is much entertaining philosophy, as the following quotation will show:-- "If we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition,--that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or understanding it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth; and the reason is just at our elbow, because imagination can build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than fortune or nature will be at expense to furnish." Swift's satiric definition of happiness as the art "of being well deceived" is a characteristic instance of a combination of his humor and pessimistic philosophy.