indeed to have turned this Englishman born in Ireland, this political churchman and hater of papists and dissenters, into the savior of the subject race. That he was, however, deeply struck with an impression of their misery, and that his soul, always so ready to break forth upon the cruelty, the falsehood, the barbarous misconception of men by men, found in their wrongs a subject upon which he could scarcely exaggerate, is apparent enough. His “Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of the Poor in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country” is one of those pieces of terrible satire which lacerate the heart. Tears as of blood are in it, a passion of indignant pity, and fury, and despair. “Eat them, then, since there’s nothing else to be done with them,” he says, detailing with elaborate composure the way to do it and the desirableness of such a supply of delicate food. The reader, unwarned and simple-minded, might almost, with a gasp of horror, take the proposal for genuine. But Swift’s meaning was really more terrible than cannibalism. It was the sense that these children, the noblest fruit of nature, were in truth the embarrassment, the fatal glut of a miserable race, that forced this dreadful irony upon him. And what picture could be more terrible than that of the childless old man with his bleeding heart, himself deserted of all that made life sweet, thus facing the world with scorn so infinite that it transcends all symbols of passion, bidding it consume what it has brought forth? But Swift, unfortunately for himself and her, loved Ireland as little when he thus made himself her champion as he had done throughout his life. At all times his longing eyes were turned toward the country in which life was, and power, and friends, and fame. Though he was aware he was growing old and ought to be “done with this world,” he yet cries aloud his desire “to get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage like a poisoned rat in a hole,”--a terrific image, and one of those phrases that burn and glow with a pale light of despair. But he never got into that better world he longed for. The slow years crept over him, and he lived on, making existence tolerable by such expedients as he could, a wonderful proof how the body will resist all the frettings of the soul, yet growing more angry, more desperate, more subject to the bitter passions which had broken forth even in his best days, as he grew older and had fewer reasons for restraining himself. At last the great dean, the greatest genius of his age, the man of war and battle, of quip and jest, he who had thirsted to be doing through all his life, fell into imbecility and stupor, with occasional wild awakenings into consciousness which were still more terrible. He died, denuded of all things, in 1745, having lived till seventy-eight in spite of himself. Ubi saeva indignatio Cor ulterius lacerare nequit