Lord Carteret was a true courtier, and managed to keep fairly with both parties. He had much wit and readiness, and parried the attacks of Swift with such dexterity that on one occasion, the latter exclaimed, "What, in God's name! do you do here? Get back to your own country, and send us our boobies again." When we recollect that in London Swift enjoyed the society of the first literary characters of the day, we need not wonder that he looked on a residence in Ireland as a sort of banishment, and yet he did not fail to use every opportunity of doing good in private and in public. He gave half his annual income to decayed families, and kept five hundred pounds in hand for the sole service of the industrious poor, which he lent out in five pounds at a time, and took payment back by installments of two shillings--of course without interest. He was thus the means of helping them to help themselves, a species of charity which was not then so well understood as it is now in process of becoming. His indignation at the oppressive conduct of the English government in destroying Irish trade and manufactures vented itself in many ways. "Do not the corruptions and villainies of men eat your flesh and exhaust your spirits?" said he to his friend Dr. Delany; and in another burst of the same _saeva indignatio_ he exclaimed, on hearing some one spoken of as a "fine old gentleman," "What! have you yet to learn that there is no such thing as a fine old gentleman? If the man you speak of had either a mind or a body worth a farthing, they would have worn him out long ago."