Jonathan Swift, another of the Athenian contributors, was a marvellous mortal. One of his earliest poetical productions was a commendatory poem of 307 lines sent to the Athenian Society. Dryden read it, and said, “Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.” Dr Johnson says that this unfortunate remark caused Swift to regard Dryden with malevolence to the end of life. His “Tale of a Tub,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” and other works are too well known to need description. He was a man of amazing genius, but never ought to have been a priest. During his residence in Dublin University, he incurred no less than seventy penalties for irregularities; and, in the last year of his residence, his academical degree was suspended, and he was sentenced to ask public pardon of the junior dean for insolence. In his personal habits he was scrupulously nice; and yet there are passages in his writings almost as gross as his pen could make them. As an author, he is perhaps not surpassed for originality, and it has been said of him that he never borrowed a thought from any man. In some matters he was ludicrously penurious. Once when going from Sir William Temple’s to his mother’s, he travelled the whole distance on foot, except when the violence of the weather drove him into stage waggons; and, at nights, put up at penny lodgings, where, to secure himself from filth, he hired clean sheets for sixpence; and yet with all this he can hardly be called a man of avarice, for he seems to have saved only that he might have the more to give. Three years before his death, he became insane, and sunk into a lethargy, in which he remained speechless for a year. He left the greater part of his fortune to an hospital for lunatics and idiots. He died in 1744. The pranks and puns of Jonathan Swift, Dean Of St Patrick’s, are endless. The common people received him everywhere with profound respect; and upon one occasion, he made a laughable experiment on the public belief in his authority. A number of the people having assembled round the deanery to see an eclipse, Swift became tired of their commotion, and directed the town crier to make proclamation, that the eclipse was postponed, by command of the Dean of St Patrick’s, which had the effect of dispersing the assembled star-gazers. Sir William Temple was a frequent contributor to the _Athenian Gazette_. This eminent statesman was a pupil of the learned Dr Hammond, his maternal uncle. As an author, he was pleasing and popular, his style being long regarded as a model of grace and elegance. He died at Moor Park, in 1698, where, in accordance with his will, his heart was buried in a silver box under the sun-dial, opposite to a window where he had been accustomed to contemplate and admire the works of nature; while his body was privately interred in Westminster Abbey.