One of Swift's recommendations was in favour of Sheridan, the grandfather of the celebrated dramatist and orator. Carteret good-naturedly presented Sheridan with a living, and made him one of his chaplains; but the ex-schoolmaster, on the anniversary of the accession of the Hanoverian {143} family, preached a sermon from the text, 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' It was a pure accident, but Sheridan was accused of Jacobinism, and he was removed from his chaplaincy. For the remainder of his life he was one of Swift's satellites, at the mercy of his generosity and his satire. Sheridan records a story which illustrates very vividly the popularity of the famous Dean of St. Patrick's. A large crowd assembled to witness an eclipse. Swift sent out the bellman to cry out to all and sundry that the eclipse had been postponed by the dean's orders, and the crowd quietly dispersed! Carteret summed up his administration in words that have become historic. 'When people asked me how I governed Ireland,' he remarked, 'I say that I pleased Dr. Swift.' Carteret's egotism and selfishness were diluted by a sense of humour that enabled him to tolerate Swift, his unofficial jester. [Sidenote: Lord Carteret retires] The Lord-Lieutenant was reappointed in 1727, when George II. ascended the throne and the Hanoverian succession assured; but his last appearance in Dublin was in 1729, and his successor did not arrive until two years later. In 1728 the new Parliament building was erected on the site of Chichester House. From all accounts, Carteret was a success. It was no disadvantage to him that he was a heavy drinker--had more viceroys taken to drink, Ireland might have escaped some of the consequences of their greater follies--and without imitating the example of Wharton, he was broad-minded enough to see no {144} harm in the lax condition of Dublin society, which was then following the lead set by London. It is no exaggeration to ascribe Carteret's lack of failure to his cynical indifference to Irish affairs; he quite believed that Ireland was a nuisance, but a nuisance that had to be endured. The so-called Parliament must have ministered to his sense of humour. Its English prototype was bad enough, but to call the collection of retained nincompoops and Castle hacks a Parliament was to degrade the word to the lowest depths. Ireland never had a Parliament, unless the generous historian grants that title to Grattan's. In Carteret's time the 'Parliament' no more represented Ireland than it did the land of the Chaldeans.