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"no honour, advantage, or fatisfac"tion of any kind in this world.

"When you confider his ironical and "humorous, as well as his ferious "fchemes, for the promotion of true

"religion and virtue; his fuccefs in "foliciting for the First Fruits and "Twentieths, to the unspeakable bene"fit of the established Church of Ire"land; and his felicity (to rate it no higher) in giving occafion to the

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building of fifty new churches in "London.

"All this confidered, the character "of his life will appear like that of his writings; they will both bear to be "re-confidered and re-examined with

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"the

"the utmost attention, and always dif

"cover new beauties and excellencies

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upon every examination.

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They will bear to be confidered as "the fun, in which the brightness will "hide the blemishes; and whenever pe"tulant ignorance, pride, malice, ma"lignity, or envy, interpofes to cloud

or fully his fame, I will take upon me "to pronounce that the eclipfe will not "laft long.

To conclude-no man ever de"ferved better of any country than "Swift did of his. A fteady, perfe"vering, inflexible friend; a wife, a "watchful, and a faithful counsellor, "under many fevere trials and bitter "perfe

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perfecutions, to the manifeft hazard "both of his liberty and fortune.

"He lived a bleffing, he died a be"nefactor, and his name will ever live "an honour to Ireland."

IN

IN the Poetical Works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the critick can exercise his powers. They are often humourous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend fuch compofitions, eafinefs and gaiety. They are, for the moft part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. There feldom occurs a hard-laboured expreffion, or a redundant epithet; all his verfes exemplify his own definition of a good style,

they

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they confift of proper words in proper

places.

To divide this Collection into claffes, and fhew how fome pieces are gross, and fome are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant, who certainly wrote often not to his judgement, but his humour.

It was faid, in a Preface to one of the Irish editions, that Swift had never been known to take a fingle thought from any writer, ancient or modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can eafily be found that has borrowed fo little, or that in all his excel

lencies

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