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SWI interval she taught him to spell, and by the time he was three years old he could read any chapter in the Bible. He had a sickly childhood; at six he was placed at Kilkenny school; and in his fifteenth year, on 24th April, 1682, he entered Trinity College, Dublin. He remained at college for nearly seven years (taking his bachelor's degree in February 1685-'6), not leaving until the breaking out of the "troubles" in 1689. He acquired more than the average amount of learning requisite for taking his degree. He was never a profound or exact scholar, but he attained considerable intimacy with the great writers of antiquity, had a command of Latin, was accomplished in French, and possessed an extensive store of general information. His uncle, Godwin Swift, at whose expense he had been educated, died shortly before he took his degree, and Jonathan would have been badly off but for his other uncle, William, who resided in Dublin. His mother and sister were then living in Leicester, where, during the remaining twenty-two years of his mother's life, he visited her seldom less frequently than once a year. She was a connexion of the wife of Sir William Temple, and when the disturbed state of Ireland, in 1689, compelled Swift to seek employment in England, he was received as companion and secretary into the family of the retired statesman, near London, and later at Moor Park, close to Farnham. His first sojourn with Temple lasted over five years, from 1689 to 1694. In May 1690 he visited Ireland for his health, and possibly in the hope of preferment from Sir Robert Southwell, but "growing worse," in his own words, "he soon went back to Sir William Temple's, with whom, growing into some confidence, he was often trusted with matters of great importance." After his return he look his master's degree at Hertford College, Oxford. When Swift went to Moor Park, he found a Mrs. Johnson living there as friend and companion to Lady Giffard, Sir William Temple's sister. Her two daughters lived with her—Esther, a child of eight (born 13th March 1681), and a younger, Anne, of whose attractive appearance and modest manners mention is made in Swift's writings. He became first the playfellow, and subsequently the volunteer teacher of Esther, and in after years reminded her how he had guided her little hand in writing, and how his spirit had given to hers its first impress. In Sir William Temple's house Swift more than once met William III., who occasionally sought that great man's advice; and, upon at least one occasion, Swift was sent to Kensington, charged personally to enforce Sir William's views upon the King. In 1694 a coolness arose between Swift and his patron, in consequence of Swift's desire to seek a more independent position elsewhere. Temple wished to retain him permanently in his service, and even offered him a sinecure, a clerkship of £120 a year on the Irish Rolls, if he would remain. Swift's mind was, however, made up. He paid his annual visit to his mother at Leicester, passed over to Ireland, received deacon's orders on 28th October 1694, and priest's orders three mouths later. Recommended by family friends to Lord Capel, then Lord-Deputy, he was presented with the prebend of Kilroot, near Carrickfergus, worth £100 a year. Swift held this living a little over eighteen months, at the end of which time he joyfully accepted Sir William Temple's invitation to return to Moor Park. During his occupation of Kilroot, he became engaged to be married to a Miss Waring (of whom he wrote as "Variua"), sister of a college friend resident at Belfast. From this engagement both parties apparently were not sorry to be ultimately released. Swift left Kilroot in charge of a college friend, Winder, for whom, early in 1698, when it became apparent that his residence with Temple would be protracted, he obtained the succession. During his second residence at Moor Park, which was only terminated by the death of Temple, in 1698-'9, he was occupied in the revision of his friend's writings, in the self-imposed task of superintending the education of Esther Johnson, now a beautiful girl of fifteen, and chiefly in study, to which he devoted nearly ten hours a day. Sir William Temple had engaged in a controversy regarding the comparative merits of ancient and modern authors, advocating the claims of the former; and Swift came to his assistance in his first important essay in composition—The Battle of the Books. It was widely circulated in manuscript before Sir William's death, but did not appear in print until four years later. "There is," says Mr. Forster, "not a line in this extraordinary piece of concentrated humour, however seemingly filled with absurdity, that does not run over with sense and meaning. If a single word were to be employed in describing it, applicable alike to its wit and its extravagance, intensity should be chosen. Especially characteristic of these earliest satires is what generally will be found most aptly descriptive of all Swift's writing: namely, that whether the subject be great or small, everything in it, from the first word to 505