Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/211

 heads. When the roundheads gained the upper hand he naturally had to go through many troubles, which are recorded in ‘Mercurius Rusticus’ (1685; reprinted in, p. 228). He died in 1658. He had ten sons and four daughters. The second son, Thomas, became a clergyman, married the daughter of Sir William D'Avenant [q. v.], and was father of another Thomas (1666–1752), who became rector of Puttenham, Surrey. The eldest son, Godwin, was a barrister of Gray's Inn; he was four times married, and his wives, except the second, were heiresses. His first wife was connected with the Ormonde family; his third was daughter of Richard Deane [q. v.], the regicide admiral; and the fourth a sister of Sir John Mead, an Irish lawyer, described in Mrs. Pilkington's ‘Memoirs.’ Upon the Restoration, Godwin went to Ireland, where he was made attorney-general for the palatinate of Tipperary by the first Duke of Ormonde, lord-lieutenant from 1662 to 1664; he left fifteen sons and four daughters. He was ‘a little too dexterous in the subtle parts of the law,’ according to his nephew Jonathan, and in later years lost much of his fortune by rash speculations. He prospered, however, for some time, and four of his brothers followed him to Ireland.

Of these, Jonathan (the father of the satirist) became a member of the King's Inns, Dublin, and was appointed steward of the society on 25 Jan. 1665–6. Upon his marriage, a short time before, he had been able to settle an annuity of 20l. upon his wife. He died a little more than a year after his appointment, leaving her with an infant daughter Jane. Soon after the birth of Jonathan, seven months later, Abigail went to her family at Leicester. The child was left with a nurse, who became so fond of him that she took him with her when she had to return to her native place, Whitehaven, Cumberland. His mother was afraid to venture a second voyage, and he was kept nearly three years at Whitehaven. There his nurse taught him so well that at three years old he could read any part of the Bible. He was then sent back to Dublin. Shortly afterwards his mother settled at Leicester, leaving him in Ireland, where his uncle Godwin took charge of him. He was sent at the age of six to the grammar school of Kilkenny. Congreve, two years his junior, was a schoolfellow, and afterwards a friend; but nothing is known of Swift at this time beyond a trifling anecdote or two. On 24 April 1682 he was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, his cousin Thomas being entered on the same day. Thomas became a scholar in May 1684; but Jonathan was never elected. Swift's own account of his college career is that he was depressed by the ‘ill-treatment of his nearest relations,’ and ‘too much neglected his academic studies, for some parts of which he had no great relish by nature.’ He read ‘history and poetry,’ and lived with great regularity; but was ‘stopped of his degree for dulness and insufficiency, and at last admitted in a manner little to his credit, which is called in that college speciali gratia.’ In a college roll of the Easter term, 1685 (facsimile in Life of Swift, p. 38), he is marked bene for Greek and Latin, male for philosophy, and negligenter for theology. He had not done well enough, it appears, to be allowed one of the twelve terms necessary for admission to the exercise of the B.A. degree. This however, according to custom, was granted to him by the ‘special grace,’ and he graduated at the regular date, February 1685–6. Swift in later years told Mrs. Pilkington, and his biographers, Deane Swift and Sheridan, that he had really been a ‘dunce.’ Sheridan (p. 5) also declares that Swift when in his last years repeated the exact arguments used in his degree exercise. He had been disgusted with the scholastic logic still taught at Dublin, and thought that he could reason as well without using the proper syllogistic forms. This dislike was characteristic of Swift's whole turn of thought, and probably explains in what sense we are to take the statement that he was a dunce, which, as Mrs. Pilkington observes, is ‘very surprising if true.’

Swift continued his residence after taking the B.A. degree. He became irregular in his conduct. According to Dr. Barrett (Essay, pp. 13, 14), he was constantly fined and censured for non-attendance at chapel and at the nightly roll-call. He was publicly censured for such offences (16 March 1687) with his cousin Thomas; and again (30 Nov. 1688) for insolence to the junior dean (Barrett's statements are sufficiently clear, though criticised by, p. 34). Samuel Richardson (to Lady Bradshaigh, 22 April 1752) gives a story that Swift had been expelled from Dublin on account of an oration as terræ filius. One Jones, a contemporary, was actually punished, though not expelled, for such an oration in 1688. Barrett tried to make out that Swift was an accomplice in this wretched performance, which has accordingly been printed in his ‘Works.’ The arguments, however, both from external and internal evidence, establish at the outside a bare possibility. Swift attributes his reck-