Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/55

 towards his patron had been less considerate than petulant, sent him a prompt certificate for ordination. After his second absence from, and return to, Moor Park in 1696, Swift's position in the family seems to have been considerably improved. Temple can hardly have failed to perceive either the talents or the usefulness of the ‘secretary,’ as he was now called, who aided him in getting ready for the press the five volumes of his ‘Letters’ and ‘Memoirs.’ It is known that William III paid several visits to Temple at Moor Park in order ‘to consult him upon matters of high importance.’ One of these visits had reference to the triennial bill of 1692–3, for which the king had conceived a strong dislike. Temple argued that the bill involved no danger to the monarchy, and he is said to have employed Swift to ‘draw up reasons for it taken from English history.’ According to Deane Swift (Life of Swift, p. 60), Temple aided the young author to revise in manuscript his ‘Tale of a Tub.’

During the whole period of his retirement since 1681, Temple had been elaborating those essays upon which his literary reputation now chiefly rests. Six of these appeared in 1680 under the title of ‘Miscellanea.’ The second and more noteworthy volume appeared in 1692 (the ‘Miscellanea’ in two parts appeared united, 4th ed. 1693, 5th 1697, revised Glasgow 1761, Utrecht 1693). Temple sent a copy in November, together with a Latin epistle, to the master and fellows of Emmanuel, his old college (Addit. MS. 5860, f. 99). The second part included the essays of gardening, of heroic virtue, of poetry, and the famous essay on ‘Ancient and Modern Learning.’ The vein of classical eulogy and reminiscence which Temple here affects was adopted merely as an elegant prolusion upon the passing controversy among the wits of France as to the relative merits of ancient and modern writers. First broached as a paradox (cf. Our Noble Selves) by Fontenelle, the thesis had been maintained in earnest by Perrault (Siècle de Louis le Grand, January 1687), and Temple now joined hands fraternally with Boileau in contesting some of Perrault's rash assertions. The essay was in fact light, suggestive, and purely literary; it scarcely aimed at being critical, so that much of the serious criticism which has been bestowed on it is quite inept. William Wotton was the first to enter the lists against Temple with his ‘Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning,’ published in 1694. Charles Boyle (afterwards Earl of Orrery) [q. v.], by way of championing the polite essayist, set to work to edit the ‘Epistles to Phalaris’ which Temple (whose opinion on such a matter was absolutely worthless) professed to regard as genuine. It was when this conjecture had been ruthlessly demolished by the learned sarcasm of Bentley that Swift came to the aid of his patron with the most enduring relic of the controversy, ‘The Battle of the Books.’ Temple had begun a reply to Bentley, but he was now happily spared the risk of publication [for the Boyle and Bentley controversy, see, (1662–1742); , ''Refl. on Learning'', 1700].

Temple's next literary venture was ‘An Introduction to the History of England’ (London, 1695 8vo, 1699, 1708; in French, Amsterdam, 1695, 12mo), which he intended as an incitement to the production of a general history of the nation, such as those of De Serres or Mezeray for France, Mariana for Spain, or De Mexia for the empire. The introduction concludes with an account of the Norman conquest and a eulogy of William I, in which many saw intended a compliment to William III, the more so as the putting aside of Edgar the Atheling was carefully condoned. The presumption of this work, which abounds in historical errors, was perhaps not inferior to that which prompted the ‘Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning.’ Fortunately for Temple, no historical Bentleys were living to take exception to his statements. Among the lighter productions of his years of retirement was a privately printed volume of ‘Poems by Sir W. T.,’ containing Virgil's last eclogue, a few odes and imitations of Horace, and Aristæus, a version of the 4th Georgic of Virgil—most of the pieces written professedly by request of Lady Temple or Lady Giffard. (The Grenville Library, British Museum, has a copy of this extremely rare volume, n.d., 12mo, with some manuscript notes in Temple's own hand; it was bought by Grenville at Beloe's sale in 1803 for 2l. 3s.).

Temple was attacked by a serious form of gout in 1676, and though he staved it off for a time, as he explains in one of the most entertaining of his essays (‘Cure of Gout by Moxa’), he suffered a good deal both with the gout and ‘the spleen’ during the whole of Swift's sojourn at Moor Park. He passed through a severe illness in 1691, and he was much broken by the death of his wife in January 1695. Swift kept a sort of diary of the state of his patron's health, the last entry of which runs, ‘He died at one o'clock this morning, the 27 January 1698–9, and with him all that was good and amiable among men.’ He was buried on 1 Feb. by the side of his wife in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. His heart, however,