Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/30

 10 that "Rundle has a heart." Swift a month after the consecration, had dined thrice in his company and had found out his only fault, "he drinks no wine and I drink nothing else." A third friend, Lyttleton, in his Persian letters dwelt on his christian virtues, "if the visible mark of your religion be meekness, or charity, or justice or temperance or piety all these are most conspicuous in the doctor." The truest of all was no doubt the estimate of Pulteney. "Rundle is far from being the great and learned man his friends would have the world believe him and much farther yet from the bad man his enemies represent him." A year after the appointment Swift still dwelt on his good qualities and the affection in which he was held. "He is a most excessive Whig but without any appearing rancour, . . . besides, £3000 a year is an invincible sweetness."

Rundle crossed to Ireland with the determination of ruling his diocese in a manner acceptable to his clergy. He took with him an Irish clergyman as his chaplain, which was, says Swift, "a very wise and popular action," and he was resolved to "prefer those educated in the country, with regard only to their merit and learning." One exception to this rule he contemplated. This was Thomas Birch the antiquary and biographer to whom he had hoped, these were his words in May 1738, to have been in a position ere this to settle in Ireland. The gift offered at first might be small, but if life lasted a more lucrative preferment should be his reward. His diocese contained "35 beneficed clergymen . . . and they are all regular, decent and neighbourly; each hath considerable and commendable general learning but not one is eminent for any particular branch of knowledge," an estimate which will remind the reader of Dr. Johnson's comment on Scotch learning. The curates were more troublesome, for not infrequently they were "fathers of 8 or 10 children, without any thing but an allowance of £40 a year