Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/117

 DEAN SWIFT 77 DEAN SWIFT By Samuel Archer J' (1667-1745) onathan Swift's father died before the boy was born, and the care of his education was kindly undertaken by Mr. Godwin Swift, his uncle, a very eminent attorney at Dublin, who likewise took his mother and his sister under his protection, and thus became a guardian to the family. When his nephew was six years of age he sent him to school at Kilkenny, and about eight years afterward he entered him a student of Trinity College in Dublin, where Swift lived in perfect regularity and in an entire obedience to the statutes ; but the moroseness of his temper often rendered him unacceptable to his compan- ions, so that he was little regarded and less beloved ; nor were the academical exercises agreeable to his genius. He held logic and metaphysics in the utmost contempt, and he scarcely at- tended at all to mathematics and natural philosophy, unless to turn them into ridi- cule. The studies which he chiefly followed were history and poetry, in which he made great progress ; but to other branches of science he had given so very lit- tle application, that when he appeared as a candidate for the degree of bachelor of arts, after having studied four years, he was set aside on account of insuf- ficiency, and at last obtained his admission speciali gratid, a phrase which in that university carries with it the utmost marks of reproach. Swift was fired with indignation at the treatment he had received in Ireland, and therefore resolved to pursue his studies at Oxford. However, that he might be admitted ad eundem, he was obliged to carry with him a testimonial of his degree. The expression speciali gratid is so peculiar to the university of Dublin, that when Mr. Swift exhibited his testimonial at Oxford, the members of the English university con- cluded that the words speciali gratid must signify a degree conferred in reward of some extraordinary diligence and learning. He was immediately admitted ad eundem, and entered himself at Hart Hall, now Hartford College, where he con- stantly resided (some visits to his mother, at Leicester, and to Sir. William Tem- ple, at Moose Park, excepted) till he took his degree of master of arts, which was in the year 1691. And in order to recover his lost time he now studied eight hours daily for seven years. Swift, as soon as he had quitted the University of Oxford, lived with Sir Will- iam Temple as his friend and domestic companion. When he had been about