Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/399

Rh entertainment. Before the day of exhibition lord Carteret appointed a morning to pass with him in reading the play together, in order to refresh his memory after so long an absence from his Greek studies. The doctor was astonished at the facility and accuracy with which he translated this difficult author, having scarce any opportunity of giving him assistance through the whole play. While he was expressing his surprise at this, and admiration at the wonderful knowledge which his lordship showed of the Greek language, lord Carteret, with great candour, told him he would let him into the secret how he came to be so far master of this particular author. He said that when he was envoy in Denmark, he had been for a long time confined to his chamber, partly by illness, and partly by the severity of the weather; and having but few books with him, he had read Sophocles over and over so often, as to be able almost to repeat the whole verbatim, which impressed it ever after indelibly on his memory. This candid confession was certainly the act of an ingenuous mind, above the vanity of gaining a character superiour to its merits; and I believe there are very few who would not have suffered the doctor to go away in the full persuasion, that he was one of the most complete scholars of the age in the whole of the Greek language, and accordingly spread this account of him, seemingly so well founded, to the world.

Not long after this, the lord lieutenant bestowed on the doctor the first living that fell in the gift of government, only as an earnest of future favours; and from the countenance shown him at the castle, it was generally supposed that he might expect in time