Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/40

4 great relish; but passed his time chiefly in reading books of history and poetry; which were better suited to his taste, and more calculated to relieve the troubles of his mind. In consequence of this, when the time came for his taking the degree of bachelor of arts, he was stopped, as he himself expresses it, for dullness and insufficiency. It is to be supposed that the word dullness was on this occasion used by Swift jocosely, as the cause assigned for stopping any person of a degree, is answering badly in any branch of literature appointed for that particular examination; which does not necessarily imply dullness, as it may as well proceed from idleness. But in Swift's case it was rather to be imputed to contumacy, than either the one or the other. For the fact is, there was one branch of the examination, on which the greatest stress was laid in those days, in which he could not be said to answer badly, for he did not attempt to answer at all. This account I had from his own lips. He told me that he had made many efforts, upon his entering the college, to read some of the old treatises on logick writ by Smeglesius, Keckermannus, Burgersdicius, &c. and that he never had patience to go through three pages of any of them, he was so disgusted at the stupidity of the work. When he was urged by his tutor to make himself master of this branch, then in high estimation, and held essentially necessary to the taking of a degree; Swift asked him, what it was he was to learn from those books? His tutor told him, the art of reasoning. Swift said that he found no want of any such art; that he could reason very well without it; and that as far as he could observe, they who had made the greatest