Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/403

Rh author of these memoirs, without ingratitude, pass it over in silence.

But unfortunately this noble benefaction did not answer the end proposed by the bountiful donor. The doctor now thought his fortune was made, and set no bounds to his prodigality: with what he possessed before in the county of Cavan, his landed property produced him full four hundred pounds a year; and his school and living eight hundred more. A large income indeed in those days, but not equal to the profuseness of his spirit. He was, as was before observed, the greatest dupe in the world, and a constant prey to all the indigent of his acquaintance, as well as those who were recommended to him by others. Not content with receiving several into his school whom he taught without pay, he had always two or three whom he lodged and boarded in his house gratis; nay some he maintained in clothes and every other necessary, and afterward entered and supported them in the college at his own charge, as if they had been his sons. To his daughters he gave the genteelest education, and dressed them in the most fashionable style. As he was an adept in musick, both in the scientifick and practical part, he had frequent private concerts at his house at no small cost, and the expenses of his table were certainly not diminished by his increase of fortune. While he was going on in this career, his school gradually decreased, from the cause already mentioned, together with some other cooperating circumstances; but as the diminution of his income made no change in his mode of livings it was not long before he had contracted such debts as obliged him to mortgage his lands. He had exchanged his living in the county VOL. I.