Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/412

376 to turn on the weather, and one of them observed, that the wind was easterly. The doctor upon this, said, "Let it blow east, west, north, or south, the immortal soul will take its flight to the destined point." These were the last words he ever spoke, for he immediately sunk back in his chair, and expired without a groan, or the smallest struggle. His friends thought he had fallen asleep, and in that belief retired to the garden, that they might not disturb his repose; but on their return, after an hour's walk, to their great astonishment, they found he was dead. Upon opening the body, doctor Helsham's sagacious prognostick proved to be true, as the polypus in the heart was discovered to be the immediate cause of his death. I know not whether it is worth mentioning, that the surgeon said, he never saw so large a heart in any human body.

It is with reluctance I have dwelt so long on this part of Swift's life; but as many representations of his conduct at that juncture, founded on truth too, had got abroad, much to the disadvantage of his character, I thought it necessary to draw at full length a picture of his state of mind at that time, to show how unreasonable it is to impute faults to the sound and perfect man, which were the natural consequence of the decay of his faculties, the infirmities of age, and cruel disease; by which so total a change was made in him, that scarce any thing of his former self remained. Among the charges against him, none bore more hard than his latter behaviour to Dr. Sheridan, for which I have already accounted. In their whole intercourse, previous to that