Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/45

Rh would probably have precipitated him into some extravagant courses. Nothing less than the lowness of his circumstances from his birth, could have kept that fire from bursting out; nothing less than the galling yoke of dependance, could have restrained that proud spirit within due bounds. His poverty and his pride were two excellent guards set over him, during that most dangerous time of life, to fix and keep him in a course of virtue. The one debarred him from excesses in the pleasurable gratifications of youth, which money only can procure; the other kept him from endeavouring to obtain from the purse of others, by mean compliances, any pleasures that he could not purchase from his own fund. Thus, necessarily fixed in a course of temperance, the practice of other moral duties became easy to him. And indeed there was no flaw to be found in his moral character, during his residence in the college, however low his parts might be rated.

Thus far I have shown the benefits which were probably derived to him from his want of fortune. I shall now show what advantages it is likely he derived from want of learning.

Had Swift met with sufficient encouragement to apply himself to the learning of the times; had his situation in the college been rendered easy to him, so that he might have pursued his studies with an undisturbed mind, had his emulation been rouzed in such a way as to make him enter into a competition with those of his own standing; it is highly probable, from the greatness of his parts, that he would have thrown all competitors at a distance. And in that case he might have acquired a fondness for those studies by which he obtained fame, however agreeable