Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/504

468 intimacy. But as the quality of good nature is that part of his character least likely to gain credit, on account of the general prevalence of the contrary opinion, I shall here enumerate some of the more striking instances of his great sensibility and tenderness of heart, which have been dispersed in different parts of this work. Of this the most unequivocal proofs have been given in his letters to Stella, giving an account of the stabbing of Mr. Harley by Guiscard: in his behaviour to the duchess of Hamilton, on the fatal event of her lord's death: in his affecting account of the illness and death of poor Harrison: in his weeping at the funeral of his servant Magee: in his bursting into tears upon seeing the furniture taken down in Dr. Sheridan's parlour previous to his removal into the country: in all his letters to the doctor when Stella's life was despaired of: and in all the tender expressions of the warmest affection dispersed throughout his Journal to Stella, which are manifestly the effusions of a most feeling heart. Many more instances, were it necessary, might be adduced to the same effect, but I shall add only one, from an authority which cannot be doubted; I mean miss Vanhomrigh's; who, in the midst of that bitterness of soul occasioned by his great neglect of her, begins one of her letters in the following manner. "Believe me it is with the utmost regret that I now complain to you, because I know your good nature such, that you cannot see any human creature miserable, without being sensibly touched."

Nor was it in these articles only that the world were so mistaken in his character; from the same cause proceeded many other charges against him, all equally ill