Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/561

Rh a legacy; and being extremely fond of the infant, she stole him on shipboard unknown to his mother and uncle, and carried him with her to Whitehaven, where he continued for almost three years. For, when the matter was discovered, his mother sent orders by all means not to hazard a second voyage, till he could be better able to bear it. The nurse was so careful of him, that before he returned he had learnt to spell; and by the time that he was five years old, he could read any chapter in the Bible.

After his return to Ireland, he was sent at six years old to the school of Kilkenny, from whence at fourteen he was admitted into the university at Dublin; where by the ill treatment of his nearest relations, he was so discouraged and sunk in his spirits, that he too much neglected some parts of his academick studies: for which he had no great relish by nature, and turned himself to reading history and poetry; so that when the time came for taking his degree of bachelor, although he had lived with great regularity and due observance of the statutes, he was stopped of his degree for dulness and insufficiency; and at last hardly admitted in a manner, little to his credit, which is called in that college, speciali gratia. And this discreditable mark, as I am told, stands upon record in their college registery.

The troubles then breaking out, he went to his mother, who lived in Leicester; and after continuing there some months, he was received by sir William Temple, whose father had been a great friend to the family, and who was now retired to his house called Moor Park, near Farnham in Surry, where