Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/56

iv pleasantest counties of England. This is invidiously aggravated; because Mr. Wotton conceived lord Somers was indecently played upon, in the dedication addressed to him: and is besides false; at least in part: for Jonathan had no brother. His first cousin, Thomas Swift, one year only senior to him, though the son of a much elder brother, was presented by lord Somers, and probably at sir W. Temple's request, to a crown living; which he held sixty years, and quitted but with life, in May 1752, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. The same lord Somers recommended Jonathan to lord Wharton; but without success. Thomas preached a sermon in November 1710 (it is not specified where); which he printed, and prefixed to it a dedication to Mr. Harley, chancellor of the exchequer, afterward earl of Oxford. It is on Is. xi. 13, 14. and is entitled, "Noah's Dove; an earnest Exhortation to Peace; set forth in a Sermon, preached on the 7th of November 1710, a Thanksgiving-day, by Thomas Swift, A. M. formerly chaplain to sir William Temple, now rector of Puttenham in Surrey. I will open my mouth in parables, Ps. lxxviii. 2. Quo propiùs stes, te capiet magis. Hor." Mr. Deane Swift says: T. S. was a man of learning, and abilities; but unfortunately bred up, like his father and grandfather, with an abhorrence and contempt for all the Puritanical sectaries:" whence he seems to infer, that he neither had, nor could well have, the least hope of rising in the church. [What not in sixty years; between 1690 and 1750! How came Atterbury, Sacheverell, and hundreds more, to rise?] In fact, this Sermon and its Dedication (stand