Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/320

312 any man ever appear to value it less after he had obtained it, or exert it with more moderation. He is the only instance that ever fell within my memory or observation, of a person passing from a private life, through the several stages of greatness, without any perceivable impression upon his temper or behaviour. As his own birth was illustrious, being descended from the heirs general of the Veres and the Mortimers, so he seemed to value that accidental advantage in himself and others, more than it could pretend to deserve. He abounded in good nature and good humour; although subject to passion, as I have heard it affirmed by others, and owned by himself; which, however, he kept under the strictest government, till toward the end of his ministry, when he began to grow soured, and to suspect his friends; and, perhaps, thought it not worth his pains to manage any longer. He was a great favourer of men of wit and learning, particularly the former; whom he caressed without distinction of party, and could not endure to think that any of them should be his enemies; and it was his good fortune that none of them ever appeared to be so; at least if one may judge by the libels and pamphlets published against him, which he frequently read, by way of amusement, with a most unaffected indifference: neither do I remember ever to have endangered his good opinion so much, as by appearing uneasy, when the dealers in that kind of writing, first began to pour out their scurriliries against me; which, he thought, was a weakness altogether inexcusable in a man of virtue and liberal education. He had the greatest variety of knowledge that I have any where met with; was a fect