Jonathan Swift, whose name stands unchallenged at the head of the list of English satirists, was born on Irish soil, for it was in Dublin on November 30, 1667, that he opened his eyes upon a career in which fortune and misfortune alternated in swift succession for seventy-eight years.
Before his birth his father died, and his youth was embittered by the grudging provision made by an uncle for his education.
Though a keen lover of history and poetry, he held in high disdain the ordinary study routine and the various regulations which govern institutions, obtaining his degree from Trinity College in Ireland’s capital city only by grace of special indulgence.
Restless and resentful and unhappy, when the Revolution of 1688 drove him forth from the Emerald Isle, he sought employment in England, and while secretary to Sir William Temple, a statesman of no ordinary culture and ability, qualified himself for the literary work which has made his name famous for two centuries. Then wearying of dependence, he returned to Ireland and resolved to enter the Church.
As prelate and later as politician his name never rang with the praise which early rewarded the efforts of his pen, for as a master of “humor, irony, and invective he has no superior.”
His love affairs were disastrous and reflect only discredit upon his manhood, but to the strength of his passion for Esther Johnson, or “Stella,” whom it is contended that he secretly married but never acknowledged, and for Vanessa Miss Vanhomrigh are due the great works that immortalized them
