open to adulation, and would not, or could not, diftinguish between low flattery and just applause. • His abilities rendered him fuperior to envy. He was undifguifed, and perfectly fincere. I am in-duced to think that he entered into orders, more ⚫ from fome private and fixed resolution, than from ⚫ abfolute choice: Be that as it may, he performed the duties of the church with great punctuality, ⚫ and a decent degree of devotion. He read prayers, rather in a ftrong nervous voice, than in a graceful manner; and although he has been often ⚫ accufed of irreligion, nothing of that kind appear⚫ed in his converfation or behaviour. His cast of • mind induced him to think and fpeak more of politics than religion. His perpetual views were directed towards power; and his chief aim was to be removed to England: But when he found ⚫ himself entirely disappointed, he turned his thoughts to oppofition, and became the Patron ' of Ireland.'

Mrs. Pilkington has reprefented him as a tyrant in his family, and has discovered in him a violent propenfion to be abfolute in every company where he was. This difpofition, no doubt, made him more feared than loved; but as he had the most unbounded vanity to gratify, he was pleased with the fervility and awe with which inferiors approached him. He may be resembled to an eastern monarch, who takes delight in furveying his flaves, trembling at his approach, and kneeling with reverence at his feet.

Had Swift been born to regal honours, he would doubtless have bent the necks of his people to the yoke: As a fubject, he was restless and turbulent; and though as lord Orrery fays, he was above corruption, yet that virtue was certainly founded on his pride, which difdained every measure, and spurned every effort in which he himself was not the principal.

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He was certainly charitable, though it had an unlucky mixture of oftentation in it. One particular act of his charity (not mentioned, except by Mrs. Pilkington, in any account of him yet published) is well worthy of remembrance, praife, and imitation: He appropriated the fum of five-hundred pounds intirely to the ufe of poor tradefmen and handicraftsmen, whofe honefty and industry, he thought merited affiftance, and encouragement: This he lent to them in small loans, as their exigencies required, without any intereft; and they repaid him at fo much per week, or month, as their different circumstances beft enabled them.. -To the wealthy let us fay

"Abi tu et fac fimiliter."

Mrs.

Mrs. CONSTANTIA GRIERSON.

T

HIS lady was born in Ireland; and, as Mrs. Barber judiciously remarks, was one of the most extraordinary women that either this age, or perhaps any other, ever produced. She died in the year 1733, at the age of 27, and was allowed long before to be an excellent scholar, not only in Greek and Roman literature, but in hiftory, divinity, philofophy, and mathematics.

Mrs. Grierfon (fays fhe) gave a proof of her knowledge in the Latin tongue, by her dedi⚫cation of the Dublin edition of Tacitus to the lord Carteret, and by that of Terence to his fon, to whom the likewife wrote a Greek epigram. She wrote feveral fine poems in Englifh *, on which fhe fet fo little value, that the ⚫ neglected to leave copies behind her of but very • few.

• What makes her character the more remarkable. is, that she rofe to this eminence of learning merely by the force of her own genius, and ⚫ continual application. She was not only happy in a fine imagination, a great memory, an ex⚫cellent understanding, and an exact judgment,

but had all these crowned by virtue and piety: 'fhe was too learned to be vain, too wife to be

*Mrs. Barber has preferved feveral fpecimens of her talent in this way, which are printed with her own poems.

conceited, too knowing and too clear-fighted to ⚫ be irreligious.

If heaven had fpared her life, and bleffed her with health, which fhe wanted for fome years before her death, there is good reafon to think the would have made as great a figure in the ⚫ learned world, as any of her fex are recorded to ⚫ have done.

As her learning and abilities raised her above • her own fex, fo they left her no room to envy any; on the contrary, her delight was to fee others excel. She was always ready to advise and • direct those who applied to her, and was herself willing to be advised.

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So little did the value herself upon her uncommon excellences, that it has often recalled to my mind a fine reflexion of a French author, That great geniuses should be fuperior to their own abilities.

I perfwade myself that this short account of fo extraordinary a woman, of whom much more might have been faid, will not be disagreeable to my readers; nor can I omit what I think is greatly to the lord Carteret's honour, that when he was lord lieutenant of Ireland, he obtained a patent for Mr. Grierfon, her husband, to be the King's Printer, and to diftinguifh and reward her uncommon merit, had her life inferted in it.' Thus far Mrs. Barber. We fhall now fubjoin Mrs. Pilkington's account of this wonderful genius.

About two years before this, a young woman (afterwards married to Mr. Grierfon) of about eighteen years of age, was brought to my father * to be by him inftructed in Midwifry: fhe was mittrefs of Hebrew †, Greek, Latin,

* Dr. Van Lewen of Dublin, an eminent phyfician and man-midwife.

† Her knowledge of the Hebrew is not mentioned by Mrs. Barber.

⚫ and

and French, and understood the mathematics as ⚫ well as moft men and what made these extraordinary talents yet more furprizing was, that her parents were poor, illiterate, country people : fo that her learning appeared like the gift pour⚫ed out on the apoftles, of fpeaking all languages 'without the pains of ftudy; or, like the intui⚫tive knowledge of angels: yet inasmuch as the power of miracles is ceafed, we must allow she 'ufed human means for fuch great and excellent acquirements. And yet, in a long friendship and familiarity with her, I could never obtain a fatisfactory account from her on this head; only the 'faid, he had received fome little instruction from the minister of the parish, when she could fpare time from her needle-work, to which the was ⚫ closely kept by her mother. She wrote elegantly both in verfe and profe, and fome of the most delightful hours I ever paffed were in the con• verfation of this female philofopher.

·

• My father readily confented to accept of her as a pupil, and gave her a general invitation to his table; fo that she and I were feldom afunder. 'My parents were well pleased with our intimacy,

as her piety was not inferior to her learning. 'Her turn was chiefly to philofophical or divine • fubjects; yet could her heavenly mufe defcend from its fublime height to the eafy epiftolary ftile, ⚫ and fuit itself to my then gay difpofition *.'

* Vide Mrs. PILKINGTON'S MEMOIRS, Vol. I.