THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. A NEW EDITION IN TWELVE VOLUMES. WITH AN ESSAY ON HIS LIFE AND GENIUS, BY ARTHUR MURPHY, Esq. VOLUME THE EIGHTH. LONDON: PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON; G. AND W. NICOL; T. EGERTON; SWIFT. AN account of Dr. Swift has been already collected, with great diligence and acuteness, by Dr. Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be expected to say much of a life, concerning which I had long since communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with so much elegance of language and force of sentiment. JONATHAN SWIFT was, according to an account said to be written by himself*, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin on St. Andrew's day, 1667: according to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman, who was minister of a parish in Herefordshiret. During his life the place of his birth was undetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the Irish; but would occasionally call himself an Englishman. The question may, without much regret, be left in the obscurity in which he delighted to involve it. * Mr. Sheridan in his Life of Swift observes, that this account was really written by the Dean, and now exists in his own handwriting in the library of Dublin College. R. + Spence's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 273. |