teen pounds, to enable the boy to finish the year; which if he had done, he would have been removed to a higher class, and, in another year, would have been sped off (that is the phrase) to a fellowship in Oxford or Cambridge: but the doctor was forced to recall him to Dublin, and had friends in our university to send him there, where he has been chosen of the foundation; and, I think, has gotten an exhibition, and designs to stand for a fellowship. The Doctor had a good church living, in the south parts of Ireland, given him by lord Carteret; who, being very learned himself, encourages it in others. A friend of the Doctor's prevailed on his excellency to grant it. The living was well He changed it very worth 150l. per annum. soon for that of Dunboyn; which, by the knavery of the farmers, and power of the gentlemen, fell so very low, that he could never get 801. He then changed that living for the free school of Cavan, where he might have lived well, in so cheap a country, on 80 salary per annum, beside his scholars: but the air, he said, was too moist and unwholesome, and he could not bear the company of some persons in that neighbourhood. Upon this he sold the school for about 4001. spent the money, grew into disease, and died. It would be very honourable, as well as just, in those many persons of quality and fortune, who had the advantage of being educated under Dr. Sheridan, if they would please to erect some decent monument over his body, in the church where it is deposited. THE THE HISTORY OF THE SECOND SOLOMON*. 1729. * [* *After the affectionate manner in which the Dean had treated the memory of Dr. Sheridan in the preceding Character, there can be no need of any apology for the jeu d'esprit here preserved. It was originally published in 1775 by Deane Swift, esq.; but was omitted in the volumes edited by the late Dr. Sheridan, who seems to have avoided, as much as he could, to insert the pleasantries, however harmless, which Swift had directed against his father, Dr. Sheridan. One obnoxious passage, however, respecting the Doctor's wife, we hold it a duty still to suppress. N.] HE guished for poetical and other writings, and in an eminent station, who treated him with great kindness on all occasions, and he became familiar in this person's houset. In three months time Solomon, without the least provocation, writ a long poem, describing that person's Muse to be dead, and making a funeral solemnity with asses, owls, &c. and gave the copy among all his acquaintance. Solomon became acquainted with a most deserving lady, an intimate friend of the above person, who entertained him also as she would a brother; and, upon giving him a little good ad * Dr. Sheridan. D. S. † Dean Swift. D. S. Stella. D. S. vice in the most decent manner, with relation to his wife, he told her," She was like other women, as bad as she was; and that they were all alike." Solomon has no ill design upon any person but himself, and he is the greatest deceiver of himself on all occasions. His thoughts are sudden, and the most unreasonable always comes uppermost; and he con stantly resolves and acts upon his first thoughts, and then asks advice, but never once before. The person above mentioned, whom he lampooned in three months after their acquaintance, procured him a good preferment from the lord lieutenant*: upon going down to take possession, Solomon preached, at Corke, a sermon on king George's birth-day, on this text, "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof." Solomon having been famous for a high tory, and suspected as a jacobite, it was a most difficult thing to get any thing for him: but that person, being an old friend of lord Carteret, prevailed against all Solomon's enemies, and got him made likewise one of his excellency's chaplains. But, upon this sermon, he was struck out of the list, and forbid the Castle, until that same person brought him again to the lieutenant and made them friends. A fancy sprung in Solomon's head, that a house near Dublin would be commodious for him and his boarders, to lodge in on Saturdays and Sundays; immediately, without consulting with any creature, he takes a lease of a rotten house at Rathfarnam, the worst air in Ireland, for nine * Lord Carteret. D. S. hundred hundred and ninety-nine years, at twelve pounds a year; the land, which was only a strip of ground, not being worth twenty shillings a year. When the same person whom he lampooned heard the thing, he begged Solomon to get a clause to surrender, and at last prevailed to have it done after twenty-one years; because it was a madness to pay eleven pounds a year, for a thousand years, for a house that could not last twenty. But Solomon made an agreement with his landlady, that he should be at liberty to surrender his lease in seven years; and if he did not do it at that time, should be obliged to keep it for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. In the mean time, he expends about one hundred pounds on the house and garden-wall; and in less than three years, contracts such a hatred to the house, that he lets it run to ruin: so that, when the seven years were expired, he must either take it for the remainder of the nine hundred ninety-nine years, or be sued for waste, and lose all the money he laid out: and now he pays twelve pounds a year for a place he never sees. Solomon has an estate of about thirty-five pounds per annum, in the county of Cavan; upon which, instead of ever receiving one penny rent, he hath expended above thirty pounds per annum in buildings and plantations, which are all gone to ruin. Solomon is under-tenant to a bishop's lease; he is bound by articles to his lordship to renew and pay a fine, whenever the bishop renews with his landlord, and to raise his rent as the landlord shall raise it to the bishop. Seven years ex He pire: Solomon's landlord demands a fine, which he readily pays; then asks for a lease: the landlord says, " He may have it at any time." never gets it. Another seven years elapse: Solomon's landlord demands another fine, and an additional rent: Solomon pays both, asks to have his lease renewed: the steward answers, "He will speak to his master." Seventeen years have elapsed; the landlord sends Solomon word, "That his lease is forfeited, because he hath not renewed and paid his fines according to articles;" and now they are at law, upon this admirable case. It is Solomon's great happiness, that, when he acts in the common concerns of life against common sense and reason, he values himself thereupon, as if it were the mark of great genius, above little regards or arts, and that his thoughts are too exalted to descend into the knowledge of vulgar management; and you cannot make him a greater compliment than by telling instances to the company, before his face, how careless he was in any affair that related to his interest and fortune. He is extremely proud and captious, apt to resent as an affront and indignity what was never intended for either. He is allured as easily by every new acquaintance, especially among women, as a child is by a new play-thing; and is led at will by them to suspect and quarrel with his best friends, of whom he hath lost the greatest part, for want of that indulgence which they ought to allow for his failings. ; He |