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St. Patrick’s Cathedral is, perhaps, the most notable building in Ireland, and one of the oldest. During the religious wars and the clashes of the clans in the early history of Ireland it was the scene and the cause of much contention and violence. Its sacred walls were originally arranged as fortifications to defend it against the savage tribes and to protect the dignitaries of the church, who resided behind embattled gates for centuries. At one time St. Patrick’s was used as a barrack for soldiers, and the verger will show you an enormous baptismal font, from which he says the dragoons used to water their horses, and the interior was fitted up for courts of law. Henry VIII. confiscated the property and revenues because the members of its chapter refused to accept the new doctrines, and nearly all of them were banished from Ireland. He abolished a small university that was attached to the cathedral by the pope in 1320 for the education of priests. For five hundred years there was a continuous quarrel between St. Patrick’s and Christ Church Cathedral, which stands only two blocks away, because of rivalries over ecclesiastical privileges, powers, and revenues. Finally a compromise was reached, under which there has since been peace between the two great churches and relations similar to those of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s in London. Christ Church is the headquarters of the episcopal see of Dublin, and St. Patrick’s is regarded as a national church. The chief reason why St. Patrick’s has such a hold upon the affections and reverence of the people is because it stands upon the site of a small wooden church erected by St. Patrick himself in the year 450 and within a few feet of a sacred spring or well at which he baptized thousands of pagans during his ministry. The exact site of the well was identified in 1901 by the discovery of an ancient Celtic cross buried in the earth a few feet from the tower of the cathedral. The cross is now exhibited in the north aisle. The floor of the church is only seven feet above the waters of a subterranean brook called the Poddle, and during the spring floods is often inundated, but in the minds of the founders the sanctity of the spot compensated for the insecure foundations.

St. Patrick’s little wooden building, which is supposed to be the first Christian sanctuary erected in Ireland, was replaced in 1191 by the present lofty cruciform edifice, three hundred feet long and one hundred and fifty-seven feet across the transepts. It was designed and erected by Comyn, the Anglo-Norman archbishop of Dublin, is supposed to have been completed in 1198, and was raised to the rank of a cathedral in 1219. There were frequent alterations and repairs during the first seven centuries of its existence, until 1864-68, when it was perfectly restored by Sir Benjamin Guinness, the great brewer, who also purchased several blocks of dilapidated slums that surrounded it, tore down the buildings, and turned the land into a park which not only affords an opportunity to see the beauties of the cathedral, but gives the poor people who dwell in that locality a playground and fresh air. Sir Benjamin purchased several of the adjoining blocks and erected upon them a series of model tenement-houses, the best in Dublin, and rents them at nominal rates to his employees and others. On the other side of the cathedral are several blocks of the most miserable tenements in the city, and sometime they also will be cleared away. A bronze statue has been erected in the churchyard as a reminder of his generosity.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin

Benjamin Guinness was the great brewer of Dublin. In 1756 one of his ancestors started a little brewing establishment down on the bank of the Liffey River in the center of the city, which has been extended from time to time until the buildings now cover an area of more than forty acres. The property and good will were transferred by the Guinness family to a stock company for $30,000,000 in 1886, and since then the plant has been enlarged until it now exceeds in extent all other breweries in the world, represents an investment of $50,000,000, and turns out an average of two thousand one hundred barrels of beer a day.

Sir Benjamin’s son, Edward Cecil Guinness, was elevated to the peerage as Lord Iveagh and is the richest man in Ireland to-day. He is highly respected, has married into the nobility, is a great favorite with the king, is generous and philanthropic, encourages and patronizes both science and athletic sports, and is said to be “altogether a very good fellow.” Another son is Lord Ardilaun, who is equally rich and popular, and owns several of the finest estates in the kingdom.

Sir Benjamin expended $1,200,000 in restoring St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Lord Iveagh, his son, added $350,000 more. The driver of the jaunting car that carried us there told me how many billion of glasses of beer those gifts represented, and made some funny remarks about all the profit being in the froth. But if all men were to make such good use of their money there would be no reason to complain.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the official seat of the Knights of St. Patrick, and their banners, helmets, and swords hang over the choir stalls, while in one of the chapels is an ancient table and a set of ancient chairs formerly used at their gatherings. Since 1869 they have met at Dublin castle. Many tattered and bullet-riddled battle flags carried by Irish regiments hang in other parts of the cathedral, and if they could tell the stories of the many brave Irishmen who have fought and perished under their silken folds, it would be more thrilling than fiction. Ireland has furnished the best fighting men in the British Army, both generals and privates, since the invasion of the Normans. The king’s bodyguard of Highlanders is now almost exclusively composed of Irish lads. In the north transept is a flag that was carried by an Irish regiment at the skirmish at Lexington at the beginning of our Revolution and at the attack on Bunker Hill. They brought it away with them to hang it here with the trophies of Irish valor of a thousand years.

St. Patrick’s is the Westminster Abbey of Ireland, and many of her most famous men are either buried within its walls or have tablets erected to their memory. John Philpott Curran, the great advocate and orator, and Samuel Lover, the song writer and novelist, whose “Handy Andy” and “Widow Machree,” are perhaps the best examples of Irish humor in literature, are honored with tablets; and Carolan, the last of the bards for whom Ireland was once so celebrated. He died in 1788. M.W. Balfe, author of that pretty little opera, “The Bohemian Girl,” and many beautiful ballads, including “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls,” has a tablet inscribed with these words:

“The most celebrated, genial and beloved of Irish musicians, commendatore of Carlos III. of Spain, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Born in Dublin, 15 May, 1808, died 20th of Oct., 1870.”

Balfe was born in a small house on Pitt Street, Dublin, which bears a tablet announcing the fact.

The man who wrote that stirring poem, “The Burial of Sir John Moore,” which begins,

“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse to the rampart we hurried,”—

lies in St. Patrick’s. His name was Charles Wolfe, and he was once the dean of the cathedral.

In the right-hand corner of the east transept is a monument to the memory of a certain dame of the time of Elizabeth, named Mrs. St. Leger. She was thirty-seven years old at the time of her death, and, her epitaph tells us, had “a strange, eventful history,” with four husbands and eight children, all of whom she made comfortable and happy.

On the other side is a tablet to commemorate the fact that Sir Edward Fitten, who died in 1579, was married at the age of twelve years and became the father of fifteen children,—nine sons and six daughters.

The famous Archbishop Whately, the gentleman who wrote the rhetoric we studied in college, and who once presided over this diocese, is buried in a stately tomb, and his effigy, beautifully carved in marble, lies upon it.

The most imposing monument of all, and one which is associated with much history and tragedy, was erected in honor of his own family by Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork, who was a great man in his day. So pretentious was the monument that Archbishop Laud ordered it removed from the cathedral. This was done by Thomas Wentworth, afterward Earl of Strafford, who was sent over by King Charles with an armed force to govern Ireland. Boyle, who had himself designed and expended a great deal of money upon “the famous, sumptuous, and glorious tomb,” which was to immortalize him and sixteen members of his family, was so indignant that he never forgave Strafford, and afterward caused the latter to be betrayed to a shameful death at the hands of his enemies.

The most interesting historic relic in the cathedral is an ancient oaken door with a large hole cut in the center of it. It bears an explanatory inscription as follows:

“In the year 1492 an angry conference was held at St. Patrick, his church, between the rival nobles, James Butler, Earl of Ormonde, and Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, the said deputies, and their armed retainers. Ormonde, in fear of his life, fled for refuge to the Chapiter House, and Kildare, pressing Ormonde to the Chapiter House door, undertooke on his honor that he should receive no villanie. Whereupon the recluse, craving his lordship’s hand to assure him his life, there was a clift in the Chapiter House door pearced at trice to the end that both Earls should shake hands and be reconciled. But Ormonde surmising that the clift was intended for further treacherie refused to stretch out his hand—” and the inscription goes on to relate that Kildare, having no such nervousness, thrust his hand through the hole and without the slightest hesitation. Ormonde shook it heartily and peace was made.

For centuries it was said that whoever might be Viceroy of Ireland it was the Earl of Kildare who governed the country. A long line of Kildares succeeded each other, and their living successor, better known as the Duke of Leinster, is now the premier of the Irish nobility, although he is still a boy, just twenty-one. Both the Kildares and the Earls of Desmond were descended from Gerald Fitzgerald, who in the thirteenth century founded that powerful clan known as the Geraldines. In the fifteenth, and at the beginning of the sixteenth, century they exercised absolute control in Ireland, and Garrett, or Gerald Fitzgerald, the eighth Earl of Kildare, known as “The Great Earl,” had greater authority than any other Irishman has ever displayed in his native island since the days of Brian Boru. At one time his daughter, wife of the Earl of Clanricarde, appealed to her father from a quarrel with her husband. The old gentleman took her part, ordered out his army, and met his son-in-law in the battle of Knockdoe, where it is said eight thousand men were slain.

Near the entrance to St. Patrick’s Cathedral is a long, narrow, brass tablet upon which are inscribed the names of the fifty-seven deans who have had ecclesiastical jurisdiction there from 1219 to 1902. The most famous in the list is that of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., author of “Gulliver’s Travels,” “The Tale of a Tub,” and other equally well-known works. He presided here for more than thirty years, and was undoubtedly the most brilliant as well as the most remarkable clergyman in the history of the diocese of Dublin. He was the greatest of all satirists, one of the most brilliant of all wits, and an all-around genius, but was entirely without moral consciousness, altogether selfish, inordinately vain, and one of the most eccentric characters in the history of literature. He was born in Dublin Nov. 30, 1667; educated at Trinity College, where he distinguished himself only by his eccentricities; was curate of two churches, and dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral for more than thirty years, although neither his manners nor his morals conformed to the standards that are fixed for clergymen in these days. He was more famous for his wit than his wisdom; for his piquancy than for piety. He spent most of his life in Dublin, died there, was buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral by the side of a woman whose life he wrecked, and left his money to found an insane asylum which is still in existence.

The house in which Jonathan Swift was born can still be seen in Hoey’s Court, which once was a popular place of residence for well-to-do people, and has several mansions of architectural pretensions, but has degenerated into a slum, one of the many that may be found in the very center of the business section of the city. He came of a good Yorkshire family; his mother had aristocratic connections and was one of those women who seem to have been born to suffer from the failings of men. His father was a shiftless adventurer, following several professions and occupations in turn without even ordinary success in any. Jonathan went to the parish schools in Kilkenny for a time when his father happened to be living in that locality, and when he was seventeen years old passed the entrance examinations to Trinity College, Dublin. He was a willful, independent, eccentric person, of a lonely and sour disposition, and refused to be bound by the rules of the university. He would not study mathematics or physics, but delighted in classical literature, and furnished many witty contributions to college literature which gave promise of genius. He wrote a play that was performed by the college students with great success. His degree was reluctantly conferred by the faculty through the influence of Sir William Temple, a famous statesman of those days, whose wife was a distant relative of Swift’s mother.

Shortly after graduation he became private secretary to Sir William Temple and attended him in London during several sessions of parliament. While there, under some influence that has never been explained in a satisfactory manner, Swift decided to enter the ministry, and took a course of theology at Oxford. After his ordination in 1695 Sir William Temple got him a living in a quiet, secluded village called Laracor, in central Ireland, near Tara, the ancient capital, in a church that long ago crumbled to ruins and has been replaced by a modern building. It was a small parish consisting of not more than ten or twelve aristocratic families, among them the ancestors of the great Duke of Wellington. The young curate’s congregation was not very regular in its attendance, and you will remember, perhaps, an amusing story, how the Rev. Mr. Swift, when he came from the vestry one Sabbath morning, found no one but the sexton, Roger Morris, in the pews. He read the service, as usual, however, and with that quaint sense of humor which cropped out in everything he did, began solemnly:

“Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places,” etc.

Coming to the conclusion that he was not fitted for parish work, Swift obtained the position of private secretary to Earl Berkeley, one of the lord justices of Ireland, but, after a while, got another church, and tried preaching again. But he spent more of his time in writing political satires than in prayer or sermonizing. He edited Sir William Temple’s speeches and wrote his biography, and went to London, where he became a member of an interesting group of politicians and pamphleteers, who supported Lord Bolingbroke. He contributed to The Tattler, The Spectator, and other publications of the time, and soon became recognized as one of the most brilliant and savage satirists and influential political writers of the day. Through political influence, and not because of his piety, he was appointed dean of St. Patrick’s, the most prominent and famous church in Dublin. He had not been in his new position long before he created a tremendous sensation and set all Ireland aflame by writing a political pamphlet signed “M.B. Drapier.”

In 1723 Walpole’s government gave to the Duchess of Kendall, the mistress of George I., a concession to supply an unlimited amount of copper coinage to Ireland, and she took William Wood, an iron manufacturer of Birmingham, into partnership. There was no mint in Dublin and no limitation in the contract, so the firm of Kendall & Wood flooded the island with new copper pence and half-pence upon which they made a profit of 40 per cent. The coins became so abundant that they lost their value. Naturally the contract created not only scandal, but an intense indignation. Many pamphlets were published and speeches were made denouncing the transaction. The most telling attack came from what purported to be an unpretentious Dublin dry goods merchant, who told in simple language the story of the coinage contract and related anecdotes of Dublin women going from shop to shop followed by carloads of copper coins from the factory of the Duchess of Kendall. He mentioned a workingman who gave a pound of depreciated pennies for a mug of ale, and declared that they were so worthless that even the beggars would not accept them.

The money was not really so much depreciated as Swift represented, but the merchants of Dublin followed the advice of the simple draper and refused to accept it any longer in trade. The government authorities made a great fuss and arrested many of the repudiators, but the grand juries refused to indict them, and on the contrary threatened to indict merchants who accepted the shameful money. The printer of the pamphlet was arrested, but never punished. The authorship became an open secret, but the authorities dared not arrest the dean, whose popularity was so great and who exercised such an extraordinary influence over the common people that they accepted whatever he said as inspired and paid him the greatest respect possible. His influence is illustrated by a story that is related about a crowd which blocked the street around St. Patrick’s Cathedral one night to watch for an eclipse of the moon, and obstructed traffic, but promptly dispersed when he sent one of his servants to tell them that the eclipse had been postponed by his orders. He wrote “Gulliver’s Travels” about this period of his life in the deanery of St. Patrick’s, which was a part of what is now the barracks of the Dublin police force. The present deanery, a modern building near by, contains portraits of Swift and other of the fifty-seven clergymen who have served as deans of St. Patrick’s.

About the same time he wrote another masterpiece of satire upon the useless and impractical measures of charity for the poor adopted by the government. It was entitled:

A MODEST PROPOSAL

FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF

POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND

FROM BEING A BURDEN TO

THEIR PARENTS BY

FATTENING AND EATING THEM.

He wrote several bitter satires on ecclesiastical matters, which would have caused his separation from the deanery under ordinary circumstances, but the archbishop as well as the civil authorities was afraid of his caustic pen. In discussing the bishops of the Church of Ireland at one time he declared that they were all impostors. He asserted that the government always sent English clergymen of character and piety to Ireland, but they were always murdered on their way by the highwaymen of Hounslow Heath and other brigands, who put on their robes, traveled to Dublin, presented their credentials, and were installed in their places over the several dioceses of Ireland.

In 1729 the parliament of Ireland was installed in the imposing structure that stands in the center of the city of Dublin opposite the main buildings of Trinity College. Although the people had been demanding home rule and a legislature of their own for years, the new parliament soon lost its popularity. Its action provoked the hostility of the fickle people and it was attacked on all sides for everything it did. Swift took his customary part in the criticisms and christened the parliament “The Goose Pie” because, as he said, the chamber had a crust in the form of a dome-shaped roof and it was not remarkable for the intellect or knowledge of its members.

One of his lampoons, directed at parliament under the name of “The Legion Club,” begins as follows:

“As I stroll the city, oft I

See a building large and lofty,

Not a bow-shot from the college,

Half the globe from sense and knowledge.

Tell us what the pile contains?

Many a head that holds no brains.

Such assemblies you might swear

Meet when butchers bait a bear.

Such a noise and such haranguing

When a brother thief is hanging.”

This does not sound very dignified for the dean of a cathedral, but it was characteristic of Swift.

He became a physical and mental wreck in 1742 and died an imbecile from softening of the brain Oct. 9, 1745. His will, written before his mind gave way, was itself a satire, and appropriately left his slender fortune to found an insane asylum. The original copy may be seen in the public records office in a beautiful great building known as the Four Courts, the seat of the judiciary of Ireland, where the archives of the government are kept. The insane asylum is still used for that purpose and is known as St. Patrick’s Hospital for Lunatics. It stands near the enormous brewery of the Guinness company. It was the first of the kind in Ireland, and was built when the insane were restrained by shackles, handcuffs, and iron bars, but more humane modern methods of treatment were introduced long ago and it is considered a model institution. The corridors are three hundred and forty-five feet long by fourteen feet wide, with little cells or bedrooms opening upon them. Swift’s writing desk is preserved in the institution.

His whimsicalities are illustrated in the cathedral more than anywhere else and among them is the “Schomberg epitaph,” found in the north aisle to the left of the choir, chiseled in large letters upon a slab of marble. Duke Schomberg, who commanded the Protestant army of King William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne, and was killed toward the end of that engagement, July, 1690, was buried in St. Patrick’s at the time of his death, but his grave remained unmarked. His bones were discovered, however, in 1736, during some repairs, while Swift was dean of the cathedral. In order that their ancestor’s character and achievements might be properly recognized and called to the attention of posterity, Swift applied to the head of the Schomberg family for fifty pounds to pay the expense of a memorial, which they declined to contribute. Then Swift, whose indignation was excited, paid for the slab himself and punished them by recording upon it in Latin that the cathedral authorities, having entreated to no purpose the heirs of the great marshal to set up an appropriate memorial, this tablet had been erected that posterity might know where the great Schomberg lies.

“The fame of his valor,” he adds, “is much more appreciated by strangers than by his kinsmen.”

Upon the other farther side of the church, between the tombs of the Right Honorable Lady Elizabeth, Viscountess Donneraile, and Archbishop Whately, the gentleman who wrote the rhetoric we studied at college, is buried the body of an humble Irishman, who was Dean Swift’s body servant for a generation. He was eccentric but loyal, and as witty as his master. One morning the dean, getting ready for a horseback ride, discovered that his boots had not been cleaned, and called to Sandy:

“Why didn’t you clean these boots?”

“It hardly pays to do so, sir,” responded Sandy, “they get muddy so soon again.”

“Put on your hat and coat and come with me to ride,” said the dean.

“I haven’t had my breakfast,” said Sandy.

“There’s no use in eating; you’ll be hungry so soon again,” retorted the dean, and Sandy had to follow him in a mad gallop into the suburbs of Dublin without a mouthful.

When they were three or four miles away they met an old friend who asked them where they were going so early. Before the dean could answer, Sandy replied:

“We’re going to heaven, sir; the dean’s praying and meself is fasting; both of us for our sins.”

The epitaph of Sandy in St. Patrick’s Cathedral reads as follows:

HERE LIES THE BODY OF

ALEXANDER MAGEE,

SERVANT TO DR. SWIFT, DEAN

OF ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL,

DUBLIN.

His Grateful Master Caused This Monument to Be Erected in Memory of His Discretion, Fidelity and Diligence in That Humble Station.

That long-suffering woman known as Stella, whose relations with Dean Swift have been discussed for a century and a half, and are still more or less of a mystery, was Mrs. Hester (sometimes spelled Esther) Johnson, a relative of Sir William Temple, whose private secretary Jonathan Swift, her inconstant and selfish lover, was for several years. Swift called her “Stella” because her name, “Hester,” is the Persian for “star,” and first met her while he was curate of a little village church at Laracor, where she lived with a Mrs. Dingley, a companion or chaperon, who seemed to be always by her side, whether she was in Dublin or London. From the beginning of their acquaintance she shared the inner life of Swift and exercised an extraordinary influence over him. When he left Laracor for London to become the private secretary of Sir William Temple their remarkable correspondence commenced, and he wrote her a daily record of his life, his thoughts, his whims, and his fancies. Those letters have been published under the title of “Swift’s Journal to Stella,” and the book has been described as “a giant’s playfulness, written for one person’s private pleasure, which has had indestructible attractiveness for every one since.”

She followed him to London and, when he became dean of St. Patrick’s, returned with him to Dublin and lived near the deanery with Mrs. Dingley as her chaperon until her death. But Swift was not true to her. This eminent author and satirist, this merciless critic of the shortcomings of others, this doctor of divinity, this dean of the most prominent cathedral in Ireland, had numerous flirtations with other women, and Stella must have known of them, although there is no evidence that her loyal heart ever wavered in its devotion.

In 1694 he fell desperately in love with a Miss Varing, but seems to have escaped without any damage to himself or his reputation, although we do not know what happened to her. A few years later he became involved in an entanglement with a Miss Van Homrigh, which ruined her life and effectually destroyed his peace of mind. The character of their acquaintance is shown by a series of poems which passed between them as her passion developed, and he allowed it to drift on uninterrupted from day to day, evidently giving her encouragement by tongue as well as pen. His poetical communications to her were signed “Cadenus,” the Latin word for dean, and hers were signed “Vanessa,” a combination of her Christian and surname.

It was not a very dignified situation for the dean of St. Patrick’s, and the flirtation caused a decided scandal in Dublin. It appears that Vanessa expected Swift to marry her and he undoubtedly gave her good reasons, while Mrs. Johnson was regarded as his mistress to the day of her death and bore the odium with uncomplaining resignation. Long after both of them were buried under the tiles of St. Patrick’s Cathedral it was discovered that they had been secretly married in 1716, but why she consented to keep that fact a secret has never been explained except upon the theory that she was afraid of what Vanessa Van Homrigh might do. The latter, however, having lost her patience and becoming hysterical with jealousy, wrote to Stella, inquiring as to the real nature of her relations with Swift and demanding that she should relinquish her claims upon him. Stella replied promptly by sending Vanessa indisputable evidence that they had been married seven years before. Vanessa, who lived at Marley Abbey, Celbridge (now Hazelhatch Station), ten miles from Dublin, on the railway to Cork, sent Stella’s letter to Swift and retired to the house of a friend in the country, where she died a few months later of a broken heart. Swift never replied; he never saw her or communicated with her after that day, and seems to have dismissed the affair with the same indifference that he always showed concerning the interests of other people.

Five years later Stella died and was buried in the cathedral at midnight by Swift’s orders, but he did not attend the funeral. She lived in the neighborhood of the deanery, and from one of its windows he witnessed the passage of the casket to the tomb. “This is the night of the funeral,” he writes in his diary, “and I moved into another apartment that I may not see the light in the church, which is just over against the window of my bed chamber.” He then sat down at his desk and described her devotion and her love for himself and her virtues in language of incomparable beauty. His tribute, written at that moment, is one of the most beautiful passages in English literature. He preserved a lock of her hair upon which he inscribed the words:

“Only a woman’s hair!”

“Only a woman’s hair!” comments Thackeray. “Only love, fidelity, purity, innocence, beauty; only the tenderest heart in the world, stricken and wounded, and pushed away out of the reach of joy with the pangs of hope deferred. Love insulted and pitiless desertion. Only that lock of hair left, and memory, and remorse for the guilty, lonely, selfish wretch, shuddering over the grave of his victim.”

Swift’s extraordinary vanity is illustrated in the inscription he placed over Hester Johnson’s grave and his selfishness by his neglect to vindicate her reputation by announcing their marriage. The mistress of a dean is not usually buried in a cathedral over which he presides, but no one has ever questioned the right of Stella’s dust to be there. Her epitaph, which was written by his own pen, runs:

“Underneath is interred the mortal remains of Mrs. Hester Johnson, better known to the world by the name of Stella, under which she was celebrated in the writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift, dean of this cathedral.

“She was a person of extraordinary endowments and accomplishments in body, mind, and behavior; justly admired and respected by all who knew her on account of her many eminent virtues, as well as for her great natural and acquired perfections.

“She died Jan. 27, 1727, in the forty-sixth year of her age, and by her will bequeathed £1,000 toward the support of the hospital founded in this city by Dr. Steevens.”

Although Swift did his best work after Stella’s death, he was never himself again. He became sour, morose, and misanthropic. His soul burned itself out with remorse. The last four years of his life were inexpressibly sad, and the retribution he deserved came from inward rather than outward causes. He was harassed by periodical attacks of acute dementia, to which his wonderful brain gradually yielded, and before his death he became an utter imbecile. He seemed to anticipate and prepare himself for such a fate, because among his papers was found his will, in which he bequeathed his entire estate to found an asylum for just such creatures as he himself became. He prepared his own epitaph, which reads as follows:

“Hic Depositum est Corpus.

Jonathan Swift, S.T.P.

Hujus, ecclesiae cathedrae decani ubi saeva

Indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit.

Abi viator, et imitare, si poteris,

Strenuum pro virili libertatis vindiceim.”

A liberal translation reads: “Here is deposited the body of Jonathan Swift, dean of this cathedral, where cruel indignation can no longer lacerate the heart. Go, stranger, and imitate, if you can, his strenuous endeavors in defense of liberty.”

The vault in which the two bodies rest has been twice disturbed during repairs of the cathedral, in 1835, when casts of their skulls were taken, and in 1882, when a new floor was laid. It is now marked by a modest tablet of tiles near the south entrance to the cathedral. Upon a bracket near by is a bust of Swift contributed by Mr. Faulkner, the nephew and successor of his original publisher.

Many anecdotes are told of Swift’s peculiarities. He must have filled a large place in the life of Dublin during the thirty years that he was the dean of the cathedral. He was prominent in political, social, and ecclesiastical affairs during all that period and always welcome as a guest at the houses of the aristocracy in this neighborhood. In the suburb of Glasnevin was an estate called Hildeville, belonging to a generous but pretentious patron of the arts and sciences, named Dr. Delany, where the brilliant minds of that day used to gather for a good time. Swift is closely associated with the place and was one of Dr. Delany’s most frequent and regular visitors. He called it “Hell-Devil,” and chose for its motto “Fastigia Despicet Urbis,” in which the verb is used in a double sense.

Many of his most stinging satires were written there, including his ferocious libel on the Irish parliament. A reward was offered for the discovery of the author, and although a hundred members of the commons knew that it was from Swift’s pen, no attempt was ever made to punish him and he was never even denounced publicly. And he wasn’t above ridiculing his host, for here is an extract from an ode addressed to Dr. Delany of “Hell-Devil,” when he was the latter’s guest:

“A razor, though to say ’t I’m loath,

Might shave you and your meadow both,

A little rivulet seems to steal

Along a thing you call a vale,

Like tears adown a wrinkled cheek,

Like rain along a blade of leek—

And this you call your sweet meander,

Which might be sucked up by a gander,

Could he but force his rustling bill

To scoop the channel of the rill.

In short, in all your boasted seat,

There’s nothing but yourself is—great.”

“Is it singin’ yees want?” said the verger of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, when we entered that ancient sanctuary shortly before the hour for worship on a gloomy, drizzly Sabbath morning. “Then yees have come to the roight place. The choir of Christ Church is the finest in all Ireland, and mebbe in the whole wurrld, I dunno. Thay’s twinty-four b’ys and min, and every mother’s son iv thim is from the first families of Dooblin. The lads has been singin’ frum their cradles, and they make the swatest music that ears ever heard; blessed be the Lord! Not as if they had no mischief in thim, for b’ys will be b’ys, singin’ or no singin’; and thim that has the medals hangin’ on their chists is the best behaved and the least mischaveous.”

We remained after the service to look about, and when the verger asked what I thought of the sermon I told him.

“It’s not of much consequence!” observed the cynic. And when I told him that the singing wasn’t much better than the preaching, and that the boys sang out of tune, he replied apologetically:

“I hope your honor won’t think the liss of thim for that; they’re all honest, well-meaning lads, an’ what harm is it at all, at all, if they do sing out of chune betimes?”

Christ Church is one of the oldest structures in Ireland, was originally erected in 1038 by the Danish king Sigtryg, “Of the Silken Beard,” and in 1152 was made the seat of the archbishop of Dublin. In 1172 Strongbow, the Welch Earl of Pembroke, leader of the Norman invasion, swept away the original building to make room for the present edifice, which was fifty years in building. The present nave, transepts, and crypt are those that Strongbow erected, having been thoroughly repaired and restored by Henry Roe, a wealthy distiller, at a cost of £220,000, between 1870 and 1878. In 1178 Strongbow died of a malignant ulcer of the foot, which his enemies attributed to the vengeance of the early Irish saints whose shrines he had violated, and he is buried within the church he built. His black marble tomb is on the south side, with a recumbent effigy in chain armor lying upon the sarcophagus. A smaller effigy in black marble, representing the upper half of a human form, lies beside him and is said to mark the tomb of Strongbow’s son, whom his father literally cut in half with his mighty sword for showing cowardice in battle. Sir Henry Sidney, who discussed the question at length in 1571, declares that there is no doubt that the remains of Strongbow were deposited here, but there is another tomb, with a similar effigy of one-half of his son lying beside it, in an ancient church at Waterford, where Strongbow dwelt in a castle and made his headquarters. The claims of the Waterford tomb are considered much stronger than those of Christ Church in Dublin, because that was where he died and where his wife and family lived after him.

The interior of the church has many points of beauty, especially the splendid stone work of the nave and aisles and the graceful arches which, although very massive, are chiseled with such delicacy that their heaviness does not appear. The floor is covered with modern tiles which are exact copies of the originals, and in the restoration of the building the architect has shown similar conscientiousness in all his work. The great age of the stone gives it a rich and mellow tone, and although here and there one may come across evidences of decay or damage, it is in better condition than most of the modern churches of Ireland.

Across the street and connected by a bridge with the cathedral is the Synod Hall, the headquarters of the general synod, which has control of the affairs of the Episcopal Church of Ireland since it was separated from the Church of England and made independent of the state by an act of parliament July 26, 1869. This was called “The Disestablishment”—a long and awkward word—but such words are common in English and Irish official literature. It is often difficult for an American to understand the meaning of the terms used in acts of parliament and reports of the officials of the government.