Page images
PDF
EPUB

ness and generosity are scattered through a long life in prodigal profusion; and not until its melancholy close, when a general softening of the brain had set in, do we discover any of those miserly inclinations and tendencies which appear so humiliating. As an instance of his benevolence, he set aside some five hundred pounds, to be lent out to the poor in small sums from five pounds to ten, without interest. Many were his acts of generosity to poor curates and destitute laboring men, and no man ever attained such popularity among the lower orders of Irish as Swift.

No man ever suffered more severely from the rank ingratitude of party. From the death of Sir William Temple to his first introduction to Lord Oxford, his time had mostly been spent in study. Under the direction of such a tutor as Sir William, in whom were blended Socratic wisdom, stoical virtue, and Epicurean elegance, his progress was exceedingly rapid, and his quick understanding rapidly expanded to its full vigor and maturity. Treated scurvily by the Whigs, he joined the Tories in the year 1710, and brought the aid of his powerful and crushing pen. It was a period of tremendous peril to the nation. As he describes it in one of his letters written at the time: "The kingdom is certainly ruined, as much as any bankrupt merchant. We must have

a peace, let it be a bad or a good one. The ministry is upon

a very narrow bottom, and stands like an isthmus between the Whigs on one side and the Tories on the other. They are able seamen, but the tempest is too violent, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them." He took charge of The Examiner, a periodical published in support of the ministry, and here having with ease foiled all his opponents in this skirmishing way of fighting, he returned to prepare for the general engagement expected at the opening of the political campaign, and which was likely to prove decisive as to the fate of the two parties. Swift at this time appears thoroughly to have understood his employers, for we find him, the next year after the engagement of his services, writing to Stella thus: "The ministry are good, honest, hearty fellows. I use them like dogs, because I expect they will use me so. They call me nothing but Jonathan, and I said I believed

they would leave me Jonathan as they found me. I never knew a minister to do any thing for those they make companions of their pleasures-and I expect to find it so; but I care not." Swift was undoubtedly right: familiarity, while it could not breed contempt in a man of his splendid intellect, could bring forth neglect; and it interfered with his promotion, whenever mentioned. Harley or Bolingbroke, whenever it was alluded to, would laugh it off, and say, Why, Jonathan, we could not spare you; you are entirely too useful; your place could never be supplied." He found at last, to his cost, the sad truth of those lines of Spenser's, how hard it was in suing long to bide

66

"To lose good days that might be better spent,
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow."

That he used great freedom with the ministry in his intercourse, we have ample evidence in his reminding them of their faults and omissions, sometimes in a serious, sometimes in a jocose way, as opportunity offered. As an instance of this familiarity, on one occasion Swift had received a present of a curious snuff-box from Col. Hill, beautifully painted, with a variety of figures, which he showed to Lord Oxford, who, having examined the workmanship, spied a figure resembling a goose studded on the outside. Turning to Swift, he said: "Jonathan, I think the Colonel has made a goose of you." ""Tis true, my lord," replied Swift, "but if you will look a little further, you will see I am driving a snail before me," which, indeed, happened to be the device. "This is severe enough, Jonathan," said the peer, "but I deserved it."

After laboring incessantly with his pen, and aiding by the suggestions of his rare wisdom, sometimes acting the part of a mediator to heal the breaches of contention, but always rushing forward in defense where the blows fell thickest, and the danger was the greatest, Swift, finding a breach between the ministers irreconcilable, resolved to retire to his deanery in Ireland:

"By faction tired, with grief he waits awhile,
His great contending friends to reconcile,
Performs what friendship, justice, truth require,
What could he more, but decently retire ?"

In that scathing, sarcastic pamphlet, "Some Free Thoughts upon the Present State of Affairs," issued just after his retirement from all connection with the ministry, he does not spare the knife; and, from the whole drift of the pamphlet, it is plain that he had discovered that both Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke had long lost sight of the public interests which had so strongly united them, and now had no other object in view but that of gratifying each his individual ambition. They were in the condition of Pompey and Cæsar, whereof the one could not bear an equal, nor the other a superior. The death of the queen put an end to Swift's hopes of any further preferment, and he returned to his deanery in Ireland, where he remained many years. It was while in this retirement that he wrote the celebrated Drapier letters alluded to above, and which were so terribly caustic and severe upon the government, that they offered a reward of three hundred pounds for the discovery of the author. The talents of Swift never appeared in a more favorable light than in these Drapier letters. He saw that a plan was formed by the British ministry to bring Ireland to the utmost distress. He could perceive no other mode of preventing the evil, than raising such a spirit in the whole body of the Irish people as would make them resolve on no account to receive the obnoxious coin. These letters professed to be the work of an honest shopkeeper of plain common sense, who started out in his sphere to commence writing upon the imminent danger with which Ireland was threatened. Easily comprehended as these writings appeared to be by the most common understanding, upon a careful examination they will be found to be characterized by the most consummate skill and art, and whoever should attempt to imitate them would be compelled to exclaim with Horace :

"Sudet multum, frustraque laboret
Quivis speret idem."

He was

The popularity of Swift became now assured. hailed as the unflinching patriot, the liberator of his country. Wherever he moved, evidences of this popularity met his eye. Medals were struck with the Drapier's head; his portrait was to be seen everywhere. He returned to England shortly

after the issuing of these letters, when he published the farfamed Gulliver's Travels, which extended his literary reputation, but brought him no political advancement.

The first evidence we have of the commencement of the disease which eventually reduced him to hopeless im becility, I have always thought, was traceable in a letter to Lord Bolingbroke, in which he says: "But you think as I ought to think, it is time for me to have done with the world; and so I should if I could get into a better, before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole." Swift had always a great apprehension of dying insane, and on one occasion, while walking out with Doctor Young, about a mile from Dublin, the doctor noticed him gazing intently at a lofty elm, whose top had been blasted by a lightning stroke. "There," said he, "Doctor, I shall be like that tree. I shall die first at the top." And so he did. Charity would draw its mantle round the last sad scene,. "When Swift expired a driveler and a show."

II.

MAJOR-GENERAL ALEXANDER SHALER.

A REPUBLICAN form of government is the best adapted to produce striking examples of virtue in individuals; hence, in the United States, so many generals, statesmen, and rulers, spring from the working class. All men admire that integrity of character, bravery, and indomitable perseverance which, overcoming every obstacle, grasps at last the crown of success. The story of the life of Alexander Shaler is not unlike that of many men who have risen from humble positions to those of trust and high honor. The son of Captain Ira Shaler, a man engaged in the West India trade, he was born in the town of Haddam, Connecticut, in March, 1827. With the exception of a few terms at a private school in New York City, his education was obtained at the Brainard Academy in Haddam. In the fall of 1834 his father abandoned his seafaring occupation, and, removing with his family to the City of New York, became a stonecutter, engaged in working the

blue-stone quarries along the western shore of the Hudson River. The son worked with his father in the quarry, cutting out with his own hands flagging stones for the sidewalks of the metropolis, many of which he placed in their final positions, where they are to-day pressed by the feet of thousands who throng the streets of the lower end of the city.

In his youth Alexander was a tall, spare boy, not possessing a very robust constitution, but the vigorous out-of-door exercise which he obtained as a stonecutter developed muscular tissue, with a corresponding amount of nerve force and a love for active employment, which, in his future military career, proved to be essential aids. He gradually rose from the position of stonecutter to the control of the business, which had grown to be extensive and profitable, and at the time of the commencement of the rebellion he stood at the head of three business houses, two of which were in Hoboken, N. J., while the other was in New York City. The house of Shaler, Gardner & Co. was a large contracting firm, for road building, paving, blasting, and the construction of public works. Under the superintendence of Mr. Shaler, the Palisade Avenue, in the City of Hudson, N. J., was graded and built, various streets and avenues in Newark and Belleville were made, and the extensive excavations in solid rock were executed for the large brewery at Güttenberg, which forms such a prominent feature in the scenery of the lower Hudson.

General Shaler's military life commenced in 1845, when he enlisted as a private in the fifth company of the Washington Greys, then the Third Regiment of New York Artillery, and now the Eighth Regiment of New York Infantry. He served over two years in this company, when, in 1848, he was transferred to the second company of the Seventh Regiment National Guard, where in a few months he was elected first lieutenant. In 1850 he was made captain, which position he held until 1860, when he became major of the regiment, having before repeatedly declined promotions. For five or six years he was a resident of Hoboken, N. J., during which time he was colonel of the First Regiment of the Hudson Brigade, holding that position while captain of the second company of the New York Seventh. He resigned the colo

« PreviousContinue »