THE WORKS OF THE REV. JONATHAN SWIFT, D. D. DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S, DUBlin. ARRANGED BY THOMAS SHERIDAN, A. M. WITH NOTES, HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. A NEW EDITION, IN TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES. CORRECTED AND REVISED BY JOHN NICHOLS, F. A. S. EDINBURGH AND PERTH. VOLUME XIV. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM DURELL AND CO. 261 : 271 351 The Answer of the Right Honourable William Pulteney, Esq. to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole, Memoirs of Captain John Creichton, A Discourse to prove the Antiquity of the English Tongue, TWELVE SERMONS, BY DR. SWIFT.* * Though the Dean's first and most laudable ambition was to excel as a preacher, he frequently declared that he had not talents for it; and therefore would not publish any Sermons, though often pressed by his friends to do it. He was, however, well attended by a crowded audience every fifth Sunday at his Cathedral, when the preaching came to his turn, which was well known in Dublin; and his Sermons are certainly curious, for such reasons as would make other works despicable. They were written in a careless hurrying manner, the offspring of necessity, not of choice: so that we see the original force of his genius more in these compositions, that were the legitimate sons of duty, than in other pieces, that were the natural sons of love. They were held in such low esteem in his own thoughts, that, some years before he died, he gave away the whole collection to Dr. Sheridan, with the utmost indifference. "Here," says he, "are a bundle of my old Sermons; you may have them if you please; they may be of use to you; they have never been of any to me." The parcel given to Dr. Sheridan consisted of about five-and-thirty Sermons. Twelve of these having come to light at different periods of time, are here collected; and a perusal of any one of them must excite a wish for those which we have not been so happy as to recover. N. VOL. XIV. |