2i2 Anecdotes and Remarks
sinking into that morbid idiocy which only terminated with his life, and was saving every shilling to found his hospital for lunatics J ; but his application was refused with so little delicacy, as left in Dr. Madden a rooted dislike to Swift's character, which he communicated to Johnson, whose friendship he gained on the following occasion: Dr. Madden wished to address some person of high rank, in prose or verse ; and, desirous of having his composition examined and corrected by some writer of superior talents, had been recommended to Johnson, who was at that time in extreme indigence ; and having finished his task, would probably have thought himself well rewarded with a guinea or two, when, to his great surprise, Dr. Madden generously slipped ten guineas into his hand 2 . This made such an impression on Johnson, as led him to adopt every opinion of Dr. Madden, and to resent, as warmly as himself, Swift's rough refusal of the contribution ; after which the latter could not decently request any favour from the University of Dublin. (Page 81.)
[' I am to mention (writes Bos well, Life, iv. 395) that Johnson's conduct, after he came to London and associated with Savage, was not so strictly virtuous in one respect as when he was a younger man. ... He owned to many of his friends that he
J. W. Stubbs's Hist. Univ. Dublin, ' He gave the little wealth he had
pp. 198, 200. In 1740 Madan set To build a house for fools and mad ;
afoot a premium scheme for the en- And showed by one satiric touch
couragement of inventions in Ireland. No nation wanted it so much.'
Gentleman's Magazine, 1740, p. 94 ; Ib. xi. 255.
Life, i. 318. It was in 1745 that he 2 'When Dr. Madden came to
published his Boulter's Monument. London, he submitted that work
Ib. It was in 1739 that Swift was [Boulter's Monument} to my casti-
asked to get Johnson the degree of gation ; and I remember I blotted
Master of Arts of Dublin. Percy a great many lines, and might have
makes a strange confusion in his blotted many more, without making
'real cause.' the poem worse. However, the
1 Swift left the bulk of his pro- Doctor was very thankful, and very
perty to found a lunatic asylum in generous, for he gave me ten guineas,
Dublin. Works, ed. 1803, xxiv. 236. which was to me at that time a great
He ended his Verses on the Death of sum' Life, i. 318. The work was
Dr. Swift, written fourteen years ' A Panegyrical Poem' in memory of
before his end, by saying : Archbishop Boulter. See/^r/, p. 267.
used
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