Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/44

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INTRODUCTION

Sheen, and then at More Park[1] in Surrey, but on the advice of physicians 'who weakly imagined that his native air might be of some use to recover his health,' left him in May 1690 in order to return to Ireland.

He came back to Temple's house in the autumn of 1691 and remained with him until May 1694, when in a fit of anger he left his patron, went to Ireland in the following month, took Holy Orders four months later, and became Prebendary of Kilroot in the following year.

In May 1696 he came for the third time to Temple's house, this time as an independent man, and remained there until shortly after Temple's death, which took place on January 27, 1699. Swift was thus an inmate of Temple's house during three different periods—from the close of 1689 to May 1690; from the autumn of 1691 to May 1694; and from May 1696 to the opening of 1699. On his first visit Swift came to Temple as a poor relation;

  1. 'The two so-called Moor Parks—in Hertfordshire and Surrey—were respectively Moor Park and More Park. The house in which Temple last lived and died is written thrice in his (probably) holograph Will, and always as Moreparke, or More Parke.' See Mr Forbes Sieveking's Sir William Temple Upon the Gardens of Epicurus, &c. (pp. xx.-xxi.).