Deane Swift

Swift, Deane, the grandson of Godwin Swift, Jonathan Swift's uncle, was born about 1707. The Dean, in a letter to Pope, dated 28th April 1739, thus recommends him: "This cousin of mine, who is so desirous to wait on you, is named Deane Swift, because his great grandfather .. was Admiral Deane, who, having been one of the regicides, had the good fortune to save his neck by dying a year or two before the Restoration. I have a great esteem for Mr. Deane Swift, who is much the most valuable of any of his family: he was first a student in this University [Dublin], and finished his studies at Oxford... He has a true spirit for liberty, and is a perfect master, equally skilled in the best Greek and Roman authors." In 1755 he published an essay on the life of Jonathan Swift, and ten years afterwards contributed two volumes to Hawkesworth's edition of his great relative's Life and Writings. Neither of these works is of much value. Mr. Forster, in his Life of Swift, speaks of "The entire untrustworthiness of all Mr. Deane Swift's family flourishes" — "One of the few passages worth preserving from Mr. Deane Swift's dull and incoherent essay." Deane Swift died in Worcester, 12th July 1783. [His son Theophilus, who inherited estates in the County of Limerick, and died in 1815, was the author of several miscellaneous works of small merit. His grandson, Deane, was a writer in the Press, one of the organs of the United Irishmen, and was proscribed in the Fugitive Bill of 1798. He was living in Dublin in 1858.]

Sources

16. Authors, Dictionary of British and American: S. Austin Allibone. 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1859-'71.

146. Gentleman's Magazine. London, 1731-1868.
Gilbert, John T., see Nos. 110, 335.

320. Swift, Jonathan, Life of: John Forster. London, 1875.

321. Swift, Jonathan, Works, with Notes, and Life: Sir Walter Scott. 19 vols. Edinburgh, 1824.

331. United Irishmen, their Lives and Times: Robert R. Madden, M.D. 4 vols. London, 1858-'60.