ABSTRACT
Apart from professional duties and social pleasures, Swift often undertook certain works of charity that called for discretion and are not easy to define. An example is his interceding, during the spring of 1735, to prevent a scandal in the Fitzherbert family. Arthur, the second son of William Fitzherbert, had been a pupil of Sheridan and then took a B.A. degree at Trinity College, Dublin. 1 Although he performed superlatively as a student, he alienated his parents through rude, arrogant behaviour. At twenty-one he was left to shift for himself and only given permission to dine at his father’s house.
