Singular Event
When Swift was a year old, an event happened to him that seems very
unusual; for his nurse, who was a woman of Whitehaven, being under the
absolute necessity of seeing one of her relations, who was then
extremely sick, and from whom she expected a legacy; and being extremely
fond of the infant, she stole him on shipboard unknown to his mother and
uncle, and carried him with her to Whitehaven, where he continued for
almost three years. For, when the matter was discovered, his mother sent
orders by all means not to hazard a second voyage till he could be
better able to bear it. The nurse was so careful of him that before he
returned he had learned to spell; and by the time that he was five years
old, he could read any chapter in the Bible.
After his return to Ireland he was sent at six years old to the school
of Kilkenny, from whence at fourteen he was admitted into the Dublin
University.