Okay, let's unpack this. When you think of Jonathan
Swift, what is the very first image that pops
into your head? Oh, that's easy. If you're like
99 % of the population, I'm willing to bet it's
a genuine man tied down by hundreds of tiny little
ropes surrounded by miniature people. That is
the enduring image. Gulliver's Travels. It's
likely the only thing most people know about
him. Right. They see it as a whimsical children's
story. Maybe they've seen the Jack Black movie
or a cartoon adaptation. You know, it's just
ingrained in the culture as a kind of fairy tale.
Exactly. But here is where it gets really interesting
and, frankly, a little dark. The man who wrote
that story wasn't some kindly old grandfather
figure spinning yarns by the fireplace. Not even
close. He was a political power broker who could
topple governments with a single pass. He was
a clergyman who was accused of being a madman.
And he was arguably the greatest troll, if I
can use that modern term, in the history of the
English language. Troll is actually a surprisingly
accurate description, though he did it with a
quill pen rather than a keyboard. He mastered
the art of the hoax long before the Internet
even existed. He really did. But to view him
just as a prankster, that misses the point. He
was a man fueled by what he himself called...
Fierce indignation. And that's the phrase we
need to hold on to. Fierce indignation. So today
we have a massive stack of sources, biographies,
a lot of literary analysis of his major works
like A Tale of a Tub and Drapier's Letters and
historical records from 17th and 18th century
Britain and Ireland. A really rich trove of material.
And our mission for this deep dive is pretty
clear. We're going to move way past the children's
book version of Jonathan Swift. We're going to
look at that indignation you mentioned. his bizarre
and frankly tragic personal life and how he managed
to convince the entire British public that a
famous man was dead when he was actually walking
around screaming, I'm alive. And that indignation
is the absolute key. To understand Swift, you
have to understand that he wasn't writing to
entertain. He was writing to punish. To punish.
That's a strong word. It is. He saw the world
as broken, corrupt and just ridiculous. And he
used satire as a weapon to expose it. But to
get there, we have to look at where he came from,
because his origin story is chaotic right from
the very first page. Chaotic is an understatement.
The timeline here is just baffling. So let's
dive into it. Jonathan Swift is born in Dublin,
November 30th, 1667. But the tragedy starts before
he even takes his first breath. Yes. His father,
also named Jonathan Swift, died about seven months
before the younger Jonathan was born. So he arrives
in the world already defined by absence. And
the cause of his father's death, sources are
pretty specific. It's noted as syphilis. That's
right. Which is heavy enough, but there's a detail
that his father claimed about how he contracted
it. I saw that. He said he got it from dirty
sheets while he was out of town. Which, medically
speaking, is highly dubious. Syphilis doesn't
really work that way. But whether it was true
or a convenient lie to cover up infidelity, it
paints a picture of the shame in the shadow hanging
over the family. So Swift is born fatherless.
His mother, Abigail, is left with very little
money. She is, for all intents and purposes,
destitute. And then, at age one, something incredibly
strange happens. The baby Jonathan Swift is kidnapped.
This blew my mind when I read the biography.
He's one year old and his wet nurse, the woman
hired to breastfeed him, just takes him. She
abducts him and takes him to Whitehaven in England.
And this wasn't a ransom situation. It wasn't
a crime for profit. The sources suggest she just
she became incredibly attached to him. She just
loved him that much. Apparently, she took him
across the Irish Sea to England. And here is
the kicker. He stayed there for three years.
That is what I want to stick on for a second.
Three years. Where was the mother? I mean, was
this a kidnapping or was it a relief for her?
The records are murky, but the consensus is that
his mother, Abigail, essentially let it happen.
She had no money. She was a widow. Maybe she
thought he'd have a better life. Who knows? But
think about the psychology of that child. His
first memories, his formative language years,
are spent with a woman who isn't his mother.
in a country that isn't his home. It creates
a fracture in his identity right from the start,
a profound one. And clearly this nurse was intense.
The sources say by age three, he could read the
Bible. So he's this toddler prodigy living a
stolen life. Exactly. Is he Irish? Is he English?
He's literally displaced. And when he finally
gets sent back to Ireland at age four, his mother
leaves again to go back to England. So he's abandoned
a second time. He's passed off to his uncle,
Godwin Swift. Godwin Swift. So this is the ritual.
uncle trope coming to the rescue. More like the
rich but distant uncle. He provided the education
but not the love. He sent Jonathan to Kilkenny
College, which is like the Eaton of Ireland,
and then to Trinity College, Dublin. Okay, so
a top -tier education. The best money could buy.
But here is a detail most biographies skip. Swift
wasn't just some random orphan. He had ink in
his blood. Right, the family tree in the notes
is wild. It really is. His grandmother was the
niece of Serasmus Dryden. That's the grandfather
of the poet John Dryden, who was the literary
giant of that age. Wow. And on the other side,
his uncle married the daughter of Sir William
Davenant. Davenant was the godson of William
Shakespeare. Correct. So Swift is practically
literary royalty by blood, even if he's broke.
You'd think with that pedigree he'd crush it
at university. You would think. But the records
show he was a bit of a rebel or perhaps just...
He absolutely loathed the curriculum. Because
the curriculum was Aristotelian logic. We have
to define that to understand Swift's later writing.
At the time, university wasn't about critical
thinking or scientific discovery in the way we
think of it now. Not at all. It was about memorizing
rigid categories and syllogisms established by
Aristotle 2 ,000 years prior. It was very dry,
very formulaic. So all men are mortal, Socrates
is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal, that
kind of thing. Exactly. But imagine doing that
for hours a day, for years. Swift called it verbal
smog. He wanted to read history, poetry, politics.
He rebelled against the rote memorization. And
how did he do grade -wise? He actually received
his Bachelor of Arts degree by special grace.
By special grace. That sounds like a polite way
of saying, we're letting you pass, but you didn't
really earn it. That is exactly what it means.
It indicates he was an above average student,
but certainly not exceptional in the eyes of
the university. He was likely reading what he
wanted to read rather than what was assigned.
But that hatred of bad logic, of lazy thinking.
That becomes his superpower later. Gulliver's
Travels is basically him taking a flamethrower
to that entire university curriculum. So he leaves
the temple of learning, pun intended, and heads
to London. He leaves Ireland in 1688 because
of the glorious revolution political turmoil,
as usual, and lands a job as secretary to Sir
William Temple. And this is the Karate Kid training
montage of his life. Temple is the crucible where
Swift learns statecraft. Sir William Temple was
a retired diplomat, a huge deal in English politics.
And Swift wasn't just filing papers. Over time,
he gained Temple's trust. He was in the room
where it happens, so to speak. He really was.
He was in the room where decisions were made.
He was even sent to meet King William III to
discuss things like triennial parliaments. So
he goes from being a special grace student to
chatting with the King of England about parliamentary
terms. That's a heck of a jump. Precisely. This
is where Swift sees the machinery of power up
close. He realizes that the people running the
country aren't these godlike figures. They're
just people, often flawed and petty. And while
he's there, something else happens that sticks
with him forever. His health. Yes. He starts
getting these attacks, dizziness, vertigo, deafness.
Meniere's disease. They didn't have a name for
it back then, but the symptoms fit perfectly.
It's an inner ear disorder. Imagine trying to
navigate high society London, trying to be witty
and sharp, while suddenly the room spins and
you can't hear what anyone is saying. That sounds
terrifying. It plagued him his entire life and
contributed to his fear of losing his mind. So
we have a brilliant, sickly, ambitious young
man who has seen the inside of power. And he
decides to use his writing not just for art,
but as a weapon. This brings us to what I think
is the funniest section of our sources, the Bickerstaff
hoax. Oh, this is a masterclass. It's important
to set the scene. It's 1708. And the target is
a man named John Partridge. John Partridge was
a pobler, a shoemaker who reinvented himself
as an astrologer. Of course. He published an
almanac every year predicting the deaths of famous
people, usually church officials or politicians.
Swift found this absolutely ridiculous. He hated
the superstition and he hated the arrogance of
it. So Swift decides to beat him in his own game.
He doesn't just write an article saying astrology
is fake. No, that's too simple. Far too simple.
He invents a character, a fake. astrologer named
Isaac Bickerstaff. Bickerstaff, great name. Isn't
it? Slift publishes a pamphlet called Predictions
for the Ensuing Year under the name Isaac Bickerstaff.
He writes it with this very serious, solemn tone.
He criticizes other astrologers for being vague.
He says, I'm going to be precise. Okay, I like
where this is going. And his first precise prediction
is that John Partridge will die on March 29th
at about 11 .0 at night of a raging fever. He
gives the exact date and time. That is bold.
So March 29th comes and goes. What does Swift
do? This is the genius part. On March 30th, Swift
publishes another pamphlet anonymously. This
one is a letter to a lord claiming to be from
someone who is at Partridge's bedside. No. Yes.
It details in sad, somber language how Partridge
passed away exactly as predicted. It even says
Partridge confessed on his deathbed that Bickerstaff
was a better astrologer. I love the commitment
to the bit. It's incredible. So the public reads
this and they believe it. They completely believe
it. Hook, line and sinker. In fact, the stationer's
company, which handled copyright and publishing
registers, struck John Partridge's name from
their rolls because he was deceased. And meanwhile,
the real John Partridge. is walking around London.
He is screaming from the rooftops, I am not dead.
He publishes his own almanac saying, I am alive.
But nobody listens. It's amazing. So what does
Swift do then? Swift, still posing as Bickerstaff,
publishes a reply saying, obviously he's dead.
This man claiming to be Partridge is an imposter.
Besides, look at his writing. It's so bad. No
living man could have written it. That is brutal.
It's gaslighting on a national scale. It destroyed
Partridge's reputation. He eventually stopped
publishing. But for Swift, this established his
style. deadpan, committed, using a persona to
expose absurdity. It paved the way for everything
that followed. So he's a celebrity in the literary
world. But Swift wanted real political power.
She wanted to be a player. And for a while, he
was. He really was. But the sources show he was
a bit of a political shapeshifter. He started
as a Whig and ended up a Tory. And I want to
dig into this because it's not just about flipping.
It tells us a lot about his values. It does.
It wasn't about liberal versus conservative in
the modern sense. It was about the church. Swift
was a clergyman, first and foremost. The Whigs
were the party of the Glorious Revolution, which
he supported, but they were allied with dissenters
Protestants outside the Anglican Church. Swift
viewed the Anglican Church as the glue holding
society together. If you undermine the church,
you get chaos. And then there's the money. We
have to talk about the first fruits and 20th.
It sounds like a bad indie band, but it was a
big deal. It was a tax. Basically, Irish clergymen
had to pay their first year's income to the crown.
Swift was sent to London to lobby the government
to get this tax repealed. And he goes to the
Whigs first. His allies. He does. And they stonewall
him. They treat him like a nuisance. They just
didn't care about the financial struggles of
the Irish clergy. So he feels betrayed. Deeply.
But the Tories, the Tories see a weapon walking
through the door. Robert Harley, the master manipulator
of the Tory party, welcomes Swift with open arms.
He says, we love the church. We'll cut the tax.
Join us. So was he a mercenary? Because that's
how it looks on the surface. He didn't get what
he wanted. So he switched sides. It's the debate
that has raged for 300 years. His enemies called
him a turncoat rat. Swift argued he was the only
consistent one. He stayed loyal to the church
while the Whigs had betrayed it. Okay, that makes
sense. But once he switched, oh man, he became
the Tory attack dog. He takes over the Examiner,
which was the main Tory paper, and just starts
shredding the opposition. He was basically the
press secretary and chief propagandist for the
government. He's in the inner circle. He's sitting
in the room with the prime minister and the secretary
of state mediating their fights. He thinks he's
made it. He's at the absolute pinnacle of power.
But he forgot one person. The most important
person, Queen Anne. There's a classic case of
Twitter fingers ruining a career, 18th century
style. He wrote something he really, really shouldn't
have. He wrote the Windsor prophecy. It was a
savage attack on the Duchess of Somerset. The
carrots thing. Yes, he made fun of her red hair,
calling her carrots. But worse. Much worse, he
insinuated she was a murderer, she had been accused
of involvement in her previous husband's death,
and warned the Queen she wasn't safe around her.
And the Duchess of Somerset happened to be the
Queen's best friend. And the groom of the stole,
the lady who helps her get dressed, the most
intimate position in the court. So Swift is in
the back rooms feeling like a god. But in the
royal bedroom, the duchess is showing the queen
these vicious poems. Exactly. So when the Tories
try to make Swift a bishop, which was the plan
all along, the queen just says no. Anyone but
him. She blocked every single promotion. The
most powerful writer in England couldn't get
a job because he couldn't resist a good roast.
It's kind of incredible. So when the queen dies
in 1714 and the Tories fall from power, Swift
is left completely exposed. The Whigs come roaring
back into power. The Tory leaders are accused
of treason. Swift's political career is effectively
over. He had no protection. His friends were
being arrested or fleeing to France. And what
happens to him? Swift had only one option left.
the position of Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral
in Dublin. It was the best his friends could
secure for him before the government fell. And
he didn't view this as a homecoming, did he?
Not at all. He described it as going to live
like a rat in a hole. To him, Dublin was a backwater.
He felt exiled from the culture and power of
London. He was bitter. But this is the irony
of Swift's life. He hated being sent back to
Ireland, yet he becomes one of the greatest Irish
patriots in history. How does a guy who feels
like a rat in a hole become a national hero?
It was his indignation again. He might have resented
Ireland, but he resented injustice even more.
And he saw how England was exploiting Ireland
economically. This leads us to the Drapier's
letters in 1724. This story is fascinating. It's
about copper coins. Tell us about Wood's halfpence.
The English government granted a patent to a
man named William Wood to mint copper coinage
for Ireland. On paper, maybe not a terrible idea.
But it was a corrupt deal. Completely. Wood was
going to flood Ireland with substandard coins
to make a massive profit for himself and, allegedly,
the king's mistress. It would have debased the
Irish currency and ruined the economy. So Swift
puts on a mask again. He becomes MB Drapier.
A humble shopkeeper. A draper. And he writes
a series of pamphlets explaining in simple, clear
language exactly why this is a scam. He rallies
the Irish people, rich and poor, Protestant and
Catholic, to boycott these coins. He unites everyone.
He writes, money, the lifeblood of the nation,
is about to be drawn off. He makes it a matter
of national survival. And the government was
furious. They put a bounty on the author's head,
right? They offered a reward of 300 pounds for
the identity of the drapier. But here's the amazing
thing. Everyone in Dublin knew it was Swift.
Everyone, from the Lord Mayor down to the street
sweeper. And nobody snitched. Not a single person
turned him in. He was their hero. There's a visual
in the notes that I love. When Swift returned
from a trip to England during this time, there
was a banner hanging in Dublin that said, Welcome
home, Draper. He had won. The coins were withdrawn.
He had defeated the British government with a
pen. It proved that public opinion, mobilized
by a brilliant writer, could stop a tyranny.
We have to shift gears now to his personal life,
which is, well, complicated. It doesn't even
begin to cover it. We have two women, Stella
and Vanessa. Yes. These are the two great loves
of his life, though the nature of that love is
the subject of centuries of debate. Let's start
with Stella. Her real name was Esther Johnson.
Swift met her at Moore Park back when he was
working for Temple. She was only eight years
old. He was in his 20s. He was her tutor. A huge
age gap. A huge age gap. But as she grew up,
they formed an incredibly deep bond. She and
her companion moved to Ireland to be near him.
They wrote constantly, but they never lived in
the same house. They were always chaperoned.
The rumor, though, and his friend Thomas Sheridan
believed this, was that they were secretly married
in 1716. It is a persistent rumor, but his housekeepers
denied it. What we do know is that Swift was
fiercely possessive. When another man, William
Tisdall, wanted to propose to Stella, Swift wrote
him a letter that was on the surface polite,
but essentially marked his territory. He called
Tisdall an interloper in private. So he didn't
want anyone else to have her? No, but he wouldn't
or couldn't publicly claim her himself. It's
a mystery. And then there's Vanessa, Esther Van
Homri. He really liked the name Esther, apparently.
He did. He met her in London. She was much younger,
wealthy, and head over heels in love with him.
He created the name Vanessa for her van from
her last name. Essa from Esther. She seems much
more intense than Stella. She followed him to
Ireland, didn't she? She did, which was a nightmare
for Swift. He tried to keep his two lives separate.
Vanessa was demanding. She wanted marriage. She
wanted him to commit. And it all came to a head.
There is a story, maybe apocryphal, that she
wrote to Stella directly, asking, are you married
to him? Swift found out, rode to Vanessa's house
in a rage, threw the letter on her table with
a terrifying look on his face, and stormed out
without a single word. And she died shortly after
that confrontation. She died in 1723, age 35.
She had destroyed a will that left her fortune
to Swift. It was a tragic, ugly end. Now, there
is a theory in our source material that might
explain why Swift never publicly married Stella
and why his relationships were so weirdly distant
yet intense. It's the alternative view by Dennis
Johnston. This is a bombshell, if true. It really
is. It is a controversial theory, but it fits
the puzzle pieces. Johnston suggests that Swift's
father wasn't actually the man who died of syphilis.
He suggests Swift's real father was Sir John
Temple, the father of his boss, Sir William Temple.
Okay, and there's also a theory that Stella was
Sir William Temple's illegitimate daughter. Exactly.
So if both those things are true, then Swift
was Sir William Temple's half -brother, and Stella
was Sir William Temple's daughter. Which would
make Swift and Stella... Uncle and niece? Whoa.
That puts a whole new spin on the secrecy. A
very dark spin. If that were true, it explains
everything. They loved each other deeply, but
marriage would have been incestuous, forbidden
by church law. It would explain the secrecy,
the lack of children, the lifelong companionship
without a public union. We can't prove it. We
can't. But it adds a layer of Greek tragedy to
his life that feels... Plausible, given the circumstances.
And when Stella died in 1728, Swift was wrecked.
He couldn't even attend her funeral. He was so
overcome with grief. He sat in his room at the
deanery, writing about her as the lights of the
cathedral flickered through his window. Years
later, after Swift himself died, they found a
small packet in his desk. Inside was a lock of
hair. And the paper it was wrapped in was labeled.
Only a woman's hair. It's such a simple, devastating
phrase. So much pain and love packed into four
words. It hints at a grief he couldn't even articulate.
Let's pivot back to the work. Because amidst
all this personal drama and political fighting,
he writes his two absolute masterpieces. First,
Gulliver's Travels in 1726. We mentioned the
giant, but let's look at the satire. The sources
mention a specific scene, the palace fire in
Lilliput. Yes, this is pure swift. The tiny empress's
palace catches fire. Gulliver, the giant, rushes
to help, but he has no water. So he, well, he
urinates on the palace to put the fire out. And
it works, right? He saves the day. It works perfectly.
The fire's out, but the empress is disgusted
and he's impeached for treason for, you know,
defiling the royal palace. That's hilarious,
but it's a metaphor for something real. It's
a metaphor for the Treaty of Utrecht. The Tories
had ended a long, bloody war, put out the fire,
but they did it through illegal, secret negotiations,
urinating on the palace. They got the job done,
but in a disgraceful manner. That is such a specific,
dirty metaphor for high politics. That is Swift.
He juxtaposes the high and the low. He forces
you to look at the ugliness of human behavior.
Gulliver's Travels isn't an adventure story.
It's a mirror. What do you mean by that? The
Lilliputians are petty and warlike. The giants
of Brobdingnag are gross and physical. The Hwinims,
the talking horses, are perfectly rational, but
cold and unfeeling. Swift is asking, what is
a human? Are we rational animals? No, he says,
we are only animals capable of reason, but we
rarely use it. And then three years later, in
1729, he drops the mic with a modest proposal.
Even if you've never read Swift, you know the
punchline, eat the babies. It is the nuclear
option of satire. Ireland was in a famine. The
poor were starving. The English landlords were
squeezing every penny out of them. Swift had
written serious, logical proposals for years,
buy Irish goods, tax the absentees, and nobody
listened. So he wrote this. The full title is
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children
of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden on Their
Parents or Country and for Making Them Beneficial
to the Public. But the brilliance isn't just
the shock value. It's the voice. Swift doesn't
write this as a raving madman. He writes it as
a helpful, slightly bored bureaucrat, a project
manager. It's the voice of an economist. He crunches
the numbers. He says, I have the quote here.
A young, healthy child, well nursed, is at a
year old, the most delicious, nourishing and
wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked
or boiled. It makes your skin crawl. It's horrifying.
He even suggests recipes. And I make no doubt
that it will equally serve in a Frixie or a Regu.
It's stomach churning. But why? He's mirroring
the attitude of the English landlords. They were
already devouring the Irish people, economically
taking their land, their crops, their dignity.
Swift just. made it literal. There's a specific
section in the text that I think is the key to
the whole thing. It's where he lists the other
expedients. Yes. This is the mask -slipping moment.
After proposing cannibalism for pages, the narrator
says, Wait, those are real sensible solutions.
Exactly. Those are the actual political proposals
Swift had been screaming about for 10 years.
Buy Irish goods. Tax the rich landlords. So he
lists the sane ideas. He's saying to the political
class and the Irish people, you ignored my good
ideas. You ignored the rational solutions. So
fine, if you're going to act like animals, here's
the only logical solution left. Eat your kids.
He's shouting at the victims as much as the oppressors.
He is. It's an expression of pure, unadulterated
rage. It's not funny. It's a scream of despair
masquerading as a spreadsheet. We're coming to
the final chapter of Swiss life now. And it's
a sad one. He had a premonition about his own
end, didn't he? He did. A very famous one. He
was walking with a friend once and pointed to
an old tree that was dying from the top branches
down. He said, I shall be like that tree. I shall
die at the top. Meaning he would lose his mind
before he lost his body. And that's exactly what
happened. The Meniere's disease got worse. He
likely developed dementia. By 1738, the decline
was clear. But in 1742, it turned into a horror
story. It did. He developed an inflammation in
his left eye. The pain was so excruciating that
the swelling was the size of a chicken egg. The
sources say five attendants had to restrain him
to stop him from tearing his own eye out. My
God, that's just awful to imagine. He went a
full year without speaking a single word. He
was eventually declared of unsound mind and memory.
The brilliant orator, the man whose words could
move nations, was silent and trapped in his own
pain. But even in that state, he had one last
joke. Or perhaps one last act of charity planned.
His will. Swift left the bulk of his fortune,
about 12 ,000 pounds, a huge sum to found a hospital.
But not just any hospital. He founded St. Patrick's
Hospital for Imbeciles. Which is still there
today, right? Yeah. As a psychiatric hospital.
It is. He even wrote a verse about it. He gave
the little wealth he had to build a house for
fools and mad and showed by one satiric touch
no nation wanted it so much. Wow. He was taking
a shot at the Irish people one last time, calling
them fools, but simultaneously giving everything
he had to care for them. That's Swift in a nutshell.
He died in 1745. He was buried in St. Patrick's
Cathedral right next to Stella. And he wrote
his own epitaph. It's in Latin. But the translation
is powerful. Savage indignation. That is the
phrase that defines him. He felt things so intensely.
physically hurt him. And the epitaph continues
as a challenge. The poet Yeats translated it
beautifully. Swift has sailed into his rest.
Savage indignation there cannot lacerate his
breast. Imitate him if you dare. World besotted
traveler, he served human liberty. Imitate him
if you dare. So let's wrap this up. What is the
legacy of Jonathan Swift? He is a man of contradictions.
A Tory who became an Irish revolutionary. A kludgy
man who wrote what many called blasphemy. A misanthrope
who hated mankind but loved individuals like
Stella so deeply. And his influence is everywhere.
George Orwell admired him even though he disagreed
with his politics. And in a strange way, he's
the most popular Irish author globally by library
holdings. More than Joyce, more than Wilde, because
of Gulliver. And here's a fun fact to close on.
There's a crater on Deimos, one of the moons
of Mars, named the Swift Crater. Why is that?
Because in Gulliver's Travels, he wrote about
the astronomers of the flying island of Laputa,
and he claimed they had discovered two moons
of Mars. This was 150 years before the actual
moons of Mars were discovered. No way. He just
guessed. He just guessed correctly. Or maybe
he did some speculative math on planetary distances,
but he predicted them. That is fitting. He saw
things others couldn't see. He really did. So
here is the final thought for you to chew on.
Swift's epitaph challenges us to inmate him if
you dare. In our modern world, which is just
as full of information overload, political absurdity,
and fake news as Swift's London, do we need more
of his savage indignation? We often say we want
civility, but Swift suggests that when the world
is crazy, civility can be a form of complicity.
He suggests we should be angry. But we also have
to ask, Did that anger achieve his goals, or
did it just eat him alive from the inside out?
It's a dangerous fuel. It drives change, but
it burns the engine. Thanks for taking the deep
dive. Until next time.