19 October – Jonathan Swift, satirist and Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, dies aged 78. His body is laid out in public for the people of Dublin to pay their last respects, and he is buried, in accordance with his wishes, in his cathedral by Esther Johnson's side with his own epitaph: Ubi sæva Indignatio / Ulterius / Cor lacerare nequit ("where savage indignation can no longer lacerate the heart").