No More Learning

In his later years, when
his powers were failing, we are told that Swift was seen looking
at this volume and was heard to say, 'Good God, wbat a genius
I had when I wrote that book. ' A considerable, but by no means
the largest or ablest, portion of the work is occupied by an account
of the quarrels of the churches, told in the famous story of three
brothers, Peter, Martin and Jack, representing Roman catholics,
Anglicans and puritans ; of the coat bequeathed to them by their
father, whose will, explaining the proper mode of wearing it, they
first interpreted each in his own way, and then, after many ingenious
evasions of it, locked up in a strong box; and of their subsequent
quarrels concerning the will and its significance. Throughout,
the brothers act in accordance with the doctrine that beings which
the world calls clothes are, in reality, rational creatures or men,
and that, in short, we see nothing but the clothes and hear nothing
but them-a doctrine which Carlyle had in mind when he wrote
his Sartor Resartus.
The manner in which Swift dealt with religious questions in this
book led to suspicions as to the genuineness of his Christianity-a
suggestion which Swift regarded as a great wrong. He said that
he had attacked only Peter (who insisted, in turn, on being called 'Mr
Peter,' 'Father Peter' and 'Lord Peter') and Jack (who called his
hatred of Peter zeal, and was much annoyed by Martin's patience),
and that he had not made any reflections on Martin. What he


## p. 101 (#125) ############################################

A Tale of a Tub
IOI
satirised was not religion but the abuse of religion. This defence
is not very convincing; though we need not doubt Swift's ortho-
doxy, we cannot but feel that a scoffer would read the book with
greater relish than a believer. The contempt poured on Roman
catholics and dissenters is often in the worst taste, and touches
upon doctrines and beliefs which an earnest member of the church
of England would think it dangerous to ridicule. Such attacks
on important doctrines may easily be treated as attacks on
Christianity itself.
But A Tale of a Tub is far more than an account of the
wrangles of the churches. It is a skilful and merciless dissection
of the whole of human nature. To the satire on vanity and pride,
on pedantry and on the search for fame, in the introductory
dedication to Somers and the delightful dedication to prince
Posterity, is added an attack on bad writing, which is continued,
again and again, throughout the work. In conclusion, Swift ob-
served that he was trying an experiment very frequent among
modern authors, which is to write upon nothing: the knowledge
when to have done was possessed by few. The work contains
entertaining digressions, in one of which the author satirises
critics. In former times, it had been held that critics were persons
who drew up rules by which careful writers might pronounce
upon the productions of the learned and form a proper judgment
of the sublime and the contemptible. At other times, critic' had
meant the restorer of ancient learning from the dust of manu-
scripts; but the third and noblest sort was the 'true critic,' who
had bestowed many benefits on the world. A true critic was the
discoverer and collector of writers' faults. The custom of authors
was to point out with great pains their own excellences and other
men’s defects. The modern way of using books was either to learn
their titles and then brag of acquaintance with them, or to get
a thorough insight into the indexes. To enter the palace of
learning at the great gate took much time; therefore, men with
haste and little ceremony use the back door. In another digression,
Swift treats of the origin, use and importance of madness in
a commonwealth. He defined happiness as 'a perpetual possession
of being well deceived. The serene and peaceful state was to be
a fool among knaves. Delusion was necessary for peace of mind.
Elsewhere, Swift confesses to a longing for fame, a blessing which
usually comes only after death.
In wit and brilliancy of thought, Swift never surpassed A
Tale of a Tub; and the style is as nearly perfect as it could well
6


## p. 102 (#126) ############################################

IO2
Swift
be. Swift here allows himself more colour than is to be found in
his later writings. In spite of discursiveness and lack of dramatic
interest, the book remains the greatest of English satires.
The famous Full and true Account of the Battle fought last
Friday between the Ancient and the Modern Books in Saint
James's Library, generally known as The Battle of the Books,
had its origin, as has been said, in the controversy respecting the
relative superiority of ancient and modern learning, in which Sir
William Temple had taken part. The controversy has now lost
its interest, and Temple's ill-judged defence of the genuineness of
the ‘ Epistles of Phalaris' does not concern us. Swift assumes the
genuineness of the letters ; but the merit of the work lies in its
satirical power. It may be that Swift had read Le Combat des
Livres of François de Callières (1688); but, if so, he owed little
to it. Among Swift's satires, the fragmentary Battle of the Books
is relatively so little remembered, that its main features may be
here recalled.
The piece is mainly an attack on pedantry, in which it is
argued that invention may be weakened by overmuch learning.
There were two tops to the hill Parnassus, the highest and largest
of which had been time out of mind in the possession of the
ancients, while the other was held by the moderns. The moderns
desired to bring about a reduction in the height of the point held
by the ancients. The ancients replied that the better course would
be for the moderns to raise their own side of the hill. To such
a step, they would not only agree but would largely contribute.
Negotiations came to nothing, and there was a great battle. But,
first, we are told the story of the Bee and the Spider. A bee had
become entangled in a spider's web; the two insects quarrelled
and Aesop was called in as arbitrator. The bee, who is to be taken
as typifying the ancients, went straight to nature, gathering his
support from the flowers of the field and the garden, without any
damage to them. The spider, like the moderns, boasted of not being
obliged to any other creature, but of drawing and spinning out all
from himself. The moderns, says Swift, produced nothing but
wrangling and satire, much of the nature of the spider's poison.
The ancients, ranging through every corner of nature, had pro-
duced honey and wax and furnished mankind with the two
noblest of things, which are sweetness and light. ' In the great
battle between the books that followed, the moderns appealed for
aid to the malignant deity Criticism, who had dwelt in a den at
the top of snowy mountains, where there were spoils of numberless


## p. 103 (#127) ############################################

The Battle of the Books. Gulliver's Travels 103
half-devoured volumes. With her were Ignorance, Pride, Opinion,
Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry
and Ill-manners. She could change herself into an octavo compass,'
when she was indistinguishable in shape and dress from “the divine
Bentley,' in person the most deformed of all the moderns. The
piece ends abruptly with the meeting of Bentley and Wotton with
Boyle, who transfixes the pair with his lance. We need not imagine
that Swift held too seriously the views on the subject of the con-
troversy expressed in this fragment: Temple, we are told, received
a slight graze ; and, says the publisher, the manuscript, ‘being in
several places imperfect, we cannot learn to which side the victory
fell. ' The piece was largely inspired by the desire to assist his
patron ; but, besides being a brilliant attack on his opponents, it
abounds in satire of a more general nature, and its interest for us
is not affected by the fact that Temple was on the wrong side.
The most famous of all Swift's works is Gulliver's Travels.
The inception of the book has been traced to the celebrated
Scriblerus club, which came into existence in the last months of
queen Anne's reign, when Swift joined with Arbuthnot, Pope,
Gay and other members in a scheme to ridicule all false tastes
in learning. The Memoirs of Scriblerus by Arbuthnot were not
published until 1741; but Pope said that Swift took the first hints
for Gulliver's Travels from them. The connection of the Travels
with the original scheme, however, is very slight, and appears
chiefly in the third part of the work. Swift's book underwent
discussion between him and his friends several years before it
appeared. In September 1725, he told Pope that he was correcting
and finishing the work.
I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John,
Peter, Thomas, and so forth. Upon this great foundation of misanthropy
(though not in Timon's manner) the whole building of my Travels is erected,
and I never will have peace of mind till all honest men are of that opinion.
Travels into several remote Nations of the World, by
Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several
ships, was published anonymously at the end of October 1726,
negotiations with the publishers having been carried on by
Swift's friends, Charles Ford and Erasmus Lewis. In November,
Arbuthnot wrote that the book was in everybody's hands, and
that many were led by its verisimilitude to believe that the
incidents told really occurred. One Irish bishop said that it
was full of improbable lies, and, for his part, he hardly believed
a word of it.


## p. 104 (#128) ############################################

104
Swift
The scheme of the book has been known to us all from our
childhood. In the first part, Gulliver describes, in simple language
suited to a seaman, his shipwreck in Lilliput, where the tallest
people were six inches high. The emperor believed himself to be,
and was considered, the delight and terror of the universe ; but,
;
how absurd it all appeared to one twelve times as tall as any
Lilliputian! In his account of the two parties in the country,
distinguished by the use of high and low heels, Swift satirises
English political parties, and the intrigues that centred around the
prince of Wales. Religious feuds were laughed at in an account
of a problem which was dividing the people : 'Should eggs be
broken at the big end or the little end ? ' One party alleged that
those on the other side were schismatics :
This, however, is thought to be a mere strain upon the text, for the words are
these, that all true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end.
And which is the convenient end seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to
every man's conscience, or at least in the power of the Chief Magistrate
to determino.
This part is full of references to current politics; but the satire is
free from bitterness.
In the second part, the voyage to Brobdingnag, the author's
contempt for mankind is emphasised. Gulliver now found himself
a dwarf among men sixty feet in height. The king, who regarded
Europe as if it were an anthill, said, after many questions, 'How
contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked
by such diminutive insects' as Gulliver, and Gulliver himself, after
living among a great race distinguished for calmness and common
sense, could not but feel tempted to laugh at the strutting
and bowing of English lords and ladies as much as the king did
at him.
m. The king could not understand secrets of state, for
he confined the knowledge of governing to good common sense
and reason, justice and lenity. Finally, he said: 'I cannot
but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious
race of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl
upon
the surface of the earth. But Gulliver remarks that allow-
ances must be made for a king living apart from the rest of the
world.
The third part of the book is, in many ways, less interesting,
partly because it is less plausible, partly because the story is
interrupted more often by personal attacks. The satire is chiefly
on philosophers, projectors and inventors, men who are given to
dwelling in the air, like the inhabitants of the Flying Island. If


## p. 105 (#129) ############################################

Gulliver's Travels
105
it be said that the attacks on the learned were unfair, it must be
remembered that the country had recently gone through the experi-
ence of the South Sea Bubble, when no project was too absurd to be
brought before the public. Unfortunately, Swift does not properly
distinguish between pretenders to learning and those who were
entitled to respect. In the Island of Sorcerers, Gulliver was able
to call up famous men of ancient times and question them, with
the result that he found the world to have been misled by prosti-
tute writers to ascribe the greatest exploits in war to cowards, the
wisest counsels to fools, sincerity to flatterers, piety to atheists.
He saw, too, by looking at an old yeoman, how the race had
gradually deteriorated, through vice and corruption. He found
that the race of Struldbrugs or Immortals, so far from being
happy, were the most miserable of all, enduring an endless dotage,
and hated by their neighbours. We cannot but recall the sad
closing years of Swift's own life; but the misery of his own end
was due to mental disease and not to old age.
In the last part of Gulliver's Travels, the voyage to the country
of the Houyhnhnms, Swift's satire is of the bitterest. Gulliver was
now in a country where horses were possessed of reason, and were
the governing class, while the Yahoos, though in the shape of men,
were brute beasts, without reason and conscience. In endeavouring
to persuade the Houghnhnms that he was not a Yahoo, Gulliver is
made to show how little a man is removed from the brute. Gulli-
ver's account of warfare, given with no little pride, caused only
disgust. Satire of the law and lawyers, and of the lust for gold, is
emphasised by praise of the virtues of the Houyhnhnms, and of their
learning. They were governed only by reason, love and courtship
being unknown to them. Gulliver dreaded leaving a country for
whose rulers he felt gratitude and respect, and, when he returned
home, his family filled him with such disgust that he swooned when
his wife kissed him. But what made him most impatient was to
see 'a lump of deformity, and diseases both in body and mind,'
filled with pride, a vice wholly unknown to the Houyhnhnms.
It is a terrible conclusion. All that can be said in reply to
those who condemn Swift for writing it is that it was the result
of disappointment, wounded pride, growing ill-health and sorrow
caused by the sickness of the one whom he loved best in the world.
There is nothing bitter in the first half of the work, and most
readers find only amusement in it; everything is in harmony, and
follows at once when the first premises are granted. But, in the
attacks on the Yahoos, consistency is dropped; the Houyhnhnms


## p. 106 (#130) ############################################

106
Swift
重
​are often prejudiced and unreasonable', and everything gives way
to savage denunciation of mankind. It is only a cynic or a mis-
a
anthrope who will find anything convincing in Swift's views.
Much has been written, in Germany and elsewhere? , on the
subject of Swift's indebtedness to previous writers Rabelais's
method is very different from Swift's, though Swift may have had
in mind the kingdom of queen Quintessence when describing the
academy of Lagado. The capture of Gulliver by the eagle and
other incidents recall details in The Arabian Nights, then recently
published in England. Swift had also read Lucian, The Voyage
of Domingo Gonsalez and Cyrano de Bergerac's Histoires
comiques and Voyage à la Lune. ' Whether he had also seen the
History of Saóarambės (1677), or Foigny's Journey of Jacques
Sadeur to Australia (1693), is more doubtful. The account of the
storm in the second part was made up of phrases in Surmy's
Mariners' Magazine. Gulliver says that he was cousin of William
Dampier, and Swift, of course, had studied Robinson Crusoe.
In Hints towards an Essay on Conversation, written about
1709, Swift commented humorously on people who monopolise
conversation, or talk of themselves, or turn raillery all into
repartee. These, and other remarks on the degeneracy of con-
versation," occur again in the witty and good-natured book
published in Swift's later years, under the title A Complete
Collection of genteel and ingenious Conversation, according to
the most polite mode and method nowo used at Court, and in the
best Companies of England. By Simon Wagstaff, Esq. This
entertaining volume was given to his friend Mrs Barber in 1738,
when she was in need of money ; but reference is made to it in a
letter to Gay as early as 1731. Swift had noticed carefully the
talk of people at fashionable gatherings, and, in conversations here
put into the mouths of Miss Notable, Tom Neverout, Lady Smart,
Lady Answerall, colonel Atwit and the rest, he satirises—but
without bitterness—the banality, rudeness, coarseness and false
wit of so-called 'smart' society. But the best thing in the volume
is the ironical introduction, in which Swift explains that he had
often, with grief, observed ladies and gentlemen at a loss for
questions, answers, replies and rejoinders, and now proposed to
provide an infallible remedy. He had always kept a table-book in
his pocket, and, when he left the company at the house of a polite
family, he at once entered the choicest expressions that had passed.
1 For Coleridge's criticism of the inconsistencies, see The Atheneum, 15 Aug. 1896.
See, especially, a paper by Borkowsky in Anglia, vol. xv, pp. 354—389.


## p. 107 (#131) ############################################

Genteel Conversation
107
a
These he now published, after waiting some years to see if there
were more to be gathered in. Anyone who aspired to being witty
and smart must learn every sentence in the book and know, also,
the appropriate motion or gesture. Polite persons smooth and
polish various syllables of the words they utter, and, when they
write, they vary the orthography : 'we are infinitely better judges
of what will please a distinguishing ear than those who call them-
selves scholars can possibly be. ' It might be objected that the
book would prostitute the noble art to mean and vulgar people;
but it was not an easy acquirement. A footman may swear, but
he cannot swear like a lord, unless he be a lad of superior parts.
A waiting-woman might acquire some small politeness, and, in some
years, make a sufficient figure to draw in the young chaplain or the
old steward; but how could she master the hundred graces and
motions necessary to real success? Miss Notable and Mr Neverout
were described with special care; for they were intended to be
patterns for all young bachelors and single ladies. Sir John
Linger, the Derbyshire knight, was made to speak in his own
rude dialect, to show what should be avoided. The labour of the
work had been great; the author could not doubt that the country
would come to realize how much it owed to him for his diligence
and care.
Directions to Servants, published after Swift's death, was
in hand in 1731, and we know that further progress had been
made with it by the following year. It was, however, left incom-
plete. From some of his verses—The Petition of Mrs Frances
Harris, a chambermaid who had lost her purse, and May the
Cook-maid's Letter—it is clear that Swift took special interest
in the ways of servants. We know that he was good to the
members of his own household, but insisted on their following
strict rules. Directions to Servants is a good specimen of irony;
it is, however, disfigured to an exceptional extent by coarseness.
The ex-footman who is supposed to be the writer of the piece
furnishes his friends with a set of rules to enable them to cheat
and rob their masters in every set of circumstances. Servants, in
general, must be loyal to each other ; never do anything except
what they are hired for; be out as much as possible ; secure
all the tips' they can, and be rude to guests who do not pay.
The cook is to 'scrape the bottom of the pots and kettles with a
silver spoon, for fear of giving them a taste of copper. ' The
children's maid is to throw physic out of the window : 'the
child will love you the better; but bid it not tell. ' The
6


## p. 108 (#132) ############################################

108
Swift
waiting-maid must extort everything she can from her master,
if he likes her, and, at the end, should secure a husband from
among the chaplain, the steward and my lord's gentleman.
It must be confessed that, after a few pages, this pitiless
cynicism becomes depressing and a little tedious.
In 1708, Swift began a brilliant series of pamphlets on church
questions. The first piece-a masterpiece of irony—was An
Argument against abolishing Christianity, in which he banters
very wittily writers who had attacked religion ; but the banter is
freely mixed with the irony which is never absent from his
works. He begins by saying that no reader will, of course, imagine
that he was attempting to defend real Christianity, such as, in
primitive times, had an influence upon men's beliefs and actions.
That would be a wild project : it would be to destroy at once all
the wit and half the learning of the kingdom; to ruin trade and
to extinguish arts and sciences. All he aimed at was to defend
nominal Christianity; the other having been laid aside by general
consent. He deals with the arguments that the abolishing of
Christianity would be a gain of one day in seven ; that it would
remove the absurd custom by which a set of men were employed
to denounce on Sundays what is the constant practice of all
men on the other six ; that, if the system of the Gospel were
discarded, all religion would be affected and, consequently, those
prejudices of education called virtue, conscience, honour and
justice. If Christianity were abolished, the only topic left for the
wits would be taken away. The spirit of opposition is inera-
dicable in mankind : if sectaries could not occupy themselves with
religion, they would do worse, by contravening the law of the land,
and disturbing the public peace. If Christianity is to be repealed,
let us abolish religion in general; for, of what use is freedom
of thought, if it will not conduce to freedom of action ? Swift's
moral, of course, is that we should both keep and improve our
Christianity.
Another pamphlet, The Sentiments of a Church of England
Man with respect to Religion and Government, was written in a
more serious strain, and contained a warning to both parties.
Swift found himself unable to join the extremists of either without
offering violence to his integrity and understanding; and he
decided that the truest service he could render to his country was
by 'endeavouring to moderate between the rival powers. ' 'I believe
I am no bigot in religion, and I am sure I am none in government.
All positions of trust or dignity should, he felt, be given only to
>


## p. 109 (#133) ############################################

The Sentiments of a Church of England Man 109
those whose principles directed them to preserve the constitution
in all its parts. He could not feel any sympathy for non-con-
formiste.
One simple compliance with the national form of receiving the sacrament
is all we require to qualify any sectary among us for the greatest employ-
ments in the state, after which he is at liberty to rejoin his own assemblies for
the rest of his life.
An unlimited liberty in publishing books against Christian doctrines
was a scandal to government. Party feuds had been carried to
excess. The church was not so narrowly calculated that it could
not fall in with any regular species of government; but, though
every species of government was equally lawful, they were not
equally expedient, or for every country indifferently. A church
of England man might properly approve the plans of one party more
than those of the other, according as he thought they best promoted
the good of church and state ; but he would never be swayed by
passion or interest to denounce an opinion merely because it was
not of the party he himself approved. "To enter into a party as
"
into an order of friars with so resigned an obedience to superiors,
is very unsuitable both with the civil and religious liberties we so
zealously assert. ' Whoever has a true value for church and state
will avoid the extremes of whig, for the sake of the former, and
the extremes of tory, for the sake of the latter. Swift's great
object was to maintain the established constitution in both church
and state.
Another piece, A Project for the advancement of Religion
and the Reformation of Manners (1709), highly praised by Steele
in The Tatler, contained a good many interesting suggestions, some
excellent, others impracticable. Swift said that divines were justi-
fied in their complaint against the wickedness of the age ; hardly
one in a hundred people of quality or gentry appeared to act on
any principle of religion, and great numbers of them entirely
discarded it. Among men were to be found cheating, quarrels
and blasphemies; among women, immorality and neglect of house-
hold affairs. In particular, there was fraud and cozenage in the
law, injustice and oppression. Among the clergy, there was much
ignorance, servility and pragmatism. It was in the power of the
prince to cause piety and virtue to become the fashion, if he would
make them the necessary qualifications for favour. It should be
every man's interest to cultivate religion and virtue. Of course, it
might be urged that, to make religion a necessary step for interest
and favour, would increase hypocrisy ; but, says Swift, if one in


## p. 110 (#134) ############################################

IIO
Swift
6
twenty were brought home to true piety and the nineteen were only
hypocrites, the advantage would still be great. Hypocrisy at least
wears the livery of religion, and most men would leave off vices
out of mere weariness rather than undergo the risk and expense
of practising them in private. 'I believe it is often with religion
as it is with love, which by much dissembling at last grows real. '
The clergy should not shut themselves up in their own clubs,
but should mix with the laity and gain their esteem. “No man
values the best medicine if administered by a physician whose
person he hates or despises. More churches should be provided
'
in growing towns: the printing of pernicious books should be
stopped : taverns and alehouses should be closed at midnight,
and no woman should be suffered to enter any tavern. In brief,
it is the business of everyone to maintain appearances, if nothing
more; and this should be enforced by the magistrates.
The question of the sacramental test, for the repeal of which
there was an agitation in Ireland, was discussed in several pieces.
The first of them, the able Letter concerning the Sacramental
Test (1708), purported to be written by a member of the Irish
parliament, and contained a contemptuous reference to Defoe :
‘One of these authors (the fellow that was pilloried, I have
forgot his name) is indeed so grave, sententious, dogmatical a
rogue that there is no enduring him. The whole body of clergy,
. '
says Swift, were against repealing the test, and, in Ireland,
the clergy were generally loved and esteemed—and rightly so.
It was said that popish interest was so formidable that all
should join together to keep it under, and that the abolishing
of the test was the only way of uniting all protestants ; but there
was not any real ground for fear of papists in Ireland. The
same views were repeated many years afterwards in The Ad-
vantages proposed by repealing the Sacramental Test impartially
examined (1732), and in Reasons humbly offered to the Parlia-
ment of Ireland for repealing the Sacramental Test, &c. in favour
of the Catholics (1733), in which are set out satirically the argu-
ments that could be advanced by Roman catholics, the object
being to show that they could urge as good reasons as could their
brothers the dissenters.
In 1713, bishop Burnet published an introduction which was to
preface the third part of his History of the Reformation of the
Church of England. He was an extreme party man and freely
accused his opponents of sympathy with the pope, the Jacobites
and the French. In A Preface to the B-p of 8-r-m's


## p. 111 (#135) ############################################

a
Pamphlets on Religious Questions III
Introduction, Swift attacked him with a mixture of drollery and
irony which must have had a very damning effect. He was hated,
says Swift, by everyone who wore the habit or followed the profes-
sion of a clergyman. It would be well if he would sometimes hear
what Truth said : he should not charge the opinion of one or two
(and those, probably, non-jurors) upon the whole portion of the
nation that differed from him, and he should not be so outrageous
upon the memory of the dead, for it was highly probable he would
soon be one of the number. In another pamphlet, also published
in 1713, Mr C—ns's Discourse on Free Thinking, put into plain
English, by way of Abstract, for the use of the Poor, Swift
attacked deists by parodying the work of one of their body.
The piece purports to be written by a friend of Collins, and
the object was to represent—very unfairly—that the views of
deists were accepted by the whig party.
It seemed to him de-
sirable, he says, that Collins's valuable work should be brought
down to the understanding of the youth of quality and of members
of whig clubs, who might be discouraged by the show of logic and
the numerous quotations in the original.
A Letter to a Young Gentleman, lately entered into Holy
Orders (1721) illustrates Swift's humour when undisturbed by
passion, and its serious portions throw considerable light on his
views. He regrets that his friend had not remained longer at the
university, and that he had not applied himself more to the study
of the English language; the clergy were too fond of obscure
terms, borrowed from ecclesiastical writers. He had no sympathy
with the 'moving manner of preaching,' for it was of little use
in directing men in the conduct of their lives.
Reason and good advice will be your safest guides; but beware of letting
the pathetic part swallow up the rational. . . . The two principal branches of
preaching are first to tell the people what is their duty, and then to convince
them that it is so. The topics for both these, we know, are brought from
Scripture and reason.
It was not necessary to attempt to explain the mysteries of the
Christian religion ; 'indeed, since Providence intended there
should be mysteries, I do not see how it can be agreeable to
piety, orthodoxy or good sense, to go about such a work. The
proper course was to deliver the doctrine as the church holds it,
and to confirm it by Scripture.
I think the clergy have almost given over perplexing themselves and their
hearers with abstruse points of Predestination, Election, and the like; at
least it is time they should.


## p. 112 (#136) ############################################

I I2
Swift
These views are exemplified in Swift's own Sermons, which
contain little rhetoric, and, for the most part, are confined to
straightforward reasoning. The appeal was to the head rather
than to the heart; but it was marked by great common sense, force
and directness. There is no reason for thinking that Swift did not
honestly accept the doctrines of Christianity; Bolingbroke called
him a hypocrite reversed. ' We know that he concealed his
religious observances ; he had family prayers with his servants
without telling his guests, and, in London, he rose early to attend
worship without the knowledge of his friends. His sincerity was
never doubted by those who knew him : when they were ill, they
asked him to pray with them. In his last years, when his mind
had given way, he was seen to pursue his devotions with great
regularity. Outwardly, he performed, in an exemplary manner,
the duties of his deanship, and was a loyal supporter of his
church.
'I am not answerable to God," he says, 'for the doubts that arise in my
own breast, since they are the consequence of that reason which He hath
planted in me, if I take care to conceal those doubts from others, if I use my
best endeavours to subdue them, and if they have no influence on the conduct
of my life. '
He suspected those who made much profession of zeal; but,
within his limits, he had a very real sense of his responsibilities.
'I look upon myself," he said, 'in the capacity of a clergyman, to be one
appointed by Providence for defending a post assigned me, and for gaining
over as many enemies as I can. Although I think my cause is just, yet one
great motive is my submitting to the pleasure of Providence, and to the laws
of my country. '
The series of writings on English politics begins with A
Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles
and the Commons in Athens and Rome (1701), written in defence
of Lord Somers, who had been attacked by a tory House of
Commons on account of the Partition treaty. The feuds between
Lords and Commons were bitter, and, in this soberly written and
weighty pamphlet, Swift showed the dangers of the quarrel for
both parties, and the need of a due balance of power in the
country. If a House of Commons, already possessing more than
its share of power, cramped the hand that held the balance, and
aimed at more power by attacking the nobles, then, said Swift,
the same causes would produce the same consequences among us
as they did in Greece and Rome. Party government, he pointed
out, tends to destroy all individuality. Some said that this piece


## p. 113 (#137) ############################################

Political Pamphlets
113
was by Somers himself, others that it was by Burnet; but, before
long, Swift admitted that he was the author, and his services
naturally earned the gratitude of the whigs.
The political pamphlets which Swift wrote during the closing
years of queen Anne's reign are of interest rather to the his-
torian than to the student of literature; for, in the main, they are
concerned with questions of temporary interest or with personal
quarrels. One of the ablest and most successful was The Conduct
of the Allies and of the late Ministry in beginning and carry-
ing on the present war, which went through many editions
and had a great effect on public opinion. Swift's object was to
show the burden of war on the nation; that submission had
been made to these impositions for the advancement of private
wealth and power or in order to forward the dangerous designs
of a faction; so, the side of the war which would have been
beneficial to us had been neglected; our allies had broken their
promises ; and the wiser course was to conclude peace. This
carefully thought-out pamphlet was followed by Some Remarks
on the Barrier Treaty (1712), which forms a supplement to it,
and, in the same year, by Some Advice humbly offered to the
members of the October Club, intended to appease extreme tories,
who were dissatisfied with Harley.
During the months that followed the death of queen Anne,
Swift wrote several pieces in which he put on record the defence
of the late ministry, and, especially, of Oxford ; denied the
existence of intrigues with Jacobites, of the existence of which
he clearly knew nothing, and explained his own connection with
tories. One of these pieces was entitled Memoirs relating to that
change which happened to the Queen's ministry in the year 1710;
another, Some free thoughts upon the present state of affairs ;
and another, An inquiry into the behaviour of the Queen's last
Ministry, in which he said that
among the contending parties in England, the general interest of Church
and State is more the private interest of one side than the other; so that,
whoever professeth to act upon a principle of observing the laws of his
country, may have a safe rule to follow, by discovering whose particular
advantage it chiefly is that the Constitution should be preserved entire in all
its parts.
Other pamphlets dealt largely in personalities. One of the most
violent is A short character of Thomas Earl of Wharton (1711),
in which the lord lieutenant of Ireland is charged with every
form of vice. He had, says Swift, three predominant passions,
8
E. L. IX.
CH, Iv.


## p. 114 (#138) ############################################

114
Swift
seldom united in the same man : love of power, love of money,
love of pleasure, which rode him sometimes by turns, sometimes
all together. If there were not any visible effects of old age,
either in body or mind, it was ‘in spite of a continual prostitution
to those vices which usually wear out both. ' The Importance of
the Guardian considered (1713), and The Public Spirit of the
Whigs (1714), had their origin in Swift's quarrel with Steele.
However much Steele may be to blame for his part in the
quarrel, Swift's personalities cannot be defended. Swift says that
Steele, being the most imprudent man alive, never followed the
advice of his friends, but was wholly at the mercy of fools or
knaves or hurried away by his own caprices. After reading what
he said of his sovereign, one asked, not whether Steele was (as
he alleged) 'a gentleman born,' but whether he was a human
creature.
The pamphlets relating to Ireland form a very important part
of Swift's works. His feeling of the intolerable wrongs of the
country in which he was compelled to live grew from year to year.
He saw around him poverty and vice, due, as he held, partly to
the apathy of the people, but mainly to the selfishness of the
English government, which took whatever it could get from
Ireland and gave little in return. Swift's concern was mainly
with the English in Ireland; he had little sympathy for the
savage old Irish' or with the Scottish presbyterians in the
north. But his pity for cottagers increased as he understood
the situation more clearly and saw that they were so oppressed
by charges which they had to bear that hardly any, even
farmers, could afford to provide shoes or stockings for their
children or to eat flesh or to drink anything better than sour
milk and water. The manufactures and commerce of the country
were ruined by the laws, and agriculture was crippled by pro-
hibition of exportation of cattle or wool to foreign countries.
No doubt, Swift was influenced by a feeling of hatred towards the
whig government; but he was certainly sincere in the long series
of pamphlets in which he denounced the treatment of Ireland by
the English. This series began in 1720 with A proposal for the
universal use of Irish manufacture, in which Swift puts forth
a scheme for rejecting everything wearable that came from
England. Someone had said that Ireland would never be happy
till a law were made for burning everything received from
England, except their people and their coals: 'Nor am I even
yet for lessening the number of those exceptions. ' Swift quoted
6


## p. 115 (#139) ############################################

Drapier's Letters
115
the fable of Arachne and Pallas. Pallas, jealous of a rival who
excelled in the art of spinning and weaving, turned Arachne into
a spider, ordering her to spin and weave for ever out of her own
bowels in a very narrow compass.
'I confess,' says Swift, 'I always pitied poor Arachne, and could never
heartily love the goddess on account of so cruel and unjust a sentence; which,
however, is fully executed upon us by England, with further additions of
rigour and severity, for the greatest part of our bowels and vitals are ex-
tracted, without allowing us the liberty of spinning and weaving them. '
Before long, the want of small change in the coinage of Ireland
began to be felt acutely, and, in 1722, a new patent was issued
to an English merchant, William Wood; but Wood had to pay
£10,000 to the duchess of Kendal for the job, and the Irish
parliament, which had not been consulted, passed resolutions
protesting against the loss that would be sustained by Ireland.
A committee was appointed to enquire into complaints; wbile
it was sitting, Swift published the first of the brilliant series of
pamphlets known as Drapier's Letters. It was called A Letter
to the shopkeepers, tradesmen, farmers and the common people
of Ireland concerning the brass half-pence coined by Mr. Woods,
and purported to be by ‘M. B. Drapier. ' It was written in the
simplest language, which could be understood by all, and the argu-
ments were such as would appeal to the people. From motives
of prudence, Wood, and not the government, was attacked, and
the main argument was that the coins were deficient in value and
weight. Many of the allegations are baseless, while the reasoning
is sophistical, but they served the purpose of stirring up the people
to a sense of ill-treatment. Swift foretold that the country would
be ruined; that tenants would not be able to pay their rents;
and, alluding to Phalaris, he said that it might be found that
the brass which Wood contrived as a trouble to the kingdom
would prove his own torment and destruction. The committee
of enquiry recommended the reduction in the amount of coin that
Wood was to issue, and Walpole obtained a report from Sir Isaac
Newton, master of the mint, to the effect that the coins were
correct both as to weight and quality. Swift, feeling that any
compromise would amount to defeat, brought out another pamphlet,
A Letter to Mr. Harding the printer, in which he urged that the
people should refuse to take the coins: the nation did not want
them; there was no reason why an Englishman should enjoy the
profit. It was not dishonourable to submit to the lion, but who
'with the figure of a man can think with patience of being devoured
8_2


## p. 116 (#140) ############################################

116
Swift
alive by a rat’? Swift now openly widened the field of the con-
troversy: the grievance of the patent became subordinated to the
question of the servitude of the Irish people. He was afraid that
concessions made by the government might result in the return
of the people to their wonted indifference. The third letter was
called Some Observations upon a paper called the Report of the
Committee of the most honourable the Privy Council in England
relating to Wood's halfpence. ‘Am I,' he asked, a free man in
England and do I become a slave in six hours by crossing the
Channel ? ' The country was now deluged with pamphlets and
ballads, some of which were certainly by Swift, and no jury could
be persuaded to convict the printers. At this point, Swift pro-
duced his Letter to the whole People of Ireland, which was
intended to refresh and keep alive the spirit which he had raised,
and to show the Irish that, alike by the laws of God and man,
they were and ought to be as free a people as their brothers in
England. The affair ended in a triumph for Swift. Bonfires were
lit in his honour and towns gave him their freedom. It is not
necessary to refer in detail to subsequent pamphlets : Wood's
patent was cancelled, and he received a pension.
Swift wrote many other pieces about Irish grievances. In one
of these, The Swearers Bank (1720), he dealt with a proposal to
start a bank to assist small tradesmen. He argued that the scheme
was not needed in a country so cursed with poverty as Ireland,
and his satire was fatal to the project. In The Story of the
injured lady', he again poured forth his wrath against English
misgovernment, and, in the Answer to this pamphlet, he told Ireland
that she ought not to have any dependence on England, beyond
being subject to the same government; that she should regulate
her household by methods to be agreed upon by the two countries;
and that she should show a proper spirit and insist on freedom
to send her goods where she pleased. In A short view of the
state of Ireland (1728), he gives a touching account of the con-
dition of the country: though it was favoured by nature with a
fruitful soil and a temperate climate, there was general desolation
in most parts of the island. England drew revenues from Ireland
without giving in return one farthing value. 'How long we shall
be able to continue the payment I am not in the least certain:
one thing I know, that when the hen is starved to death there will
>
1 This is not known to have been published before 1746, when it appeared in a
collection entitled The Story of the Injured Lady . . . with letters and poems never
before printed. By the Rev. Dr Swift.


## p. 117 (#141) ############################################

117
Pamphlets on Ireland
be no more golden eggs. In another piece, On the present miser-
able state of Ireland, he said,
We are apt to charge the Irish with laziness because we seldom find them
employed : but then we do not consider that they have nothing to do: the
want of trade is owing to cruel restrictions, rather than to any disqualifi-
cation of the people.
The series reached its climax in A Modest Proposal for pre-
venting the children of poor people from being a burden to
their parents or the country, and for making them beneficial to
the public (1729), in which, with terrible irony and bitterness,
Swift suggested, in a spirit of despair at the helplessness of
Ireland, that the poverty of the people should be relieved by
the sale of their children as food for the rich. With the utmost
gravity, he sets out statistics to show the revenue that would
accrue if this idea were adopted. It would give the people some-
thing valuable of their own, and thus help to pay their landlord's
rent; it would save the cost of maintaining very many children;
it would lead to a lessening of the number of papists; it would
be a great inducement to marriage. The remedy, Swift took care
to point out, was only for the kingdom of Ireland, “and for no
other that ever was, is, or, I think, ever can be upon earth';
and it did not involve any danger of disobliging England, ‘for
this kind of commodity will not bear exportation. ' The suggestion
was quite disinterested. 'I have no children by which I can pro-
pose to get a single penny, the youngest being nine years old, and
my wife past child-bearing. '
In An Examination of certain Abuses, Corruptions and
Enormities in the City of Dublin (1732), Swift, writing as a
whig, burlesqued the fashion of charging tories with being in
sympathy with papists and Jacobites, and of finding cause for
suspecting disaffection in the most unexpected quarters. Under
the guise of an attack on the earl of Oxford, he charged Walpole
with avarice, obscurity of birth and profligacy.
One more pamphlet was published in 1733, A serious and
useful scheme to make a hospital for Incurables, in which Swift
dwelt on the necessity of dealing with the number of fools, knaves,
scolds, scribblers, infidels and liars, not to mention the incurably
vain, proud, affected and ten thousand others beyond cure. He
hoped that he would himself be admitted on the foundation as
one of the scribbling incurables; he was happy to feel that no
person would be offended by his scheme, 'because it is natural
to apply ridiculous characters to all the world, except ourselves. '


## p. 118 (#142) ############################################

118
Swift
On literary subjects, Swift wrote little. In 1712, he published
his Proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining the
English Tongue, in the form of a letter to Harley. In this tract,
to which he allowed his name to be affixed, he urged the formation
of an academy, which was to fix a standard for the language.
New words, abbreviations, slang, affectation, phonetic spelling -
of all these Swift complained, and he thought that an academy
could stop improprieties, and find a way for 'ascertaining and
fixing our language for ever. Some time before, he had written
to the same effect in no. 230 of The Tatler, ‘by the hands,' as
he says, 'of an ingenious gentleman (Steele), who, for a long time,
did thrice a week direct or instruct the kingdom by his papers. '
There, he pleaded for the observance in our style of that simplicity
which is the best and truest ornament of most things in life. ' He
ended his Proposal by urging that, in England, as in France, the
endowments of the mind should occasionally be rewarded, either
by a pension or, where that was unnecessary, by some mark of
distinction.
Nine years later, Swift published in Dublin an amusing satire,
A Letter of Advice to a young Poet ; together with a Proposal
for the encouragement of Poetry in this Kingdom (1721). The
professional poet, he says, would be embarrassed if he had any
religion, for poetry, of late, had been 'altogether disengaged from
the narrow notions of virtue and piety. But the poet must be
conversant with the Scriptures, in order to be 'witty upon them
or out of them. Scholarship was now quite unnecessary to the
poet; and, if we look back, Shakespeare ‘was no scholar, yet was
an excellent poet. ' Swift was for every man's working upon his
own materials, and producing only what he can find within him-
self. Taking part in games will often suggest similes, images or
rimes : and coffeehouse and theatre must be frequented. The
profession was in a sorry plight in Dublin, though poetic wit
abounded. The city had no Grub street, set apart as a safe
repository for poetry, and there was much need for a playhouse,
where the young could get rid of the natural prejudices of religion
and modesty, great restraints to a free people.
In the rather patronising Letter to a very young Lady on her
Marriage (1727), Swift advises his friend to listen to the talk of
men of learning; it is a shame for an English lady not to be able
to relish such discourses, but few gentlemen's daughters could be
brought to read or understand their own native tongue; they
could not even be brought to spell correctly. Elsewhere, Swift


## p. 119 (#143) ############################################

His Poetry
119
combated the general view that it was not prudent to choose a
wife with some taste of wit and humour, able to relish history and
to be a tolerable judge of the beauties of poetry. There were,
however, so few women of this kind that half the well educated
nobility and gentry must, if they married, take a wife for whom
they could not possibly have any esteem.
Swift's poetry has the merits of his prose, but not many other
merits. He began by writing frigid 'Pindaric' odes, after the
fashion of Cowley, and, from his letters, we know that he set con-
siderable value on them, and that they underwent much revision? .
But Dryden was right when, after perusing some of these verses,
he said, 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet. ' This comment
caused much annoyance to Swift, as we may conclude from the
hostile references to Dryden in several of his writings. It was,
how-
ever, taken to heart; for he produced no more stilted odes, but, in
future, confined himself to lighter verse, modelled on Butler, and
generally of a satirical nature. One of the earliest and most
attractive of his playful pieces, the graceful Baucis and Philemon,
was published, with the pretty verses On Mrs Biddy Floyd, in
the last volume of Tonson's Miscellany (1709). In other pieces,
A Description of a City Shower and A Description of the Morning,
published in The Tatler, the subject is treated purely from a
humorous and satirical point of view. Among his later works,
The Grand Question debated (1729), with its studies of Lady
Acheson and of her maid, Hannah, is altogether delightful.
In two pieces written in imitation of Horace (1713–14), Swift
described, in felicitous words, his friendship with Harley, and gave
some account of his own feelings before and after he was appointed
to the deanery of St Patrick's. Harley saw Swift'cheapening old
authors on a stall':
A clergyman of special note
For shunning those of his own coat;
Which made his brethren of the gown
Take care betimes to run him down:
No libertine, nor over nice,
Addicted to no sort of vice;
Went where he pleased, said what he thought;
Not rich, but owed no man a groat.
Harley adopted him as a humble friend, and said that Swift must
be a dean: he need but cross the Irish sea to have power and
ease. Swift had often wished that he had 'for life, six hundred
1 Hist. MSS Comm. , Seventh Report, p. 680.


## p. 120 (#144) ############################################

I 20
Swift
pounds a year, with a garden, and a good house for a friend.
Now he had all this and more, and would have been content,
could he have lived nearer London.
The famous Cadenus and Vanessa (1713) gives, in a mock
classical settings Swift's account of his acquaintance with Hester
Vanhomrigh, and of his surprise and distress at finding her in love
with him. Vanessa scorned fops and fine ladies; at length, she
met the dean,
Grown old in politics and wit,
Caress'd by ministers of state,
Of half mankind the dread and hate.
His fame led her to forget his age; but he did not understand
what love was; his feelings were those of a father and a tutor.
After a time, he found that her thoughts wandered, and, at length,
she confessed that his lessons had
found the weakest part,
Aimed at the head, but reached the heart.
Cadenus was ashamed and surprised. He knew that the world
would blame him, especially as she had 'five thousand guineas
in her purse. ' But Vanessa argued well, and, to his grief and
shame, Cadenus could scarce oppose her. After all, it was flatter-
ing to be preferred to a crowd of beaux. He told her it was
too late for him to love, but he offered friendship, gratitude,
esteem. Vanessa took him at his word, and said she would now
be the tutor. What success she had was yet a secret; whether
he descended to ‘less seraphic ends' or whether they decided 'to
temper love and books together' must not be told.
As this poem was preserved by Hester Vanhomrigh, we may
assume that she did not think Swift had done her injustice in
the clever apology for his own conduct. As in the case of the
correspondence, it is pleasant to turn from the verses about
Vanessa to the pieces which Swift wrote year by year on Stella's
birthday. With laughing allusions to her advancing years (when
she was thirty-eight, he wrote ‘Stella this day is thirty-four (We
shan't dispute a year or more)'), he dwells on her wit and the lustre
of her eyes. Hers was an angel's face a little cracked,' with an
angel's mind. He 'ne'er admitted Love a guest'; having Stella
for his friend, he sought no more. She nursed him in his illness,
coming to his relief ‘with cheerful face and inward grief. '
When out my brutish passions break,
With gall in every word I speak,
She with soft speech my anguish cheers,
Or melts my passions down with tears.
6
6


## p. 121 (#145) ############################################

Savage Satirical Verse
I 21
If her locks were turning grey, his eyes were becoming dim, and
he would not believe in wrinkles which he could not see. On
her last birthday, when she was sick and Swift grown old, he wrote
that, though they could form no more long schemes of life, she
could look with joy on what was past. Her life had been well
spent, and virtue would guide her to a better state. Swift would
gladly share her suffering,
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.
Swift is at his best in these pieces of sincere affection for the
woman whom he loved throughout her life.
It is strange to pass to some of his satires on woman, which
are among the bitterest and most savage of his verses, and exhibit
a physical loathing which suggests mental defect. In The Pro-
gress of Beauty, he dwells on physical decay; in The Progress
of Marriage, he describes a union where “the swain is old, the
nymph coquette. ' In The Journal of a Modern Lady, he satirises
the woman whose life is given to cards. In The Lady's Dressing
Room, Strephon and Chloe, and other pieces written about
1730—1, we see the increasing disease of mind which could find
nothing but what was loathsome. It is unnecessary to dwell on
these melancholy and savage things, or on the coarse or foolish trifles
which Swift and the cronies of his later years bandied to and fro.
They had their origin in an attempt to escape from the deepening
gloom. Nor need we do more than glance at the political ballads
and skits—Sid Hamet's Rod, The W—ds—r Prophecy, The Fable
of Midas, Dennis's Invitation to Steele and the like-in which Swift
attacked his opponents while engaged in the political warfare of
1710–13; or at those of later years relating to Ireland. The Epistle
to Mr Gay contains a violent attack on Walpole. It is enough
to mention the inhuman onslaught on Lord Allen in Traulus (1730),
and The Last Judgment and The Legion Club (1736), two of his
last pieces, where savage wrath has the fullest sway. In The Legion
Club, an attack on the Irish parliament, he pictures it as a mad-
house, and gives us the keeper's description of the various members.
If he could destroy the harpies' nest with thunder, how would
Ireland be blessed! They sold the nation, they raved of making
laws and they scribbled senseless heads of bills:
See, the Muse unbars the gate;
Hark, the monkeys, how they prate!


## p. 122 (#146) ############################################

I 22
Swift
Would Hogarth were there, so that every monster might be painted!
At length, he could not bear any more of it:
Keeper, I have seen enough.
Taking then a pinch of snuff,
I concluded, looking round them,
May their god, the devil, confound them!
In the fable called The Beasts Confession to the Priest (1732),
Swift dwells on the universal folly of mankind of mistaking their
talents. ' When the land was struck with plague, their king ordered
the beasts to confess their sins. The ass confessed that he was a
wag; the ape claimed strict virtue, but said his zeal was sometimes
indiscreet; the swine said his shape and beauty made him proud,
but gluttony was never his vice. Similarly, the knave declares
he failed because he could not flatter; the chaplain vows he cannot
fawn; the statesman says, with a sneer, that his fault is to be too
sincere. Swift's conclusion is that he had libelled the four-footed
6
race, since
Creatures of ev'ry kind but ours
Well comprehend their nat'ral powers
though
now and then
Beasts may degen’rate into men.
On Poetry: a Rhapsody (1733) was thought by Swift to be
his best satire. In this very powerful piece, he describes the
difficulty of the poet's art, and the wane of public encouragement.
After much satirical advice, he tells the writer who has had to put
aside all thoughts of fame to seek support from a party:
A pamphlet in Sir Bob's defence
Will never fail to bring in pence.
Praise of a king will always be acceptable, and, with change of
names, will serve again in the following reign.