I hardly
understand
one word I write.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v09
A nurse took the child
to Whitehaven, and kept him there three years; and, not long
after his return to Dublin, his mother returned to her relatives
in England, leaving the boy in his uncle's care. He was sent
to Kilkenny school, where he met Congreve; and, when he was
fourteen, he was entered as a pensioner at Trinity college, Dublin.
Why he afterwards felt so much resentment against his relatives is
not clear; for his uncle gave him, not the education of a dog,' but
the best obtainable in Ireland. Swift was often at war with the
college authorities; but he got his degree in 1685.
;
In 1688, Swift's uncle Godwin died, having lost his fortune, and
Swift realized that he must not depend on any one but himself. The
revolution brought trouble for Ireland, and the young man joined
his mother at Leicester and looked about for employment. After
a time, an opportunity came from Sir William Temple, who was
now living in retirement at Moor park, near Farnham. Temple's
6
## p. 92 (#116) #############################################
92
Swift
ܢ
father had been a friend of Godwin Swift; he had himself known
the Swifts in Ireland; and Lady Temple was a connection of
Swift's mother. A man of cultivation and refinement, and a
renowned diplomatist, Temple was in need of someone to assist
him in his literary work, and Swift was chosen. Temple is said
to have treated him entirely as a dependent; but it must be
remembered that, at this time, Swift was an untrained youth of
twenty-two, and the distance between him and 'a person of
quality' like Temple would inevitably be great, especially in
those days.
In later years, Swift spoke somewhat disparagingly of Temple,
saying that he had felt too much what it was to be treated like a
schoolboy. Temple sometimes seemed out of humour for three or
four days, while Swift suspected a hundred reasons. In 1690, his
patron sent Swift with a letter of introduction to Sir Robert South-
well, secretary of state in Ireland, in the hope that he would find
Swift a post or procure for him a fellowship at Trinity college. The
letter said that Swift knew Latin and Greek and a little French;
that he wrote a good hand, and was honest and intelligent.
Nothing came of this recommendation, and Swift was soon back at
Moor park. Temple procured for him the M. A. degree at Oxford
and recommended him to William III. 'He thinks me a little
necessary to him,' wrote Swift. In 1693, he was sent by Temple to
represent to the king the necessity of triennial parliaments; but
the king was not convinced'. The first publication of anything by
Swift appears to have been in February 1691/2, when he printed in
the fifth supplement to The Athenian Mercury, a curious forerunner
of Notes and Queries, a ‘Letter to the Athenian Society,' enclosing
a Pindaric ode, in which he referred to his 'young and almost
vergin muse. ' In 1694, Swift parted from Temple, disappointed at
the failure of his patron to make any definite provision for him;
and, in October, he was ordained deacon, and priest in the following
January. He found it necessary to ask Temple for testimonials,
and Temple went further than he was asked, and obtained for
Swift the prebend of Kilroot. Swift, however, soon tired of
Ireland ; and, in 1696, he was once more at Moor park. In the
meantime, he had had a love affair with a Miss Jane Waring,
whom he addressed as Varina ; but he represented to her that
he was not in a position to marry. He remained with Temple
1 'I have sent him (the secretary) with another complaint from Papa to the King,
where I fancy he is not displeased with finding opportunities of going. ' Martha,
Lady Giffard, Her Life and Correspondence, ed. Longe, J. S. , 1911, p. 216.
## p. 93 (#117) #############################################
Moor Park and Laracor
93
until that statesman's death in 1699. Lady Temple had died in
1694, and Temple found his secretary more and more useful.
Swift was learning much in many directions. He read classical
and historical works in the library; he heard of public affairs
and of the experiences of his patron; he had opportunities of
studying the ways of servants in great houses; and he formed
the lasting affection of his life. Lady Giffard, Temple's sister, who
kept house for him after his wife's death, had as a companion or
servant Mrs Johnson, widow of a merchant of good position; and
this Mrs Johnson had two daughters, one of whom, Esther, a bright
child of eight when Swift first met her, was a great favourite with
the family, and received a legacy under Temple's will. Swift acted
as tutor to the girl, and, by the time of his last sojourn at Moor
park, she had, he says, grown into perfect health and was looked
upon as one of the most beautiful and graceful young women in
London.
Temple took part in the controversy on ancient and modern
learning, and in an essay he quoted the spurious 'Epistles of
Phalaris' as evidence of the superiority of the ancients. He was
answered by William Wotton, and, in 1697, Swift wrote his contri-
bution to the controversy, the clever Battle of the Books, which,
however, was not published till 1704. By his will, Temple had left
Swift £100 and any profit that was to be made by the publication
of his posthumous works. Unfortunately, this task led to a pro-
tracted quarrel with Lady Giffard. Swift was 'as far to seek as
ever. ' An application to the king came to nothing, and he thought
it well to accept an invitation to be chaplain and secretary to
Lord Berkeley, one of the lords justices in Ireland; but a rival
persuaded Lord Berkeley that the post was not fit for a clergyman,
and Swift departed in dudgeon. He was, however, presented to the
living of Laracor, near Trim, with two other small livings, together
with the prebend of Durlaven, in St Patrick's, and these brought
in an income of some £230 a year. Laracor had a congregation of
about fifteen persons; but he was often in Dublin and, through his
friendship with Lady Berkeley and her daughters, soon became well
known there. He suggested to Esther Johnson that she and her
friend Rebecca Dingley, who, in some way, was related to the Temple
family, might, with advantage, live in Ireland, and the ladies took
his advice. Swift was now thirty-four, Esther Johnson a young
woman of twenty. Everything was done to avoid any occasion of
scandal When Swift was absent, the ladies used his rooms in
Dublin; when he was there, they took separate lodgings, and he
## p. 94 (#118) #############################################
94
Swift
was never with Esther Johnson except in the presence of a third
person.
Swift was soon back in England. He had already written one
of his most amusing poems, the burlesque Petition of Mrs Frances
Harris ; and, in 1701, he wrote the pamphlet A Discourse on the
Dissensions in Athens and Rome, which was attributed by some
to Somers and by others to Burnet. He was evidently well known
in London society by the time that A Tale of a Tub appeared
in 1704, after lying in manuscript for seven or eight years. He
became a friend of Addison, who sent him a copy of his Travels
in Italy with an inscription : ‘To Jonathan Swift, the most agree-
able of companions, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of
his age this work is presented by his most humble servant the
author. ' Of one of his poems, Baucis and Philemon, Swift said
that Addison made him blot out fourscore lines, add fourscore
and alter fourscore. Steele, too, at this time, was among his friends;
but he spoke with some contempt of the ordinary coffeehouse
wits. He took part in the attack on the almanac written by the
astrologer John Partridge, producing a parody, Predictions for
the ensuing year, by Isaac Bickerstaff, in which he foretold that,
on 29 March, Partridge would die of fever; and, on 30 March, he
printed a letter giving an account of Partridge's end. Partridge
protested that he was alive; but Swift represented that he was
really dead, inasmuch as his credit was gone. Other wits joined
in the fray, and Steele, on starting The Tatler in 1709, adopted
the name Bickerstaff as that of the supposed author. At the same
time, Swift was engaged in more serious work. In 1708—9, he
produced important pamphlets on church questions, which show
that he was beginning to understand that the interests of the whig
party could not be reconciled with those of his order, and was
busily engaged in representing to the government the claims of
the Irish clergy to the first fruits and twentieths, which had
already been granted to the clergy in England.
An attempt to lessen the power of the duke of Marlborough
had come to nothing. Harley, just when he seemed to have
attained success, lost his office; Marlborough and Godolphin
joined the whigs, and, by the end of 1708, Somers was lord
president of the council and Wharton lord lieutenant of Ireland.
Swift was hoping for preferment for himself; but he informed
correspondents that no promise of making his fortune would
prevail on him to go against what became a man of conscience
and truth and an entire friend to the established church. Hopes
## p. 95 (#119) #############################################
i
London and Party Politics 95
that had been held out to him came to nothing, and Swift re-
tired to Ireland. A great change, however, was not far distant.
The prosecution of Sacheverell gave the high church party its
chance. The whigs were turned out of office: Harley became
chancellor of the exchequer, and the new parliament of November
1710 had a great tory majority. In September, Swift was again in
London, and the events of the three following years, with all Swift's
thoughts and hopes, are set out before us in his letters to Esther
Johnson and Mrs Dingley, afterwards to be published as the
Journal to Stella. In a very short time, Swift was in company
with Harley and St John. The whigs, he said, had clutched at
him like a drowning man at a twig, but he minded them not.
Harley listened to the proposals as to first fruits, showed
familiarity with Swift's Christian name and, in general, was exces-
sively obliging. Swift confessed that he was willing to revenge
himself upon his old friends, who had neglected him. “I will
make them repent their ill-usage before I leave this place,' he
said. But we must not forget that, in joining the tories, he was
only rallying to the side with which he was really in sympathy.
The interests of the church were paramount with him; and he had
come to see that tories were the church's natural guardians. In
October, he attacked Godolphin in The Virtues of Sid Hamet
the Magician's Rod, and published a pamphlet against Wharton,
charging him with nearly every crime. In the following month,
he took in charge a weekly paper, The Examiner, which had just
been started by St John', and he wrote for it regularly until June
1711. St John afterwards said, “We were determined to have you:
you were the only one we were afraid of. '
An attempt to assassinate Harley, in March 1711, greatly in-
creased the popularity of that minister. Swift was much alarmed
while Harley's life was in danger. He had, Swift said, always
treated him with the tenderness of a parent, and never refused him
any favour as a friend. The efforts of the party were now devoted
to bringing the war with France to an end. Harley was created
earl of Oxford, and became lord treasurer. The whigs, opposed
to a peace, formed an alliance with Nottingham, previously an
extreme tory. Swift, who had given up his connection with
The Examiner, composed, in November and December 1711, two
pamphlets in favour of peace: The Conduct of the Allies and of
the late Ministry in beginning and carrying on the present war,
and Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty. He also attacked
* See post, chap. VIII.
6
}
1
## p. 96 (#120) #############################################
96
Swift
the duchess of Somerset in The W-ds—r Prophecy, and assisted
the government by A Letter to the October Club, which consisted
of the more extreme tories. The danger threatening the govern-
ment from the House of Lords was removed, in December, by the
creation of twelve new peers, and by the dismissal of the duke of
Marlborough from his employments.
Swift had now attained a position of great importance, and the
authority he possessed and the respect shown him gave him much
pleasure. He often used his power in the service of humble friends
as well as of persons of more social consequence. "This I think I
am bound to do, in honour to my conscience,' he says, 'to use of
my little credit toward helping forward men of worth in the
world. ' To literary men, he was specially helpful. The Brothers'
club, which had been founded in 1711, to advance conversation
and friendship, included St John and other ministers, Swift,
Arbuthnot and Prior. The club does not seem to have lasted
beyond 1713, but its members frequently called each other
"brother' in later years. With regard to his own promotion,
Swift felt that he should be asked rather than ask? Recognition
of his services was, no doubt, to some extent, delayed by the wish
of ministers to keep him at hand to assist them; but the main
dífficulty was the suspicion as to his orthodoxy, an argument
which had considerable weight with the queen. Oxford was
kind to him; 'mighty kind,' says Swift; ‘less of civility but more
of interest! ' At last, in April 1713, he was given the vacant
deanery of St Patrick's—a somewhat disappointing end to his
hopes, inasmuch as it involved banishment to Ireland, and the
payment of heavy expenses on the deanery. His health was
bad; he was subject to attacks of giddiness; and his reception
in Dublin was anything but friendly. In October, Swift returned
to London. Peace had now been secured, and the question before
the country was that of the succession to the crown. Oxford was
not above suspicion; St John (now Viscount Bolingbroke) was
involved in Jacobite plots. Swift was not aware of these schem-
ings, although there was widespread suspicion which led to much
uneasiness in the country. The queen was in ill-health, and it was
known that her life was very precarious.
Swift's efforts to repair the growing breach between Oxford and
* He did not, however, always leave it to others to make the suggestion. On
5 Jan. 1712/3, he wrote to Oxford: 'I must humbly take leave to inform your Lordship
that the Dean of Wells died this morning at one o'clock. I entirely submit my small
fortunes to your Lordsbip. ' Marquis of Bath's Papers, Hist. MSS Comm. , 1904, 1, 228.
## p. 97 (#121) #############################################
Stella and Vanessa
97
>
Bolingbroke came to nothing. In many respects, his sympathies
were with Bolingbroke; but his friendship for Oxford made it im-
possible for him to desert that minister. He refused, therefore,
to join with the men now in power. Oxford was deprived of office
on 27 July 1714; but Bolingbroke's triumph was short-lived, for,
on 1 August, queen Anne died. Swift retired to Dublin, where he
lived in the corner of a vast unfurnished house. '
In Dublin, of course, Swift was in constant intercourse with
Esther Johnson; but his relations with Stella, as she has come
to be known, were complicated by his friendship for Hester
Vanhomrigh, the daughter of a widow with whom he had become
acquainted in 1708. In 1710, when Swift went to London, he had
taken lodgings near the family, and he was frequently with them.
Hester Vanhomrigh was then nineteen. By 1713, she was known
to him as Vanessa, and he wrote a poem, Cadenus and Vanessa,
to explain the relations between them. This curious piece was not
meant for publication, but, rather, as a self-justification, to explain
how it was that a girl felt admiration for a man who had grown old
in politics and wit and had lost the arts that would charm a lady.
He regarded her as might a father or a tutor; but, when he offered
friendship, she said that she would be the tutor and would teach him
what love is. Vanessa was passionately in love; and, on the death of
her mother, she and her sister retired to Ireland, a step which, no
doubt, was very embarrassing to Swift. He told her that he could
see her very seldom, for everything that happened there would
be known in a week. Her fragmentary letters are filled with
reproaches, which Swift endeavoured to meet by temporising and
by good advice as to diverting her mind by exercise and by
amusing books. We cannot discuss here the theories that have
been advanced as to the reason why Swift had not married Stella.
It is alleged that a form of marriage was gone through in 1716 ; but
the evidence in favour of this is quite insufficient, and, in any case,
it was merely a form. It was at this time, according to Delany,
that archbishop King, after parting from Swift, said, 'You have
just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of
his wretchedness you must never ask a question. ' About 1723, a
crisis occurred. One of the stories is that Vanessa, who had then
lost all her near relatives, wrote to Stella asking her whether she
was Swift's wife; whereupon Stella replied that she was and sent
the letter to Swift. Swift, we are told, went at once to Vanessa,
threw the letter on the table, and rode off. If this were true,
Swift's conduct would be put in a very bad light; but the evidence
7
E. L. IX.
CA. IV.
## p. 98 (#122) #############################################
98
Swift
is slight, and, according to another version, it was to Swift that
Vanessa wrote. It is certain that Vanessa died soon afterwards,
leaving a request that Cadenus and Vanessa and her correspond-
ence with Swift might be published. Whatever interpretation be
put upon them, the letters are very unpleasant reading.
In the meantime, Swift had become an Irish patriot, though he
viewed Ireland and the native population with contempt. His
hatred of injustice was, no doubt, strengthened by pleasure in
attacking the government in power; but he was certainly sincere
in his convictions. More will be said below of A proposal for the
universal use of Irish manufacture, published by him in 1720,
in which he urged the Irish not to use English goods, and of the
famous Drapier's Letters, written between April and December
1724, on the occasion of the granting of a patent to William Wood
to supply Ireland with a copper coinage. In the former case, the
printer was prosecuted, but no jury could be found to convict,
and the prosecution was dropped. In the latter, amidst the
greatest popular excitement, a crown jury in Dublin represented
that Wood's halfpence were a nuisance, and the government was
beaten.
Before the Drapier's letters appeared, Swift was engaged on
his most famous work, Gulliver's Travels: but the book was not
finished until early in 1726, when Swift brought the manuscript to
London, where it was published in October. Its success was great
and immediate. Arbuthnot said that he thought it would have as
long a run as John Bunyan, and Gay states that the duchess of Marl-
borough was in raptures with it on account of the satire on human
nature with which it was filled. During Swift's visit to England
he had, however, received the troubling news of Stella's illness. To
one friend in Dublin he wrote, “We have been perfect friends these
thirty-five years; on my advice they both came to Ireland, and have
been ever since my constant companions, and the remainder of my
life will be a very melancholy scene. ' To another friend he said:
This was a person of my own rearing and instruction from childhood, who
excelled in every good quality that can possibly accomplish a human creature.
. . . Violent friendship is much more lasting and as much engaging as violent
love.
He returned to Ireland in August; but Stella's health improved,
and, in 1727, he paid another visit to London’; but in September
1 Swift may have contributed to Bolingbroke's Craftsman in 1726 and following
years. See post, chap. VIII; and cf. Sichel, W. , Bolingbroke and his Times, vol. 11,
pp. 251–2.
## p. 99 (#123) #############################################
99
Popularity and Despondency
she was worse, and again he hurried back to Dublin. On the way,
he had been delayed at Holyhead, and, in a diary which he kept
'to divert thinking,' he speaks of the suspense he was in about his
dearest friend. Stella died in January 1728, after making a will
which describes her as 'spinster. In the Character of Mrs Johnson
which Swift began to write on the night of her death, he calls her
'the truest, most virtuous and valuable friend that I or perhaps
any other person was ever blessed with. ' After his death, a lock of
her hair was found in his desk in a paper marked 'Only a woman's
hair. ' Swift was himself so troubled with noises in the ear and
deafness that he had no spirit for anything and avoided everybody.
He had, as already noticed, been subject to giddiness for many years.
Swift was now a popular hero in Ireland, and there had been
some hope that, during his visits to London, he would obtain
preferment in England; but none was given him. In Ireland, he
found the people would not do anything to help themselves. His
growing misanthropy was shown in the terrible satire called A
Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people from
being a burden to their parents or the country. Ireland, he said,
was a mass of beggars, thieves, oppressors, fools and knaves; but
he must be content to die there: with such a people, it was better
to die than live? Elsewhere, he compared Ireland to a coalpit:
a man who had been bred in a pit might live there all his life
contented; but, if sent back to it after a few months in the open
air, he could not be contented. Yet, notwithstanding his feelings,
Swift did his work at St Patrick's efficiently, and improved the
lot of many by his charity. To Mrs Dingley, he gave an annuity
of fifty guineas a year, allowing her to believe that the money
came from a fund of which he was trustee. He had various friends
with whom, in his later years, he bandied riddles and other trifles;
but, from time to time, he still produced admirable pieces, such
as A Complete Collection of genteel and ingenious Conversa-
tion, Directions to Servants, On Poetry: a Rhapsody and The
Legion Club. Gradually, his correspondence with friends in
England fell off. In 1738, he wrote to Edward Harley, earl of
Oxford:
a
I am now good for nothing, very deaf, very old, and very much out of favour
with those in power. My dear lord, I have a thousand things to say, but
I can remember none of them.
· Welbeck Papers, Hist. MSS Comm. , 1901, vi, 57. Swift's private affairs were in
1730—3 in a bad condition, embroiled in law (ibid. 28, 47).
? Marquis of Bath's Papers, Hist. MSS Comm. , 1, 254.
7-2
## p. 100 (#124) ############################################
Іоо
Swift
And, in 1740, he wrote to his cousin, Mrs Whiteway,
>
I have been very miserable all night, and today extremely deaf and full of
pain. I am so stupid and confounded that I cannot express the mortification
I am under both in body and mind. All I can say is, that I am not in torture:
but I daily and hourly expect it.
I hardly understand one word I write.
I am sure my days will be very few, few and miserable they must be.
The brain trouble, which had threatened him all his life, became
worse, and there were violent fits of temper, with considerable
physical pain. In 1742, it was necessary to appoint guardians,
and Swift fell into a condition of dementia. The end came, at
last, on 7 October 1745. He left his fortune to found a hospital
for idiots and lunatics, and was interred at St Patrick's by the
side of Stella. In an epitaph which he wrote for himself, he said
he was Ubi saeva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit.
One of the greatest and most characteristic of Swift's general
satires is A Tale of a Tub, written for the universal improvement
of mankind, an early work, composed about 1696, and published,
with The Battle of the Books, in 1704. 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.
to Whitehaven, and kept him there three years; and, not long
after his return to Dublin, his mother returned to her relatives
in England, leaving the boy in his uncle's care. He was sent
to Kilkenny school, where he met Congreve; and, when he was
fourteen, he was entered as a pensioner at Trinity college, Dublin.
Why he afterwards felt so much resentment against his relatives is
not clear; for his uncle gave him, not the education of a dog,' but
the best obtainable in Ireland. Swift was often at war with the
college authorities; but he got his degree in 1685.
;
In 1688, Swift's uncle Godwin died, having lost his fortune, and
Swift realized that he must not depend on any one but himself. The
revolution brought trouble for Ireland, and the young man joined
his mother at Leicester and looked about for employment. After
a time, an opportunity came from Sir William Temple, who was
now living in retirement at Moor park, near Farnham. Temple's
6
## p. 92 (#116) #############################################
92
Swift
ܢ
father had been a friend of Godwin Swift; he had himself known
the Swifts in Ireland; and Lady Temple was a connection of
Swift's mother. A man of cultivation and refinement, and a
renowned diplomatist, Temple was in need of someone to assist
him in his literary work, and Swift was chosen. Temple is said
to have treated him entirely as a dependent; but it must be
remembered that, at this time, Swift was an untrained youth of
twenty-two, and the distance between him and 'a person of
quality' like Temple would inevitably be great, especially in
those days.
In later years, Swift spoke somewhat disparagingly of Temple,
saying that he had felt too much what it was to be treated like a
schoolboy. Temple sometimes seemed out of humour for three or
four days, while Swift suspected a hundred reasons. In 1690, his
patron sent Swift with a letter of introduction to Sir Robert South-
well, secretary of state in Ireland, in the hope that he would find
Swift a post or procure for him a fellowship at Trinity college. The
letter said that Swift knew Latin and Greek and a little French;
that he wrote a good hand, and was honest and intelligent.
Nothing came of this recommendation, and Swift was soon back at
Moor park. Temple procured for him the M. A. degree at Oxford
and recommended him to William III. 'He thinks me a little
necessary to him,' wrote Swift. In 1693, he was sent by Temple to
represent to the king the necessity of triennial parliaments; but
the king was not convinced'. The first publication of anything by
Swift appears to have been in February 1691/2, when he printed in
the fifth supplement to The Athenian Mercury, a curious forerunner
of Notes and Queries, a ‘Letter to the Athenian Society,' enclosing
a Pindaric ode, in which he referred to his 'young and almost
vergin muse. ' In 1694, Swift parted from Temple, disappointed at
the failure of his patron to make any definite provision for him;
and, in October, he was ordained deacon, and priest in the following
January. He found it necessary to ask Temple for testimonials,
and Temple went further than he was asked, and obtained for
Swift the prebend of Kilroot. Swift, however, soon tired of
Ireland ; and, in 1696, he was once more at Moor park. In the
meantime, he had had a love affair with a Miss Jane Waring,
whom he addressed as Varina ; but he represented to her that
he was not in a position to marry. He remained with Temple
1 'I have sent him (the secretary) with another complaint from Papa to the King,
where I fancy he is not displeased with finding opportunities of going. ' Martha,
Lady Giffard, Her Life and Correspondence, ed. Longe, J. S. , 1911, p. 216.
## p. 93 (#117) #############################################
Moor Park and Laracor
93
until that statesman's death in 1699. Lady Temple had died in
1694, and Temple found his secretary more and more useful.
Swift was learning much in many directions. He read classical
and historical works in the library; he heard of public affairs
and of the experiences of his patron; he had opportunities of
studying the ways of servants in great houses; and he formed
the lasting affection of his life. Lady Giffard, Temple's sister, who
kept house for him after his wife's death, had as a companion or
servant Mrs Johnson, widow of a merchant of good position; and
this Mrs Johnson had two daughters, one of whom, Esther, a bright
child of eight when Swift first met her, was a great favourite with
the family, and received a legacy under Temple's will. Swift acted
as tutor to the girl, and, by the time of his last sojourn at Moor
park, she had, he says, grown into perfect health and was looked
upon as one of the most beautiful and graceful young women in
London.
Temple took part in the controversy on ancient and modern
learning, and in an essay he quoted the spurious 'Epistles of
Phalaris' as evidence of the superiority of the ancients. He was
answered by William Wotton, and, in 1697, Swift wrote his contri-
bution to the controversy, the clever Battle of the Books, which,
however, was not published till 1704. By his will, Temple had left
Swift £100 and any profit that was to be made by the publication
of his posthumous works. Unfortunately, this task led to a pro-
tracted quarrel with Lady Giffard. Swift was 'as far to seek as
ever. ' An application to the king came to nothing, and he thought
it well to accept an invitation to be chaplain and secretary to
Lord Berkeley, one of the lords justices in Ireland; but a rival
persuaded Lord Berkeley that the post was not fit for a clergyman,
and Swift departed in dudgeon. He was, however, presented to the
living of Laracor, near Trim, with two other small livings, together
with the prebend of Durlaven, in St Patrick's, and these brought
in an income of some £230 a year. Laracor had a congregation of
about fifteen persons; but he was often in Dublin and, through his
friendship with Lady Berkeley and her daughters, soon became well
known there. He suggested to Esther Johnson that she and her
friend Rebecca Dingley, who, in some way, was related to the Temple
family, might, with advantage, live in Ireland, and the ladies took
his advice. Swift was now thirty-four, Esther Johnson a young
woman of twenty. Everything was done to avoid any occasion of
scandal When Swift was absent, the ladies used his rooms in
Dublin; when he was there, they took separate lodgings, and he
## p. 94 (#118) #############################################
94
Swift
was never with Esther Johnson except in the presence of a third
person.
Swift was soon back in England. He had already written one
of his most amusing poems, the burlesque Petition of Mrs Frances
Harris ; and, in 1701, he wrote the pamphlet A Discourse on the
Dissensions in Athens and Rome, which was attributed by some
to Somers and by others to Burnet. He was evidently well known
in London society by the time that A Tale of a Tub appeared
in 1704, after lying in manuscript for seven or eight years. He
became a friend of Addison, who sent him a copy of his Travels
in Italy with an inscription : ‘To Jonathan Swift, the most agree-
able of companions, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of
his age this work is presented by his most humble servant the
author. ' Of one of his poems, Baucis and Philemon, Swift said
that Addison made him blot out fourscore lines, add fourscore
and alter fourscore. Steele, too, at this time, was among his friends;
but he spoke with some contempt of the ordinary coffeehouse
wits. He took part in the attack on the almanac written by the
astrologer John Partridge, producing a parody, Predictions for
the ensuing year, by Isaac Bickerstaff, in which he foretold that,
on 29 March, Partridge would die of fever; and, on 30 March, he
printed a letter giving an account of Partridge's end. Partridge
protested that he was alive; but Swift represented that he was
really dead, inasmuch as his credit was gone. Other wits joined
in the fray, and Steele, on starting The Tatler in 1709, adopted
the name Bickerstaff as that of the supposed author. At the same
time, Swift was engaged in more serious work. In 1708—9, he
produced important pamphlets on church questions, which show
that he was beginning to understand that the interests of the whig
party could not be reconciled with those of his order, and was
busily engaged in representing to the government the claims of
the Irish clergy to the first fruits and twentieths, which had
already been granted to the clergy in England.
An attempt to lessen the power of the duke of Marlborough
had come to nothing. Harley, just when he seemed to have
attained success, lost his office; Marlborough and Godolphin
joined the whigs, and, by the end of 1708, Somers was lord
president of the council and Wharton lord lieutenant of Ireland.
Swift was hoping for preferment for himself; but he informed
correspondents that no promise of making his fortune would
prevail on him to go against what became a man of conscience
and truth and an entire friend to the established church. Hopes
## p. 95 (#119) #############################################
i
London and Party Politics 95
that had been held out to him came to nothing, and Swift re-
tired to Ireland. A great change, however, was not far distant.
The prosecution of Sacheverell gave the high church party its
chance. The whigs were turned out of office: Harley became
chancellor of the exchequer, and the new parliament of November
1710 had a great tory majority. In September, Swift was again in
London, and the events of the three following years, with all Swift's
thoughts and hopes, are set out before us in his letters to Esther
Johnson and Mrs Dingley, afterwards to be published as the
Journal to Stella. In a very short time, Swift was in company
with Harley and St John. The whigs, he said, had clutched at
him like a drowning man at a twig, but he minded them not.
Harley listened to the proposals as to first fruits, showed
familiarity with Swift's Christian name and, in general, was exces-
sively obliging. Swift confessed that he was willing to revenge
himself upon his old friends, who had neglected him. “I will
make them repent their ill-usage before I leave this place,' he
said. But we must not forget that, in joining the tories, he was
only rallying to the side with which he was really in sympathy.
The interests of the church were paramount with him; and he had
come to see that tories were the church's natural guardians. In
October, he attacked Godolphin in The Virtues of Sid Hamet
the Magician's Rod, and published a pamphlet against Wharton,
charging him with nearly every crime. In the following month,
he took in charge a weekly paper, The Examiner, which had just
been started by St John', and he wrote for it regularly until June
1711. St John afterwards said, “We were determined to have you:
you were the only one we were afraid of. '
An attempt to assassinate Harley, in March 1711, greatly in-
creased the popularity of that minister. Swift was much alarmed
while Harley's life was in danger. He had, Swift said, always
treated him with the tenderness of a parent, and never refused him
any favour as a friend. The efforts of the party were now devoted
to bringing the war with France to an end. Harley was created
earl of Oxford, and became lord treasurer. The whigs, opposed
to a peace, formed an alliance with Nottingham, previously an
extreme tory. Swift, who had given up his connection with
The Examiner, composed, in November and December 1711, two
pamphlets in favour of peace: The Conduct of the Allies and of
the late Ministry in beginning and carrying on the present war,
and Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty. He also attacked
* See post, chap. VIII.
6
}
1
## p. 96 (#120) #############################################
96
Swift
the duchess of Somerset in The W-ds—r Prophecy, and assisted
the government by A Letter to the October Club, which consisted
of the more extreme tories. The danger threatening the govern-
ment from the House of Lords was removed, in December, by the
creation of twelve new peers, and by the dismissal of the duke of
Marlborough from his employments.
Swift had now attained a position of great importance, and the
authority he possessed and the respect shown him gave him much
pleasure. He often used his power in the service of humble friends
as well as of persons of more social consequence. "This I think I
am bound to do, in honour to my conscience,' he says, 'to use of
my little credit toward helping forward men of worth in the
world. ' To literary men, he was specially helpful. The Brothers'
club, which had been founded in 1711, to advance conversation
and friendship, included St John and other ministers, Swift,
Arbuthnot and Prior. The club does not seem to have lasted
beyond 1713, but its members frequently called each other
"brother' in later years. With regard to his own promotion,
Swift felt that he should be asked rather than ask? Recognition
of his services was, no doubt, to some extent, delayed by the wish
of ministers to keep him at hand to assist them; but the main
dífficulty was the suspicion as to his orthodoxy, an argument
which had considerable weight with the queen. Oxford was
kind to him; 'mighty kind,' says Swift; ‘less of civility but more
of interest! ' At last, in April 1713, he was given the vacant
deanery of St Patrick's—a somewhat disappointing end to his
hopes, inasmuch as it involved banishment to Ireland, and the
payment of heavy expenses on the deanery. His health was
bad; he was subject to attacks of giddiness; and his reception
in Dublin was anything but friendly. In October, Swift returned
to London. Peace had now been secured, and the question before
the country was that of the succession to the crown. Oxford was
not above suspicion; St John (now Viscount Bolingbroke) was
involved in Jacobite plots. Swift was not aware of these schem-
ings, although there was widespread suspicion which led to much
uneasiness in the country. The queen was in ill-health, and it was
known that her life was very precarious.
Swift's efforts to repair the growing breach between Oxford and
* He did not, however, always leave it to others to make the suggestion. On
5 Jan. 1712/3, he wrote to Oxford: 'I must humbly take leave to inform your Lordship
that the Dean of Wells died this morning at one o'clock. I entirely submit my small
fortunes to your Lordsbip. ' Marquis of Bath's Papers, Hist. MSS Comm. , 1904, 1, 228.
## p. 97 (#121) #############################################
Stella and Vanessa
97
>
Bolingbroke came to nothing. In many respects, his sympathies
were with Bolingbroke; but his friendship for Oxford made it im-
possible for him to desert that minister. He refused, therefore,
to join with the men now in power. Oxford was deprived of office
on 27 July 1714; but Bolingbroke's triumph was short-lived, for,
on 1 August, queen Anne died. Swift retired to Dublin, where he
lived in the corner of a vast unfurnished house. '
In Dublin, of course, Swift was in constant intercourse with
Esther Johnson; but his relations with Stella, as she has come
to be known, were complicated by his friendship for Hester
Vanhomrigh, the daughter of a widow with whom he had become
acquainted in 1708. In 1710, when Swift went to London, he had
taken lodgings near the family, and he was frequently with them.
Hester Vanhomrigh was then nineteen. By 1713, she was known
to him as Vanessa, and he wrote a poem, Cadenus and Vanessa,
to explain the relations between them. This curious piece was not
meant for publication, but, rather, as a self-justification, to explain
how it was that a girl felt admiration for a man who had grown old
in politics and wit and had lost the arts that would charm a lady.
He regarded her as might a father or a tutor; but, when he offered
friendship, she said that she would be the tutor and would teach him
what love is. Vanessa was passionately in love; and, on the death of
her mother, she and her sister retired to Ireland, a step which, no
doubt, was very embarrassing to Swift. He told her that he could
see her very seldom, for everything that happened there would
be known in a week. Her fragmentary letters are filled with
reproaches, which Swift endeavoured to meet by temporising and
by good advice as to diverting her mind by exercise and by
amusing books. We cannot discuss here the theories that have
been advanced as to the reason why Swift had not married Stella.
It is alleged that a form of marriage was gone through in 1716 ; but
the evidence in favour of this is quite insufficient, and, in any case,
it was merely a form. It was at this time, according to Delany,
that archbishop King, after parting from Swift, said, 'You have
just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of
his wretchedness you must never ask a question. ' About 1723, a
crisis occurred. One of the stories is that Vanessa, who had then
lost all her near relatives, wrote to Stella asking her whether she
was Swift's wife; whereupon Stella replied that she was and sent
the letter to Swift. Swift, we are told, went at once to Vanessa,
threw the letter on the table, and rode off. If this were true,
Swift's conduct would be put in a very bad light; but the evidence
7
E. L. IX.
CA. IV.
## p. 98 (#122) #############################################
98
Swift
is slight, and, according to another version, it was to Swift that
Vanessa wrote. It is certain that Vanessa died soon afterwards,
leaving a request that Cadenus and Vanessa and her correspond-
ence with Swift might be published. Whatever interpretation be
put upon them, the letters are very unpleasant reading.
In the meantime, Swift had become an Irish patriot, though he
viewed Ireland and the native population with contempt. His
hatred of injustice was, no doubt, strengthened by pleasure in
attacking the government in power; but he was certainly sincere
in his convictions. More will be said below of A proposal for the
universal use of Irish manufacture, published by him in 1720,
in which he urged the Irish not to use English goods, and of the
famous Drapier's Letters, written between April and December
1724, on the occasion of the granting of a patent to William Wood
to supply Ireland with a copper coinage. In the former case, the
printer was prosecuted, but no jury could be found to convict,
and the prosecution was dropped. In the latter, amidst the
greatest popular excitement, a crown jury in Dublin represented
that Wood's halfpence were a nuisance, and the government was
beaten.
Before the Drapier's letters appeared, Swift was engaged on
his most famous work, Gulliver's Travels: but the book was not
finished until early in 1726, when Swift brought the manuscript to
London, where it was published in October. Its success was great
and immediate. Arbuthnot said that he thought it would have as
long a run as John Bunyan, and Gay states that the duchess of Marl-
borough was in raptures with it on account of the satire on human
nature with which it was filled. During Swift's visit to England
he had, however, received the troubling news of Stella's illness. To
one friend in Dublin he wrote, “We have been perfect friends these
thirty-five years; on my advice they both came to Ireland, and have
been ever since my constant companions, and the remainder of my
life will be a very melancholy scene. ' To another friend he said:
This was a person of my own rearing and instruction from childhood, who
excelled in every good quality that can possibly accomplish a human creature.
. . . Violent friendship is much more lasting and as much engaging as violent
love.
He returned to Ireland in August; but Stella's health improved,
and, in 1727, he paid another visit to London’; but in September
1 Swift may have contributed to Bolingbroke's Craftsman in 1726 and following
years. See post, chap. VIII; and cf. Sichel, W. , Bolingbroke and his Times, vol. 11,
pp. 251–2.
## p. 99 (#123) #############################################
99
Popularity and Despondency
she was worse, and again he hurried back to Dublin. On the way,
he had been delayed at Holyhead, and, in a diary which he kept
'to divert thinking,' he speaks of the suspense he was in about his
dearest friend. Stella died in January 1728, after making a will
which describes her as 'spinster. In the Character of Mrs Johnson
which Swift began to write on the night of her death, he calls her
'the truest, most virtuous and valuable friend that I or perhaps
any other person was ever blessed with. ' After his death, a lock of
her hair was found in his desk in a paper marked 'Only a woman's
hair. ' Swift was himself so troubled with noises in the ear and
deafness that he had no spirit for anything and avoided everybody.
He had, as already noticed, been subject to giddiness for many years.
Swift was now a popular hero in Ireland, and there had been
some hope that, during his visits to London, he would obtain
preferment in England; but none was given him. In Ireland, he
found the people would not do anything to help themselves. His
growing misanthropy was shown in the terrible satire called A
Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people from
being a burden to their parents or the country. Ireland, he said,
was a mass of beggars, thieves, oppressors, fools and knaves; but
he must be content to die there: with such a people, it was better
to die than live? Elsewhere, he compared Ireland to a coalpit:
a man who had been bred in a pit might live there all his life
contented; but, if sent back to it after a few months in the open
air, he could not be contented. Yet, notwithstanding his feelings,
Swift did his work at St Patrick's efficiently, and improved the
lot of many by his charity. To Mrs Dingley, he gave an annuity
of fifty guineas a year, allowing her to believe that the money
came from a fund of which he was trustee. He had various friends
with whom, in his later years, he bandied riddles and other trifles;
but, from time to time, he still produced admirable pieces, such
as A Complete Collection of genteel and ingenious Conversa-
tion, Directions to Servants, On Poetry: a Rhapsody and The
Legion Club. Gradually, his correspondence with friends in
England fell off. In 1738, he wrote to Edward Harley, earl of
Oxford:
a
I am now good for nothing, very deaf, very old, and very much out of favour
with those in power. My dear lord, I have a thousand things to say, but
I can remember none of them.
· Welbeck Papers, Hist. MSS Comm. , 1901, vi, 57. Swift's private affairs were in
1730—3 in a bad condition, embroiled in law (ibid. 28, 47).
? Marquis of Bath's Papers, Hist. MSS Comm. , 1, 254.
7-2
## p. 100 (#124) ############################################
Іоо
Swift
And, in 1740, he wrote to his cousin, Mrs Whiteway,
>
I have been very miserable all night, and today extremely deaf and full of
pain. I am so stupid and confounded that I cannot express the mortification
I am under both in body and mind. All I can say is, that I am not in torture:
but I daily and hourly expect it.
I hardly understand one word I write.
I am sure my days will be very few, few and miserable they must be.
The brain trouble, which had threatened him all his life, became
worse, and there were violent fits of temper, with considerable
physical pain. In 1742, it was necessary to appoint guardians,
and Swift fell into a condition of dementia. The end came, at
last, on 7 October 1745. He left his fortune to found a hospital
for idiots and lunatics, and was interred at St Patrick's by the
side of Stella. In an epitaph which he wrote for himself, he said
he was Ubi saeva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit.
One of the greatest and most characteristic of Swift's general
satires is A Tale of a Tub, written for the universal improvement
of mankind, an early work, composed about 1696, and published,
with The Battle of the Books, in 1704. 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.
