Jonathan Swift

“ As Gay's letter suggests, details concerning the contemporary reception of Gulliver's Travels exhibit two sides of Jonathan Swift's character—the pleasant (that is, merry, witty, amusing) and the unpleasant (that is, sarcastic, envious, disaffected) . A person with a powerful ego and astringent sense of humor, Swift must have been a delightful friend, if somewhat difficult, but also a dangerous enemy. ”

“ I cannot therefore be expected to say much of a life, concerning which I had long since communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with so much elegance of language and force of sentiment.
Jonathan Swift was, according to an account said to be [1] written by himself, the son of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin on St. Andrew’s day, 1667: according to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman, who was minister of a parish in Herefordshire [2] . ”

“ Even such an apparition was Jonathan Swift to comfortable Whigs who were flourishing in the place of Harley and St. John, when, after ten years’ quiescence, he suddenly stepped into the political arena. After the first crushing fall he had abandoned partial hope, and contented himself with establishing supremacy in his chapter. But undying wrath smouldered in his breast till time came for an outburst.
No man had ever learnt more thoroughly the lesson, “put not your faith in princes;” ”

“ The thought immediately came into Swift's head, that this might be some master of a vessel who was the bearer of a present to him from his cousin at Lisbon. He saw him enter the building with pleasing expectation, and soon after heard a rap at his door, which he eagerly opening, was accosted by the sailor with, — "Is your name Jonathan Swift?" "Yes!" "Why then I have something for you from master Willoughby Swift of Lisbon." ”

“ Wish'd women might have children fast, And thought whose sow had farrow'd last; Against dissenters would repine, And stood up firm for "right divine;" Found his head fill'd with many a system; But classic authors,—he ne'er mist 'em. Thus having furbish'd up a parson, Dame Baucis next they play'd their farce on. Instead of homespun coifs, were seen Good pinners edg'd with colberteen; Her petticoat, transform'd apace, Became black satin, flounced with lace. "Plain Goody" would no longer down, 'Twas "Madam," in her grogram gown. Philemon was in great surprise, And hardly could believe his eyes. ”

“ Swift has been styled the Prince of Journalists. Like most titles whose aim is to express in modern words the character and achievements of a man of a past age, this phrase is not of the happiest. Applied to so extraordinary a man as Jonathan Swift, it is both misleading and inadequate. ”

“ In this guise she marched on towards the Moderns, indistinguishable in shape and dress from the divine Bentley, Wotton’s dearest friend. “Brave Wotton,” said the goddess, “why do our troops stand idle here, to spend their present vigour and opportunity of the day? away, let us haste to the generals, and advise to give the onset immediately.” Having spoke thus, she took the ugliest of her monsters, full glutted from her spleen, and flung it invisibly into his mouth, which, flying straight up into his head, squeezed out his eye-balls, gave him a distorted look, and half-overturned his brain. ”

“ He conceives the fortunate idea of issuing a "tall folio" of his poems done on "paper imperial and the largest in England." He manages to interest innumerable people in his project: Jonathan Swift even exerts himself and extracts not less than £200 from what he called the "hedge country" of his residence. ”

“ And until we are shown that the earth is wholly bad, we shall find much to amuse, much to instruct, much to admire—aye, much to pity—in the life of Jonathan Swift.
His father married at twenty. His income matched his years—it was just twenty pounds per annum. His wife was a young girl, bright, animated, intelligent.
In a few short months this girl carried in her arms a baby. This baby was wrapped in a tattered shawl and cried piteously from hunger, for the mother had not enough to eat. She was cold, and sick, and in disgrace. Her husband, too, was ill, and sorely in debt. ”

“ Yes, yes, sir George St. George dead. Go, cry, madam Dingley; I have written to the dean. Raymond will be rich, for he has the building itch. I wish all he has got may put him out of debt. Poh, I have fires like light'ning; they cost me twelvepence a week, beside small coal. I have got four new caps, madam, very fine and convenient, with striped cambrick, instead of muslin; so Patrick need not mend them, but take the old ones. Stella snatched Dingley's word out of her pen; Presto a cold; why all the world here is dead with them: I never had any thing like it in my life ”

“ Then where, said I, shall Harley find A virgin of superior mind, With wit and virtue to discover, And pay the merit of her lover? This character shall Ca'endish claim, Born to retrieve her sex's fame. The chief among the glittering crowd, Of titles, birth, and fortune proud, (As fools are insolent and vain) Madly aspired to wear her chain; But Pallas, guardian of the maid, Descending to her charge's aid, Held out Medusa's snaky locks, Which stupified them all to stocks. The nymph with indignation view'd The dull, the noisy, and the lewd ”

“ In 1689 came to Moor Park in the capacity of amanuensis, at a salary of 20l. a year, Jonathan Swift [q. v.] , who was then twenty-two years of age. Swift's mother was a connection of Lady Temple. He stayed under Temple's roof with a few short intervals until the statesman's death, for a period, that is, of nearly ten years, and there he met Esther Johnson (‘Stella’) , whose mother was an attendant upon Lady Giffard. Swift commenced his residence by writing some frigid Pindaric odes in Temple's honour, but gradually the relations between them grew more cordial. ”

“ He has got some templars from Ireland that show him the town. I do not let him see me above twice a week, and that only while I am dressing in the morning. — So now the puppy's come in, and I have got my own ink, but a new pen; and so now you are rogues and sauceboxes till I go to bed; for I must go study, sirrahs. Now I think of it, tell the bishop of Clogher he shall not cheat me of one inch of my bell metal. You know it is nothing but to save the town money; and Enniskilling can afford it better than Laracor: he shall have but one thousand five hundred weight. ”

“ London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.
45
SWIFT. Jonathan Swift, by an account in his own handwriting, was the son of an attorney in the city of Dublin. He was born in 1667. Some doubt has been felt concerning his origin, in consequence of his own angry or capricious declaration, when out of humour with Ireland,—“I am not of this vile country; I am an Englishman;” and Sir William Temple has been said to be his real father. This piece of scandal, however, is disproved by circumstances of time and place. Swift was placed at Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of fourteen. ”

“ Nic. Frog demanded two things, to be his porter and his fishmonger, to keep the keys of his gates, and furnish the kitchen. John's sister Peg only desired, that he would let his servants sing psalms a Sundays. Some descended even to the asking of old clothes, shoes, and boots, broken bottles, tobacco-pipes, and ends of candles.
"Monsieur Bull," quoth Lewis, "you seem to be a man of some breeding: for God's sake, use your interest with these messieurs, that they would speak but one at once; for if one had a hundred pair of hands, and as many tongues, he cannot satisfy them all at this rate." ”

“ He was interred in his cathedral at midnight on the 22nd of October, in the same coffin as Stella, with the epitaph, written by himself, "Hic depositum est corpus Jonathan Swift, S.T.P., hujus ecclesiae cathedralis decani; ubi saeva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit. Abi, viator, et imitare, si poteris, strenuum pro virili libertatis vindicem." The stress which Swift thus laid upon his character as an assertor of liberty has hardly been ratified by posterity, which has apparently neglected the patriot for the genius and the wit. ”

“ The retired statesman, Sir William Temple, at Moor Park, near Farnham, in Surrey, was in highest esteem with the new King and the leaders of the Revolution. His father, as Master of the Irish Rolls, had been a friend of Godwin Swift's, and with his wife Swift's mother could claim cousinship. After some months, therefore, at Leicester, Jonathan Swift, aged twenty-two, went to Moor Park, and entered Sir William Temple's household, doing service with the expectation of advancement through his influence. ”

“ Leigh stays till Sterne has done his business, no longer; and when that will be, God knows: I befriend him as much as I can, but Mr. Harley's accident stops that as well as all things else. You guess, madam Dingley, that I shall stay a round twelvemonth; as hope saved, I would come over, if I could, this minute; but we will talk of that by and by. — Your affair of Vedeau I have told you of already; now to the next, turn over the leaf. Mrs. Dobbins lies, I have no more provision here or in Ireland than I had. I am pleased that Stella the conjurer approves what I did with Mr. Harley [8] ”

“ Clogher! far north, my lord, it lies, 'Midst snowy hills, inclement skies: One shivers with the arctic wind, One hears the polar axis grind. Good John [3] indeed, with beef and claret, Makes the place warm, that one may bear it. He has a purse to keep a table, And eke a soul as hospitable. My heart is good; but assets fail, To fight with storms of snow and hail. Besides, the country's thin of people, Who seldom meet but at the steeple: The strapping dean, that's gone to Down, Ne'er named the thing without a frown, When, much fatigued with sermon study, He felt his brain grow dull and muddy ”

“ Jonathan Swift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of the age” was the inscription written by Addison on a copy of his Travels presented to Swift; and it shows what opinion Addison and those about him had formed of the author of the Tale of a Tub. ”

“ Then what a damned English blockhead are you, replied Killbuck, to find fault with me for not directing you the way to a place where I never had been, when you don't know it yourself, who have been there? Swift, with a countenance of great counterfeited terrour, immediately rose and changed seats with Doughty, who happened to be next to him, placing the giant between him and Tuite to protect him against that wild man, and skulking behind him like a child, with well acted fear, to the no small entertainment of the company; who, however, were not sorry that the dean had met with his match. ”

“ His coat, a usurer's velvet pall, Bequeath'd to Pluto, corpse and all. But, loath his person to expose Bare, like a carcass pick'd by crows, A lawyer, o'er his hands and face Stuck artfully a parchment case. No new flux'd rake show'd fairer skin; Nor Phyllis after lying in. With snuff was fill'd his ebon box, Of shin-bones rotted by the pox. Nine spirits of blaspheming fops, With aconite anoint his chops ”

“ As I ought to have understood human nature much better than I supposed it possible for my master to do, so it was easy to apply the character he gave of the Yahoos to myself and my countrymen; and I believed I could yet make further discoveries, from my own observation. I therefore often begged his honour to let me go among the herds of Yahoos in the neighbourhood; to which he always very graciously consented, being perfectly convinced that the hatred I bore these brutes would never suffer me to be corrupted by them ”

“ To day I went and dined at lady Lucy's, where you know I have not been this long time; they are plaguy whigs, especially the sister Armstrong, the most insupportable of all women pretending to wit, without any taste. She was running down the last Examiner, the prettiest I had read, with a character of the present ministry. — I left them at five, and came home. But I forgot to tell you, that this morning my cousin Dryden Leach the printer, came to me with a heavy complaint, that Harrison the new Tatler had turned him off, and taken the last Tatler's printers again. He vowed revenge ”

“ Upon which he put his hand in his pocket, and, for the first time, produced that ludicrous copy of verses on Quilca, since printed in his works. This occasioned a good deal of laughter at the doctor's expense, who bore it patiently for some time, but meditated speedy revenge. He then pretended to be weary of the coach, and said he would mount his horse, which was led, and go before to prepare breakfast for them at the inn. He made what speed he could, and upon his arrival there, instantly called for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote the poem, describing the dean's goods at Laracor. ”

“ While in what he called his "exile" he wrote Gulliver's Travels, which was at first published anonymously, the secret of the authorship being so closely guarded that the publisher did not know who was the author. Dr. Johnson characterized it as "A production so new and strange that it filled the reader with admiration and amazement. It was read by the high and low, the learned and the illiterate." In this work, Jonathan Swift appears as one of the greatest masters of English we have ever had; as endowed with an imaginative genius inferior to few ”