Halleck's New English Literature · Chapter 57Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745
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[Illustration: JONATHAN SWIFT. From the painting by C. Jervas, National Portrait Gallery.]
Life.—Swift, one of the greatest prose writers of the eighteenth century, was born of English parents in Dublin in 1667. It is absolutely necessary to know something of his life in order to pass proper judgment on his writings. A cursory examination of his life will show that heredity and environment were responsible for many of his peculiarities. Swift's father died a few months before the birth of his son, and the boy saw but little of his mother.
Swift's school and college life were passed at Kilkenny School and Trinity College, Dublin. For his education he was indebted to an uncle, who made the boy feel the bitterness of his dependence. In after times he said that his uncle treated him like a dog. Swift's early experience seems to have made him misanthropic and hardened to consequences, for he neglected certain studies, and it was only by special concession that he was allowed to take his A.B. degree in 1686.
After leaving college, he spent almost ten years as the private secretary of Sir William Temple, at Moor Park in Surrey, about forty miles southwest of London. Temple had been asked to furnish some employment for the young graduate because Lady Temple was related to Swift's mother. Here Swift was probably treated as a dependent, and he had to eat at the second table. Finally, this life became so intolerable that he took holy orders and went to a little parish in Ireland; but after a stay of eighteen months he returned to Moor Park, where he remained until Temple's death in 1699. Swift then went to another little country parish in Ireland. From there he visited London on a mission in behalf of the Episcopal Church in Ireland. He quarreled with the Whigs, became a Tory, and assisted that party by writing many political pamphlets. The Tory ministry soon felt that it could scarcely do without him. He dined with ministers of state, and was one of the most important men in London; but he advanced the interests of his friends much better than his own, for he got little from the government except the hope of becoming bishop. In 1713 he was made dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In 1714, Queen Anne died, the Tories went out of power, and Swift returned to Ireland, a disappointed man. He passed the rest of his life there, with the exception of a few visits to England.
[Illustration: MOOR PARK. From a drawing.]
When English politicians endeavored to oppress Ireland with unjust laws, Swift championed the Irish cause. A man who knew him well, says: "I never saw the poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to as those of his cathedral." He gave up a large part of his income every year for the poor. In Dublin he was looked upon as a hero. When a certain person tried to be revenged on Swift for a satire, a deputation of Swift's neighbors proposed to thrash the man. Swift sent them home, but they boycotted the man and lowered his income £1200 a year.
During the last years of his life, Swift was hopelessly insane. He died in 1745, leaving his property for an asylum for lunatics and incurables.
[Illustration: SWIFT AND STELLA. From the painting by Dicksee.]
The mysteries in Swift's life may be partly accounted for by the fact that during many years he suffered from an unknown brain disease. This affection, the galling treatment received in his early years, and the disappointments of his prime, largely account for his misanthropy, for his coldness, and for the almost brutal treatment of the women who loved him.
Swift's attachment to the beautiful Esther Johnson, known in literature as Stella, led him to write to her that famous series of letters known as the Journal to Stella, in which he gives much of his personal history during the three sunniest years of his life, from 1710 to 1713, when he was a lion in London. Thackeray says: "I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls his 'little language' in his Journal to Stella."
A Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books.—Swift's greatest satire, the greatest prose satire in English, is known as A Tale of a Tub. The purpose of the work is to uphold the Episcopalians and satirize opposing religious denominations. For those not interested in theological arguments, there is much entertaining philosophy, as the following quotation will show:—
"If we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition,—that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or understanding it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth; and the reason is just at our elbow, because imagination can build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than fortune or nature will be at expense to furnish."
Swift's satiric definition of happiness as the art "of being well deceived" is a characteristic instance of a combination of his humor and pessimistic philosophy.
In the same volume with A Tale of a Tub, there was published a prose satire in almost epic form, An Account of a Battle between the Ancient and Modern Books in St. James Library (1704). Although this satire apparently aims to demonstrate the superior merits of the great classical writers, it is mainly an attack on pretentions to knowledge. Our greatest surprise in this satire comes not only from discovering the expression, "sweetness and light," made famous by Matthew Arnold in the Victorian age, but also from finding that a satirist like Swift assigned such high rank to these qualities. He says that the "Ancients" thus expressed an essential difference between themselves and the "Moderns":—
"The difference is that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our lives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are Sweetness and Light."
Gulliver's Travels.—The world is always ready to listen to any one who has a good story to tell. Neither children nor philosophers have yet wearied of reading the adventures of Captain Lemuel Gulliver in Lilliput and Brobdingnag. Gulliver's Travels is Swift's most famous work.
Gulliver makes four remarkable voyages to strange countries. He first visits Lilliput, which is inhabited by a race of men about six inches high. Everything is on a corresponding scale. Gulliver eats a whole herd of cattle for breakfast and drinks several hogsheads of liquor. He captures an entire fleet of warships. A rival race of pygmies endeavors to secure his services so as to obtain the balance of power. The quarrels between these little people seem ridiculous, and so petty as to be almost beneath contempt.
Gulliver next visits Brobdingnag, where the inhabitants are sixty feet tall, and the affairs of ordinary human beings appear petty and insignificant. The cats are as large as three oxen, and the dogs attain the size of four elephants. Gulliver eats on a table thirty feet high, and trembles lest he may fall and break his neck. The baby seizes Gulliver and tries to swallow his head. Afterward the hero fights a desperate battle with two rats. A monkey catches him and carries him to the almost infinite height of the house top. Certainly, the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag merit Leslie Stephen's criticism of being "almost the most delightful children's book ever written."
The third voyage, which takes him to Laputa, satirizes the philosophers. We are taken through the academy at Lagado and are shown a typical philosopher:—
"He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in vials, hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He told me he did not doubt that in eight years more he should be able to supply the governor's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate."
In this voyage the Struldbrugs are described. They are a race of men who, after the loss of every faculty and of every tie that binds them to earth, are doomed to continue living. Dante never painted a stronger or a ghastlier picture.
On his fourth voyage, he visits the country of the Houyhnhnms and describes the Yahoos, who are the embodiment of all the detestable qualities of human beings. The last two voyages are not pleasant reading, and one might wish that the author of two such inimitable tales as the adventures in Lilliput and Brobdingnag had stopped with these.
Children read Gulliver's Travels for the story, but there is much more than a story in the work. In its pages the historian finds allusions that throw much light on the history of the age. Among the Lilliputians, for example, there is one party, known as the Bigendians, which insists that all eggs shall be broken open at the big end, while another party, called the Littleendians, contends that eggs shall be opened only at the little end. These differences typify the quarrels of the age concerning religion and politics. The Travels also contains much human philosophy. The lover of satire is constantly delighted with the keenness of the thrusts.
General Characteristics.—Swift is one of the greatest of English prose humorists. He is noted also for wit of that satiric kind which enjoys the discomfiture of the victim. A typical instance is shown in the way in which, under the assumed name of Isaac Bickerstaff, he dealt with an astrologer and maker of prophetic almanacs, whose name was Partridge. Bickerstaff claimed to be an infallible astrologer, and predicted that Partridge would die March 29, 1708, at 11 P.M. When that day had passed, Bickerstaff issued a pamphlet giving a circumstantial account of Partridge's death. Partridge, finding that his customers began to decrease, protested that he was alive. Bickerstaff promptly replied that Partridge was dead by his own infallible rules of astrology, and that the man now claiming to be Partridge was a vile impostor.
Swift's wit frequently left its imprint on the thought of the time. The results of this special prank with the astrologer were: first, to cause the wits of the town to join in the hue and cry that Partridge was dead; second, to increase the contempt for astrologers; and, third, in the words of Scott: "The most remarkable consequence of Swift's frolic was the establishment of the Tatler." Richard Steele, its founder, adopted the popular name of Isaac Bickerstaff.
Taine says of Swift: "He is the inventor of irony, as Shakespeare of poetry." The most powerful instance of Swift's irony is shown in his attempt to better the condition of the Irish, whose poverty forced them to let their children grow up ignorant and destitute, or often even die of starvation. His Modest Proposal for relieving such distress is to have the children at the age of one year served as a new dish on the tables of the great. So apt is irony to be misunderstood and to fail of its mark, that for a time Swift was considered merely brutal; but soon he convinced the Irish that he was their friend, willing to contribute both time and money to aid them. His ironical remarks on The Abolishing of Christianity were also misunderstood.
His poems, such as A Description of a City Shower, and Cadenus and Vanessa, show the same general characteristics as his prose, but are inferior to it.
We shall search Swift's work in vain for examples of pathos or sublimity. We shall find his pages caustic with wit, satire, and irony, and often disfigured with coarseness. One of the great pessimists of all time, he is yet tremendously in earnest in whatever he says, from his Drapier's Letters, written to protect Ireland from the schemes of English politicians, to his Gulliver's Travels, where he describes the court of Lilliput. This earnestness and circumstantial minuteness throw an air of reality around his most grotesque creations. He pretended to despise Defoe; yet the influence of that great writer, who made fiction seem as real as fact, is plainly apparent in Gulliver's remarkable adventures.
Although sublimity and pathos are outside of his range, his style is remarkably well adapted to his special subject matter. While reading his works, one scarcely ever thinks of his style, unless the attention is specially directed to it. Only a great artist can thus conceal his art. A style so natural as this has especial merits which will repay study. Three of its chief characteristics are simplicity, flexibility, and energetic directness.