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|Transcriber's Note: This book is a compilation of previously |
|published works and therefore contains some inconsistencies. |
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BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY
* * * * *
THE PROSE WORKS OF JONATHAN SWIFT
VOL. VII
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS
PORTUGAL ST. LINCOLN'S INN, W. C.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER & CO.
_In 12 volumes, 5s. each._
~THE PROSE WORKS~
OF
~JONATHAN SWIFT, D. D.~
EDITED BY
~TEMPLE SCOTT~
VOL. I. A TALE OF A TUB AND OTHER EARLY WORKS.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT. With a biographical introduction by
W. E. H. LECKY, M. P. With Portrait and Facsimiles.
VOL. II. THE JOURNAL TO STELLA. Edited by FREDERICK
RYLAND, M. A. With two Portraits of Stella and a Facsimile of
one of the Letters.
VOLS. III. & IV. WRITINGS ON RELIGION AND THE
CHURCH. Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT. With Portraits and Facsimiles
of Title-pages.
VOL. V. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL TRACTS--ENGLISH.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT. With Portrait and Facsimiles
of Title-pages.
VOL. VI. THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS. Edited by TEMPLE
SCOTT. With Portrait, Reproductions of Wood's Coinage, and Facsimiles
of Title-pages.
VOL. VII. HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL TRACTS--IRISH.
Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT. With Portrait and Facsimiles of Title-pages.
VOL. VIII. GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. Edited by G. RAVENSCROFT
DENNIS. With Portrait, Maps and Facsimiles.
VOL. IX. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE "EXAMINER,"
"TATLER," "SPECTATOR," &c. Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portrait.
VOL. X. HISTORICAL WRITINGS. Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portrait.
VOL. XI. LITERARY ESSAYS. Edited by TEMPLE SCOTT.
With Portrait. [_In the press._
VOL. XII. FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX TO COMPLETE
WORKS. Together with an Essay on the Portraits of
Swift, by the HON. SIR FREDERICK FALKINER, K. C. With two
Portraits. [_In the press._
SOME PRESS OPINIONS
"An adequate edition of Swift--the whole of Swift, and nothing but
Swift--has long been one of the pressing needs of students of
English literature. Mr. Temple Scott, who is preparing the new
edition of Swift's Prose Works, has begun well, his first volume is
marked by care and knowledge. He has scrupulously collated his
texts with the first or the best early editions, and has given
various readings in the footnotes.... Mr. Temple Scott may well be
congratulated on his skill and judgment as a commentator.... He has
undoubtedly earned the gratitude of all admirers of our greatest
satirist, and all students of vigorous, masculine, and exact
English."--_Athenæum._
"The volume is an agreeable one to hold and to refer to, and the
notes and apparatus are, on the whole, exact. A cheap and handy
reprint, which we can conscientiously recommend."--_Saturday
Review._
"From the specimen now before us we may safely predict that Mr.
Temple Scott will easily distance both Roscoe and Scott. He
deserves the gratitude of all lovers of literature for enabling
Swift again to make his bow to the world in so satisfactory and
complete a garb."--_Manchester Guardian._
"Mr. Temple Scott's introductions and notes are excellent in all
respects, and this edition of Swift is likely to be one most
acceptable to scholars."--_Notes and Queries._
"The new Bohn's Library edition of the prose works of Jonathan
Swift is a venture which proves itself the more welcome as each
instalment is issued.... This edition is likely long to remain the
standard edition."--_Literary World._
"'Bohn's Libraries' need no push, and the magnificent edition of
'The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift,' edited by Mr. Temple Scott, is
in every respect worthy of that great collection of classics. It is
an ideal edition, edited by an ideal editor, beautifully printed,
handsomely bound, and ridiculously cheap. I have no hesitation in
saying that this edition supersedes all its forerunners."--_Star._
"We have nothing but praise for the editing, annotating, printing,
and general production. Indeed, now that the set has advanced so
far, we can safely pronounce the opinion that all other editions of
Swift must give place to it, and that no serious student of the
politics of the eighteenth century can afford to be without these
volumes.... A superb edition."--_Irish Times._
"Edited with exhaustive care, and produced in excellent style. This
is not only the best, it is the _only_ edition of Swift."--_Pall
Mall Gazette._
"There could hardly be a more acceptable addition to Bohn's
Standard Library than a new edition of Swift's Prose Works. The
text is well printed, and the volume is of convenient size. The
edition deserves to be popular, since Swift is a writer who will
always be read, while this edition will bring him within reach of a
number of new readers."--_Scotsman._
"The time is now ripe for a definite edition. This, of which the
first volume lies before us, promises to fulfil all the conditions
of a scholarly and satisfying work.... The edition is a genuine
gain to English literature."--_Birmingham Post._
"The publishers of Bohn's Libraries will earn the thanks of a wide
circle of readers by their undertaking to produce a popular and
collected edition of the prose works of Swift.... So far as one
may judge from a first instalment, the present edition seems to
fulfil the requirements of popularity and accuracy as well as could
be desired.... The edition promises to be one of the most valuable
and welcome items in those classic 'Libraries' which have done so
much to bring good literature, in worthy form, within the reach of
the British public."--_Glasgow Herald._
"We are indebted to the proprietors of the Bohn Libraries for
various literary enterprises, but it is questionable indeed if they
have issued lately a work more acceptable, or likely to become more
popular, than 'The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift.' No better
edition of it could be desired. Mr. Temple Scott is editing the
volumes with the greatest care."--_Belfast News Letter._
"No more welcome reprint has appeared for some time past than the
new edition, complete and exact so far as it was possible to make
it, of Swift's 'Journal to Stella.'"--_Morning Post._
"By far the most satisfactory text yet printed of the wonderful
'Journal to Stella.'"--_Newcastle Daily Chronicle._
"The 'Journal to Stella' has long stood in need of editing, far
more than any other of Swift's works. It abounds in references to
persons great and small, to political and social 'occurrents,' to
ephemeral publications; and to identify and explain all these
demands an editor steeped in the history, literature, broadsides
and press news of the time of the Harley administration. Mr.
Ryland's present edition will satisfy all but the few who dream of
an ideal."--_Athenæum._
"The immortal 'Journal to Stella,' one of the works most
indispensable to a knowledge of the life and literature of the
early part of the eighteenth century. We know of no shape in which
the Journal is published so convenient for perusal as this. The
notes are short and serviceable, and there is a full
index."--_Notes and Queries._
"At last we have a well-printed, carefully edited text of Swift's
famous Journal in a single, handy, and cheap volume. The present
edition will, we hope, encourage many timid souls, who have been
awed by the formidable array of Scott, Sheridan, or Hawkesworth's
editions, to make the acquaintance of the most interesting,
charming, and tender journal that ever man kept for a woman's
eye."--_St. James's Gazette._
"Mr. Dennis is quite justified in his boast of now first giving us
a complete and trustworthy text [of 'Gulliver's
Travels']."--_Manchester Guardian._
"The number of useless reprints of Gulliver, based on Hawkesworth's
untrustworthy edition, and mostly expurgated besides, is so great
that we owe double thanks to Mr. Dennis, since he has not shirked
the trouble of collating the five earliest editions, and has given
us again at last--as far as is possible in the present case--the
complete and authentic text of the original."--PROF. MAX
FГ–RSTER in _Anglia_.
"An ideal text of 'Gulliver's Travels.'"--_Literary World._
"The best and most scholarly edition of 'Gulliver's
Travels.'"--_University Correspondent._
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Jonathan Swift_
_From an engraving by Andrew Miller after the painting by Francis Bindon
in the Deanery of St. Patrick's Dublin._]
THE PROSE WORKS
OF
JONATHAN SWIFT, D. D.
EDITED BY
TEMPLE SCOTT.
VOL. VII
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL TRACTS--IRISH
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1905
CHISWICK PRESS. CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE,
LONDON.
INTRODUCTION
Swift took up his permanent residence in the Irish capital in 1714. The
Harley Administration had fallen never to rise again. Harley himself was
a prisoner in the Tower, and Bolingbroke a voluntary exile in France,
and an open adherent of the Pretender. Swift came to Dublin to be met by
the jeers of the populace, the suspicion of the government officials,
and the polite indifference of his clerical colleagues. He had time
enough now in which to reflect and employ his brain powers. For several
years he kept himself altogether to his duties as Dean of the Cathedral
of St. Patrick's, only venturing his pen in letters to dear friends in
England--to Pope, Atterbury, Lady Howard. His private relations with
Miss Hester Vanhomrigh came to a climax, also, during this period, and
his peculiar intimacy with "Stella" Johnson took the definite shape in
which we now know it.
He found himself in debt to his predecessor, Sterne, for a large and
comfortless house and for the cost of his own installation into his
office. The money he was to have received (ВЈ1,000) to defray these
expenses, from the last administration, was now, on its fall, kept back
from him. Swift had these encumbrances to pay off and he had his Chapter
to see to. He did both in characteristic fashion. By dint of almost
penurious saving he accomplished the former and the latter he managed
autocratically and with good sense. His connection with Oxford and
Bolingbroke had been of too intimate a nature for those in power to
ignore him. Indeed, his own letters to Knightley Chetwode[1] show us
that he was in great fear of arrest. But there is now no doubt that the
treasonable relations between Harley and St. John and the Pretender were
a great surprise to Swift when they were discovered. He himself had
always been an ardent supporter of the Protestant succession, and his
writings during his later period in Ireland constantly emphasize this
attitude of his--almost too much so.
The condition of Ireland as Swift found it in 1714, and as he had known
of it even before that time, was of a kind to rouse a temper like his to
quick and indignant expression. Even as early as the spring of 1716 we
find him unable to restrain himself, and in his letter to Atterbury of
April 18th we catch the spirit which, four years later, showed itself in
"The Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures" and the
"Drapier's Letters," and culminated in 1729 in the terrible "Modest
Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from being a Burthen
to their Parents." To Atterbury he wrote:
"I congratulate with England for joining with us here in the fellowship
of slavery. It is not so terrible a thing as you imagine: we have long
lived under it: and whenever you are disposed to know how to behave
yourself in your new condition, you need go no further than me for a
director. But, because we are resolved to go beyond you, we have
transmitted a bill to England, to be returned here, giving the
Government and six of the Council power for three years to imprison whom
they please for three months, without any trial or examination: and I
expect to be among the first of those upon whom this law will be
executed."
Writing to Archdeacon Walls[2] (May 5th, 1715) of the people in power,
he said:
"They shall be deceived as far as my power reaches, and shall not find
me altogether so great a cully as they would willingly make me."
At that time England was beginning to initiate a new method for what it
called the proper government of Ireland. Hitherto it had tried the plan
of setting one party in the country against another; but now a new party
was called into being, known as the "English party." This party had
nothing to do with the Irish national spirit, and any man, no matter how
capable, who held by such a national spirit, was to be set aside. There
was to be no Irish party or parties as such--there was to be only the
English party governing Ireland in the interests of England. It was the
beginning of a government which led to the appointment of such a man as
Primate Boulter, who simply ruled Ireland behind the Lord Lieutenant
(who was but a figurehead) for and on behalf of the King of England's
advisers. Irish institutions, Irish ideas, Irish traditions, the Irish
Church, Irish schools, Irish language and literature, Irish trade,
manufactures, commerce, agriculture--all were to be subordinated to
England's needs and England's demands. At any cost almost, these were to
be made subservient to the interests of England. So well was this plan
carried out, that Ireland found itself being governed by a small English
clique and its Houses of Parliament a mere tool in the clique's hands.
The Parliament no longer represented the national will, since it did
really nothing but ratify what the English party asked for, or what the
King's ministers in England instructed should be made law.
Irish manufactures were ruined by legislation; the commerce of Ireland
was destroyed by the same means; her schools became practically
penitentiaries to the Catholic children, who were compelled to receive a
Protestant instruction; her agriculture was degraded to the degree that
cattle could not be exported nor the wool sold or shipped from her own
ports to other countries; her towns swarmed with beggars and thieves,
forced there by the desolation which prevailed in the country districts,
where people starved by the wayside, and where those who lived barely
kept body and soul together to pay the rents of the absentee landlords.
Swift has himself, in the pamphlets printed in the present volume, given
a fairly accurate and no exaggerated account of the miserable condition
of his country at this time; and his writings are amply corroborated by
other men who might be considered less passionate and more temperate.
The people had become degraded through the evil influence of a
contemptuous and spendthrift landlord class, who considered the tenant
in no other light than as a rent-paying creature. As Roman Catholics
they found themselves the social inferiors of the ruling Protestant
class--the laws had placed them in that invidious position. They were
practically without any defence. They were ignorant, poor, and
half-starved. Thriftless, like their landlords, they ate up in the
autumn what harvests they gathered, and begged for their winter's
support. Adultery and incest were common and bred a body of lawless
creatures, who herded together like wild beasts and became dangerous
pests.
Swift knew all this. He had time, between the years 1714 and 1720, to
find it out, even if he had not known of it before. But the condition
was getting worse, and his heart filled, as he told Pope in 1728, with a
"perfect rage and resentment" at "the mortifying sight of slavery,
folly, and baseness about me, among which I am forced to live."
He commenced what might be called a campaign of attack in 1720, with the
publication of his tract entitled, "A Modest Proposal for the Universal
Use of Irish Manufactures." As has been pointed out in the notes
prefixed to the pamphlets in the present volume, England had,
apparently, gone to work systematically to ruin Irish manufactures. They
seemed to threaten ruin to English industries; at least so the people in
England thought. The pernicious legislation began in the reign of
Charles II. and continued in that of William III. The Irish manufacturer
was not permitted to export his products and found a precarious
livelihood in a contraband trade. Swift's "Proposal" is one of
retaliation. Since England will not allow Ireland to send out her goods,
let the people of Ireland use them, and let them join together and
determine to use nothing from England. Everything that came from England
should be burned, except the people and the coal. If England had the
right to prevent the exportation of the goods made in Ireland, she had
not the right to prevent the people of Ireland from choosing what they
should wear. The temper of the pamphlet was mild in the extreme; but the
governing officials saw in it dangerous symptoms. The pamphlet was
stigmatized as libellous and seditious, and the writer as attempting to
disunite the two nations. The printer was brought to trial, and the
pamphlet obtained a tremendous circulation. Although the jury acquitted
the printer, Chief Justice Whitshed, who had, as Swift puts it, "so
quick an understanding, that he resolved, if possible, to outdo his
orders," sent the jury back nine times to reconsider their verdict. He
even declared solemnly that the author's design was to bring in the
Pretender. This cry of bringing in the Pretender was raised on any and
every occasion, and has been well ridiculed by Swift in his "Examination
of Certain Abuses and Corruptions in the City of Dublin." The end of
Whitshed's persecution could have been foretold--it fizzled out in a
_nolle prosequi_.
Following on this interesting commencement came the lengthened agitation
against Wood's Halfpence to which we owe the remarkable series of
writings known now as the "Drapier's Letters." These are fully discussed
in the volume preceding this. But Swift found other channels in which to
continue rousing the spirit of the people, and refreshing it to further
effort. The mania for speculation which Law's schemes had given birth
to, reached poor Ireland also. People thought there might be found a
scheme on similar lines by which Ireland might move to prosperity. A
Bank project was initiated for the purpose of assisting small tradesmen.
But a scheme that in itself would have been excellent in a prosperous
society, could only end in failure in such a community as peopled
Ireland. Swift felt this and opposed the plan in his satirical tract,
"The Swearer's Bank." The tract sufficed, for no more was heard of the
National Bank after the House of Commons rejected it.
The thieves and "roughs" who infested Dublin came in next for Swift's
attention. In characteristic fashion he seized the occasion of the
arrest and execution of one of their leaders to publish a pretended
"Last Speech and Dying Confession," in which he threatened exposure and
arrest to the remainder of the gang if they did not make themselves
scarce. The threat had its effect, and the city found itself
considerably safer as a consequence.
How Swift pounded out his "rage and resentment" against English
misgovernment, may be further read in the "Story of the Injured Lady,"
and in the "Answer" to that story. The Injured Lady is Ireland, who
tells her lover, England, of her attractions, and upbraids him on his
conduct towards her. In the "Answer" Swift tells the Lady what she ought
to do, and hardly minces matters. Let her show the right spirit, he says
to her, and she will find there are many gentlemen who will support her
and champion her cause.
Then came the plain, pathetic, and truthful recital of the "Short View
of the State of Ireland"--a pamphlet of but a few pages and yet terribly
effective. As an historical document it takes rank with the experiences
of the clergymen, Skelton and Jackson, as well as the more dispassionate
writings of contemporary historians. It is frequently cited by Lecky in
his "History of Ireland."
What Swift had so far left undone, either from political reasons or from
motives of personal restraint, he completed in what may, without
exaggeration, be called his satirical masterpiece--the "Modest Proposal
for Preventing the Children of Poor People from being a Burthen to their
Parents." Nothing comparable to this piece of writing is to be found in
any literature; while the mere fact that it came into being must stand
as one of the deadliest indictments against England's misrule.
Governments and rulers have been satirized time and again, but no
similar condition of things has existed with a Swift living at the time,
to observe and comment on them. The tract itself must be read with a
knowledge of the Irish conditions then prevailing; its temper is so calm
and restrained that a reader unacquainted with the conditions might be
misled and think that the author of "Gulliver's Travels" was indulging
himself in one of his grim jokes. That it was not a joke its readers at
the time well knew, and many of them also knew how great was the
indignation which raged in Swift's heart to stir him to so unprecedented
an expression of contempt. He had, as he himself said, raged and stormed
only to find himself stupefied. In the "Modest Proposal" he changed his
tune and
... with raillery to nettle,
Set your thoughts upon their mettle.
Swift has been censured for the cold-blooded cynicism of this piece of
writing, but these censurers have entirely misunderstood both his motive
and his meaning. We wonder how any one could take seriously a proposal
for breeding children for food purposes, and our wonder grows in
reflecting on an inability to see through the thin veil of satire which
barely hid an impeachment of a ruling nation by the mere statement of
the proposal itself. That a Frenchman should so misunderstand it (as a
Frenchman did) may not surprise us, but that any Englishman should so
take it argues an utter absence of humour and a total ignorance of Irish
conditions at the time the tract was written. But history has justified
Swift, and it is to his writings, rather than to the many works written
by more commonplace observers, that we now turn for the true story of
Ireland's wrongs, and the real sources of her continued attitude of
hostility towards England's government of her.
It has been well noted by one of Swift's biographers, that for a
thousand readers which the "Modest Proposal" has found, there is perhaps
only one who is acquainted with Swift's "Answer to the Craftsman." It
may be that the title is misleading or uninviting; but there is no
question that this tract may well stand by the side of the "Modest
Proposal," both for force of argument and pungency of satire. In its way
and within the limits of its more restricted argument it is one of the
ablest pieces of writing Swift has given us on behalf of Irish liberty.
The title of Irish patriot which Swift obtained was not sought for by
him. It was given him mainly for the part he played, and for the success
he achieved in the Wood's patent agitation. He was acclaimed the
champion of the people, because he had stopped the foolish manoeuvres
of the Walpole Administration. So to label him, however, would be to do
him an injustice. In truth, he would have championed the cause of
liberty and justice in any country in which he lived, had he found
liberty and justice wanting there. The matter of the copper coinage
patent was but a peg for him to hang arguments which applied almost
everywhere. It was not to the particular arguments but to the spirit
which gave them life that we must look for the true value of Swift's
work. And that spirit--honest, brave, strong for the right--is even more
abundantly displayed in the writings we have just considered. They
witness to his championship of liberty and justice, to his impeachment
of selfish office-holders and a short-sighted policy. They gave him his
position as the chief among the citizens of Dublin to whom he spoke as
counsel and adviser. They proclaim him as the friend of the common
people, to whom he was more than the Dean of St. Patrick's. He may have
begun his work impelled by a hatred for Whiggish principles; but he
undoubtedly accomplished it in the spirit of a broad-minded and
far-seeing statesman. The pressing needs of Ireland were too urgent and
crying for him to permit his personal dislike of the Irish natives to
divert him from his humanitarian efforts. If he hated the beggar he was
ready with his charity. The times in which he lived were not times in
which, as he told the freemen of Dublin, "to expect such an exalted
degree of virtue from mortal men." He was speaking to them of the
impossibility of office-holders being independent of the government
under which they held their offices. "Blazing stars," he said, "are much
more frequently seen than such heroical virtues." As the Irish people
were governed by such men he advised them strongly to choose a
parliamentary representative from among themselves. He insisted on the
value of their collected voice, their unanimity of effort, a
consciousness of their understanding of what they wished to bring about.
"Be independent" is the text of all his writings to the people of
Ireland. It is idle to appeal to England's clemency or England's
justice. It is vain to evolve social schemes and Utopian dreams. The
remedy lay in their own hands, if the people only realized it.
"Violent zeal for truth," Swift noted in one of his "Thoughts on
Religion," "has a hundred to one odds to be either petulancy, ambition,
or pride." Examining Swift's writings on behalf of Ireland by the
criterion provided in this statement, we must acquit him entirely of
misusing any of these qualities. If he were bitter or scornful, he was
certainly not petulant. No one has written with more justice or
coolness; the temper is hot but it is the heat of a conscious and
collected indignation. If he wrote or spoke in a manner somewhat
overbearing, it was not because of ambition, since he was now long past
his youth and his mind had become settled in a fairly complacent
acceptance of his position. If he had pride, and he undoubtedly had, it
was nowhere obtruded for personal aggrandizement, but rather by way of
emphasizing the dignity of citizenship, and the value of self-respect.
Assuredly, in these Irish tracts, Swift was no violent zealot for truth.
Indeed, it is a high compliment to pay him, to say that we wonder he
restrained himself as he did.
Swift, however, had his weakness also, and it lay, as weaknesses
generally lie, very close to his strength. Swift's fault as a thinker
was the outcome of his intellectuality--he was too purely intellectual.
He set little store on the emotional side of human nature; his appeal
was always to the reason. He hated cant, and any expression of emotion
appealed to him as cant. He could not bear to be seen saying his
prayers; his acts of charity were surreptitious and given in secret with
an affectation of cynicism, so that they might veil the motive which
impelled them. It may have been pride or a dislike to be considered
sentimental; but his attitude owed its spring to a genuine faith in his
own thought. If Swift had one pride more than another, it lay in a
consciousness of his own superiority over his fellow-mortals. It was the
pride of intellect and a belief that man showed himself best by
following the judgements of the reason. His disgust with people was born
of their unreasonable selfishness, their instinctive greed and rapacity,
their blind stupidity, all which resulted for them in so much injustice.
Had they been reasonable, he would have argued, they would have been
better and happier. The sentiments and the passions were impulsive, and
therefore unreasonable. Swift seemed to have no faith in their elevation
to a higher intellectual plane, and yet he often roused them by his very
appeals to reason. His eminently successful "Drapier's Letters" are a
case in point. Yet we question if Swift were not himself surprised at
their effect. He knew his power later when he threatened the Archbishop
of Armagh, but he, no doubt, credited the result to his own arguments,
and not to the passions he had aroused. His sense of justice was the
strongest, and it was through that sense that the condition of the
people of Ireland appealed to him. He forgot, or he did not see that the
very passion in himself was of prime importance, since it was really to
it that his own efforts were due. The fine flower of imagination never
blossomed in Swift. He was neither prophet nor poet; but he was a great
leader, a splendid captain, a logical statesman. It is to this lack of
imagination that we must look for the real root of his cynical humour
and satirical temper. A more imaginative man than Swift with much less
power would have better appreciated the weaknesses of humanity and made
allowances for them. He would never have held them up to ridicule and
contempt, but would rather have laid stress on those instincts of honour
and nobility which the most ignorant and least reasoning possess in some
degree.
Looking back on the work Swift did, and comparing its effect at the time
with the current esteem in which he is held in the present day, we shall
find that his reputation has altogether changed. In his own day, and
especially during his life in Ireland, his work was special, and brought
him a special repute. He was a party's advocate and the people's friend.
His literary output, distinguished though it was, was of secondary
importance compared with the purpose for which it was accomplished. He
was the friend of Harley, the champion of the Protestant Church, the
Irish patriot, the enemy of Whiggism, the opponent of Nonconformity.
To-day all these phrases mean little or nothing to those who know of
Swift as the author of "A Tale of a Tub," and "Gulliver's Travels."
Swift is now accepted as a great satirist, and admired for the wonderful
knowledge he shows of the failings and weaknesses of human nature. He is
admired but never loved. The particular occasions in his life-time
which urged him to rouse passions mean nothing to us; they have lost the
aroma of his just indignation and are become historical events. What is
left of him for us is the result of cold analysis and almost heartless
contempt. How different would it have been had Swift allied his great
gift as a writer to such a spirit as breathes in the Sermon on the
Mount! But to wish this is perhaps as foolish as to expect dates to grow
on thistles. We must accept what is given us, and see that we, at any
rate, steer clear of the dangers mapped out for us by the travellers of
the past.
* * * * *
The editor takes this opportunity to thank Mr. G. Ravenscroft Dennis and
Mr. W. Spencer Jackson for much valuable assistance in the reading of
proofs and the collation of texts.
TEMPLE SCOTT.
NEW YORK,
_May 18, 1905._
CONTENTS
PAGE
A LETTER TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, IN IRELAND, UPON
THE CHOOSING A NEW SPEAKER THERE 1
A PROPOSAL FOR THE UNIVERSAL USE OF IRISH MANUFACTURE 11
AN ESSAY ON ENGLISH BUBBLES. BY THOMAS HOPE, ESQ. 31
THE SWEARER'S BANK 37
A LETTER TO THE KING AT ARMS 47
THE LAST SPEECH AND DYING WORDS OF EBENEZER ELLISTON 55
THE TRUTH OF SOME MAXIMS IN STATE AND GOVERNMENT,
EXAMINED WITH REFERENCE TO IRELAND 63
THE BLUNDERS, DEFICIENCIES, DISTRESSES, AND MISFORTUNES
OF QUILCA 73
A SHORT VIEW OF THE STATE OF IRELAND 79
THE STORY OF THE INJURED LADY. WRITTEN BY HERSELF 93
THE ANSWER TO THE INJURED LADY 104
AN ANSWER TO A PAPER CALLED "A MEMORIAL OF THE POOR
INHABITANTS, TRADESMEN, AND LABOURERS OF THE KINGDOM
OF IRELAND" 107
ANSWER TO SEVERAL LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN PERSONS 117
AN ANSWER TO SEVERAL LETTERS SENT ME FROM UNKNOWN
HANDS 127
A LETTER TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN CONCERNING THE
WEAVERS 135
OBSERVATIONS OCCASIONED BY READING A PAPER ENTITLED
"THE CASE OF THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES OF DUBLIN,"
ETC. 145
THE PRESENT MISERABLE STATE OF IRELAND 151
THE SUBSTANCE OF WHAT WAS SAID BY THE DEAN OF ST.
PATRICK'S TO THE LORD MAYOR AND SOME OF THE ALDERMEN
WHEN HIS LORDSHIP CAME TO PRESENT THE SAID
DEAN WITH HIS FREEDOM IN A GOLD BOX 167
ADVERTISEMENT BY DR. SWIFT IN HIS DEFENCE AGAINST
JOSHUA, LORD ALLEN 173
A LETTER ON MR. M'CULLA'S PROJECT ABOUT HALFPENCE,
AND A NEW ONE PROPOSED 177
A PROPOSAL THAT ALL THE LADIES AND WOMEN OF IRELAND
SHOULD APPEAR CONSTANTLY IN IRISH MANUFACTURES 191
A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF
POOR PEOPLE FROM BEING A BURTHEN TO THEIR PARENTS
OR THE COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO
THE PUBLIC 201
ANSWER TO THE CRAFTSMAN 217
A VINDICATION OF HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN, LORD CARTERET 225
A PROPOSAL FOR AN ACT OF PARLIAMENT TO PAY OFF THE
DEBT OF THE NATION WITHOUT TAXING THE SUBJECT 251
A CASE SUBMITTED BY DEAN SWIFT TO MR. LINDSAY, COUNSELLOR
AT LAW 259
AN EXAMINATION OF CERTAIN ABUSES, CORRUPTIONS, AND
ENORMITIES IN THE CITY OF DUBLIN 261
A SERIOUS AND USEFUL SCHEME TO MAKE AN HOSPITAL FOR
INCURABLES 283
THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE FOOTMEN IN AND ABOUT THE
CITY OF DUBLIN 305
ADVICE TO THE FREEMEN OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN IN THE
CHOICE OF A MEMBER TO REPRESENT THEM IN PARLIAMENT 309
SOME CONSIDERATIONS HUMBLY OFFERED TO THE LORD
MAYOR, THE COURT OF ALDERMEN AND COMMON-COUNCIL
OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN IN THE CHOICE OF A RECORDER 317
A PROPOSAL FOR GIVING BADGES TO THE BEGGARS IN ALL THE
PARISHES OF DUBLIN 321
CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT MAINTAINING THE POOR 337
ON BARBAROUS DENOMINATIONS IN IRELAND 343
SPEECH DELIVERED ON THE LOWERING OF THE COIN 351
IRISH ELOQUENCE 361
A DIALOGUE IN HIBERNIAN STYLE 362
TO THE PROVOST AND SENIOR FELLOWS OF TRINITY COLLEGE,
DUBLIN 364
TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN,
SHERIFFS, AND COMMON-COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF
CORK 366
TO THE HONOURABLE THE SOCIETY OF THE GOVERNOR AND
ASSISTANTS IN LONDON, FOR THE NEW PLANTATION IN
ULSTER 368
CERTIFICATE TO A DISCARDED SERVANT 369
AN EXHORTATION ADDRESSED TO THE SUB-DEAN AND CHAPTER
OF ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN 370
APPENDIX:
A LETTER TO THE WRITER OF THE OCCASIONAL PAPER 375
AN ACCOUNT OF THE COURT AND EMPIRE OF JAPAN 382
THE ANSWER OF THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PULTENEY,
ESQ., TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT WALPOLE 392
INDEX 401
A LETTER
TO
A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, IN IRELAND,
UPON THE CHOOSING A NEW SPEAKER THERE.
WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1708.
NOTE.
In the note prefixed to the reprint of Swift's "Letter concerning
the Sacramental Test," the circumstances under which this "Letter
to a Member of Parliament in Ireland" was written, are explained
(see vol. iv., pp. 3-4, of present edition). The Godolphin ministry
was anxious to repeal the Test Act in Ireland, as a concession to
the Presbyterians who had made themselves prominent by their
expressions of loyalty to William and the Protestant succession. In
this particular year also (1708), rumours of an invasion gave them
another opportunity to send in loyal addresses. In reality,
however, the endeavour to try the repeal in Ireland, was in the
nature of a test, and Swift ridiculed the attempt as being like to
"that of a discreet physician, who first gives a new medicine to a
dog, before he prescribes it to a human creature." It seems that
Swift had been consulted by Somers on the question of the repeal,
and had given his opinion very frankly. The letter to Archbishop
King, revealing this, contains some bitter remarks about "a certain
lawyer of Ireland." The lawyer was Speaker Brodrick, afterwards
Lord Midleton, who was enthusiastic for the repeal. The present
letter gives a very clear idea of what Swift thought should be a
Speaker's duties both as the chairman of the House and as related
to this particular measure of the Test.
* * * * *
The text of the present reprint is based on the original manuscript
in Swift's handwriting; but as this was found to be somewhat
illegible, it has been collated with the text given in vol. viii.
of the quarto edition of Swift's collected works, published in
1765.
[T. S.]
A LETTER TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, IN IRELAND, UPON THE CHOOSING A NEW
SPEAKER THERE.
SIR,
You may easily believe I am not at all surprised at what you tell me,
since it is but a confirmation of my own conjecture that I sent you last
week, and made you my reproaches upon it at a venture. It looks
exceeding strange, yet, I believe it to be a great truth, that, in order
to carry a point in your house, the two following circumstances are of
great advantage; first, to have an ill cause; and, secondly, to be a
minority. For both these circumstances are extremely apt to unite men,
to make them assiduous in their attendance, watchful of opportunities,
zealous for gaining over proselytes, and often successful; which is not
to be wondered at, when favour and interest are on the side of their
opinion. Whereas, on the contrary, a majority with a good cause are
negligent and supine. They think it sufficient to declare themselves
upon occasion in favour of their party, but, sailing against the tide of
favour and preferment, they are easily scattered and driven back. In
short, they want a common principle to cement, and motive to spirit
them; For the bare acting upon a principle from the dictates of a good
conscience, or prospect of serving the public, will not go very far
under the present dispositions of mankind. This was amply verified last
sessions of Parliament, upon occasion of the money bill, the merits of
which I shall not pretend to examine. 'Tis enough that, upon the first
news of its transmission hither, in the form it afterwards appeared, the
members, upon discourse with their friends, seemed unanimous against it,
I mean those of both parties, except a few, who were looked upon as
persons ready to go any lengths prescribed them by the court. Yet with
only a week's canvassing among a very few hands, the bill passed after a
full debate, by a very great majority; yet, I believe, you will hardly
attempt persuading me, or anybody else, that one man in ten, of those
who changed their language, were moved by reasons any way affecting the
merits of the cause, but merely through hope, fear, indolence, or good
manners. Nay, I have been assured from good hands, that there was still
a number sufficient to make a majority against the bill, if they had not
apprehended the other side to be secure, and therefore thought it
imprudence, by declaring themselves, to disoblige the government to no
purpose.
Reflecting upon this and forty other passages, in the several Houses of
Commons since the Revolution, makes me apt to think there is nothing a
chief governor can be commanded to attempt here wherein he may not
succeed, with a very competent share of address, and with such
assistance as he will always find ready at his devotion. And therefore I
repeat what I said at first, that I am not at all surprised at what you
tell me. For, if there had been the least spark of public spirit left,
those who wished well to their country and its constitution in church
and state, should, upon the first news of the late Speaker's promotion,
(and you and I know it might have been done a great deal sooner) have
immediately gone together, and consulted about the fittest person to
succeed him. But, by all I can comprehend, you have been so far from
proceeding thus, that it hardly ever came into any of your heads. And
the reason you give is the worst in the world: That none offered
themselves, and you knew not whom to pitch upon. It seems, however, the
other party was more resolved, or at least not so modest: For you say
your vote is engaged against your opinion, and several gentlemen in my
neighbourhood tell me the same story of themselves; this, I confess, is
of an unusual strain, and a good many steps below any condescensions a
court will, I hope, ever require from you. I shall not trouble myself to
inquire who is the person for whom you and others are engaged, or
whether there be more candidates from that side, than one. You tell me
nothing of either, and I never thought it worth the question to anybody
else. But, in so weighty an affair, and against your judgment, I cannot
look upon you as irrevocably determined. Therefore I desire you will
give me leave to reason with you a little upon the subject, lest your
compliance, or inadvertency, should put you upon what you may have cause
to repent as long as you live.
You know very well, the great business of the high-flying Whigs, at this
juncture, is to endeavour a repeal of the test clause. You know likewise
that the moderate men, both of High and Low Church, profess to be wholly
averse from this design, as thinking it beneath the policy of common
gardeners to cut down the only hedge that shelters from the north.[3]
Now, I will put the case; If the person to whom you have promised your
vote be one of whom you have the least apprehension that he will promote
or assent to the repealing of that clause, whether it be decent or
proper, he should be the mouth of an assembly, whereof a very great
majority pretend to abhor his opinion. Can a body, whose mouth and heart
must go so contrary ways, ever act with sincerity, or hardly with
consistence? Such a man is no proper vehicle to retain or convey the
sense of the House, which, in so many points of the greatest moment,
will be directly contrary to his; 'tis full as absurd, as to prefer a
man to a bishopric who denies revealed religion. But it may possibly be
a great deal worse. What if the person you design to vote into that
important post, should not only be a declared enemy of the sacramental
test, but should prove to be a solicitor, an encourager, or even a
penner of addresses to complain of it? Do you think it so indifferent a
thing, that a promise of course, the effect of compliance, importunity,
shame of refusing, or any the like motive, shall oblige you past the
power of retracting?
Perhaps you will tell me, as some have already had the weakness to do,
that it is of little importance to either party to have a Speaker of
their side, his business being only to take the sense of the House and
report it, that you often, at committees, put an able speaker into the
chair on purpose to prevent him from stopping a bill. Why, if it were no
more than this, I believe I should hardly choose, even among my footmen,
such a one to deliver a message, whose interest and opinions led him to
wish it might miscarry. But I remember to have heard old Colonel
Birch[4] of Herefordshire say, that "he was a very sorry Speaker, whose
single vote was not better than fifty common ones." I am sure it is
reckoned in England the first great test of the prevalency of either
party in the House. Sir Thomas Littleton[5] thought, that a House of
Commons with a stinking breath (supposing the Speaker to be the mouth)
would go near to infect everything within the walls, and a great deal
without. It is the smallest part of an able Speaker's business, what he
performs in the House, at least if he be in with the court, when it is
hard to say how many converts may be made in a circle of dinners, or
private cabals. And you and I can easily call to mind a gentleman in
that station, in England, who, by his own arts and personal credit, was
able to draw over a majority, and change the whole power of a prevailing
side in a nice juncture of affairs, and made a Parliament expire in one
party who had lived in another.
I am far from an inclination to multiply party causes, but surely the
best of us can with very ill grace make that an objection, who have not
been so nice in matters of much less importance. Yet I have heard some
persons of both sides gravely deliver themselves in this manner; "Why
should we make the choosing a Speaker a party cause? Let us fix upon one
who is well versed in the practices and methods of parliament." And I
believe there are too many who would talk at the same rate, if the
question were not only about abolishing the sacramental test, but the
sacrament itself.
But suppose the principles of the most artful Speaker could have no
influence either to obtain or obstruct any point in Parliament, who can
answer what effects such a choice may produce without doors? 'Tis
obvious how small a matter serves to raise the spirits and hopes of the
Dissenters and their high-flying advocates, what lengths they run, what
conclusions they form, and what hopes they entertain. Do they hear of a
new friend in office? That is encouragement enough to practise the
city, against the opinion of a majority into an address to the Queen for
repealing the sacramental test; or issue out their orders to the next
fanatic parson to furbish up his old sermons, and preach and print new
ones directly against Episcopacy. I would lay a good wager, that, if the
choice of a new Speaker succeeds exactly to their liking, we shall see
it soon followed by many new attempts, either in the form of pamphlet,
sermon, or address, to the same, or perhaps more dangerous purposes.
Supposing the Speaker's office to be only an employment of profit and
honour, and a step to a better; since it is in your own gift, will you
not choose to bestow it upon some person whose principles the majority
of you pretends to approve, if it were only to be sure of a worthy man
hereafter in a high station, on the bench or at the bar?
I confess, if it were a thing possible to be compassed, it would seem
most reasonable to fill the chair with some person who would be entirely
devoted to neither party: But, since there are so few of that character,
and those either unqualified or unfriended, I cannot see how a majority
will answer it to their reputation, to be so ill provided of able
persons, that they must have recourse for a leader to their adversaries,
a proceeding of which I never met with above one example, and even that
succeeded but ill, though it was recommended by an oracle, which advised
some city in Greece to beg a general from their enemies, who, in scorn,
sent them either a fiddler or a poet, I have forgot which; but so much I
remember, that his conduct was such, as they soon grew weary of him.
You pretend to be heartily resolved against repealing the sacramental
test, yet, at the same time, give the only great employment you have to
dispose of to a person who will take that test against his stomach (by
which word I understand many a man's conscience) who earnestly wisheth
it repealed, and will endeavour it to the utmost of his power; so that
the first action after you meet, will be a sort of contravention to that
test: And will anybody go further than your practice to judge of your
principles?
And now I am upon this subject, I cannot conclude without saying
something to a very popular argument against that sacramental test,
which may be apt to shake many of those who would otherwise wish well
enough to it. They say it was a new hardship put upon the Dissenters,
without any provocation; and, it is plain, could be no way necessary,
because we had peaceably lived together so long without it. They add
some other circumstances of the arts by which it was obtained, and the
person by whom it was inserted. Surely such people do not consider that
the penal laws against Dissenters were made wholly ineffectual by the
connivance and mercy of the government, so that all employments of the
state lay as open to them as they did to the best and most legal
subjects. And what progress they would have made by the advantages of a
late conjecture, is obvious to imagine; which I take to be a full answer
to that objection.
