For could I my remarks sustain, Who in these times would read my books It is characteristic of the author that Dick is made to wind up the poem with a sneer at Matthew's own system : Sir, if it be your wisdom's aim To make me merrier than I am, I'll be all night at your devotion— Come on, friend; broach the pleasing notion: But if you would depress my thought, Your system is not worth a groat For Plato's fancies what care I? To heathens in his native Greek. If to be sad is to be wise, Dear Drift, to set the matter right, I do not understand why Cowper should have questioned Johnson's statement that Alma is an imitation of Hudibras.1 Not only is the form of the dialogue obviously modelled on the philosophical discussions between Hudibras and Ralpho, but Prior himself, at the beginning of Canto ii., declares that he is the "mimic of his master's dance." When, on the other hand, Johnson says that the imitation lacks the "bullion" of that master, the criticism seems to be irrelevant; for it was not Prior's object to reproduce the encyclopædic erudition of Butler, but rather to adapt the easy flow of his predecessor's octosyllabic verse to his own familiar, but polished, vein of Horatian discourse. Perhaps the most successful 1 Letter to Unwin, March 21, 1784. example of the Hudibrastic-Horatian style in Prior is The Conversation, in which the poet is represented listening to the portraiture of his own character by one who, without ever having seen him, professes to know him well; and the preservation by Mr. Dobson of this piece among his selections from the poet more than compensates the loss of the less decent Tales, in which the latter has sought to reproduce the manner of La Fontaine. Whafever Prior touched in the light style became golden; and the gay good-humour of the experienced, disenchanted, man of affairs makes the reader feel how great must have been the charm of his company, which, according to the report of the Duchess of Portland-" noble, lovely, little Peggy"-caused him to be "beloved by every living thing in the house, master, child, and servant, human creature or animal." 1 To analyse the familiar style of Prior's great contemporary, Swift, is a matter of far more difficulty. Of this Johnson says: In his other works is found an equable tenour of easy language which rather trickles than flows. His delight was simplicity. That he has in his works no metaphor, as has been said, is not true; but his few metaphors seem rather to be received by necessity than choice. He studied purity; and though perhaps all his strictures are not exact, yet it is not often that solecisms can be found: and whoever depends on his authority may generally conclude himself safe. His sentences are never too much dilated or contracted; and it will not be easy to find any embarrassment in the complication of his clauses, any inconsequence in his connections, or abruptness in his transitions. His style was well suited to his thoughts, which are never subtilised by nice disquisitions, decorated by sparkling conceits, elevated by ambitious sentences, or variegated by farsought learning. He pays no court to the passions; he excites neither surprise nor admiration; he always understands himself, and his reader always understands him; the peruser of Swift wants little previous knowledge; it will be sufficient that he is acquainted with common words and common things: he is neither required to mount elevations nor to explore profundities; his passage is always on a level, along solid ground, without asperities, 1 Works of Lady M. W. Montague (Lord Wharncliffe), vol. i. p. 63. without obstruction. This easy and safe conveyance of meaning it was Swift's desire to attain, and for having attained he deserves praise. For purposes merely didactic, when something is to be told that was not known before, it is the best mode; but against that inattention by which known truths are suffered to lie neglected, it makes no provision; it instructs but does not persuade.1 The description which Johnson here gives of the simplicity of Swift's style is accurate; but his purely negative account of the reasons for this simplicity seems astonishingly inadequate. It overlooks the fact that almost all Swift's most characteristic compositions in prose are not instructive but destructive; it ignores the saeva indignatio by which so much of his work is inspired; it takes no notice of what is his most effective weapon, his irony. No man ever equalled Swift in the skill with which he could ridicule an argument, by giving an air of the most precise logic to an opponent's premises, and at the same time making them lead to an obviously absurd conclusion. Only a prejudice against the man could have made Johnson think that he had estimated the Dean's genius aright, in saying that his chief object in sentences like the following was "the easy and safe conveyance of meaning": It is objected that, by freethinking, men will think themselves into atheism; and indeed I have allowed all along that atheistical books convert men to freethinking. But suppose it to be true, I can bring you two divines, who affirm superstition and enthusiasm to be worse than atheism, and more mischievous to society and in short it is necessary that the bulk of the people should be atheists or superstitious.—Mr. Collins' Discourse of Freethinking. And to urge another argument of a parallel nature: if Christianity were once abolished, how could the freethinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning, be able to find another subject, so calculated in all points, whereon to display their abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of, from those whose genius by continual practice has been wholly turned upon raillery and invectives 1 Lives of the Poets: Swift. against religion, and would therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any other subject! We are daily complaining of the great decline of wit among us, and would we take away the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have left? Who would have suspected Asgil for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with materials? What other subject, through all art or nature, could have produced Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him with readers? It is the wise choice of the subject that alone adorns and distinguishes the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been employed on the side of religion, they would immediately have sunk into silence and oblivion.-Argument against Abolishing Christianity. I take it for granted that you intend to pursue the beaten track, and are already desirous to be seen in a pulpit: only I hope you will think it proper to pass your quarantine among some of the desolate churches five miles round this town, where you may at least learn to read and to speak, before you venture to expose your parts in a city congregation: not that these are better judges, but because, if a man must needs expose his folly, it is more safe and discreet to do so before few witnesses, and in a scattered neighbourhood.-Letter to a Young Clergyman. Of the irony and the saeva indignatio, which are the main intellectual elements in the genius of Swift, there seem to be four ingredients: (1) the Pyrrhonism, common to so many eminent writers in the seventeenth century, and already noted in the genius of Prior: it is evident that Swift might have prefixed to the lines on his own death the motto which Prior attached to Alma :— πάντα γέλως, καὶ πάντα κόνις, καὶ πάντα τὸ μηδέν· (2) a practical sense and capacity for business, essentially English, and curiously characteristic of many men inclining to pessimism: in this too he resembles Prior; (3) a deep sense of the importance of religion in the conduct of life, and a reverence for his own consecrated office, which caused him to detest the race of shallow freethinkers, who made Christianity the object of wit and ridicule; (4) self-esteem and disappointment. These four contrary influences, blending together, inspired the imagination of Swift in various manners, according to the circumstances in which he found himself placed. His life extended over six reigns, and the four last of these mark off his literary work into characteristic sections. Jonathan Swift was the second child of Jonathan Swift, son of Thomas Swift, vicar of Goderich, near Ross in Herefordshire. His father migrated to Dublin, where Jonathan the younger was born posthumously on the 30th of November 1667. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and there took his degree speciali gratia in 1685. In 1688, the year of the Revolution, Swift came to England, and by the advice of his mother, then living in Leicester, sought the protection of her kinsman, Sir William Temple, who made him his secretary. In the house of the latter at Sheen, and afterwards at Moor Park, he had an opportunity for large and various study: he was also brought into frequent political communication with William III., an experience which, he tells us, "helped to cure him of vanity." Here he wrote his earliest poems, which, it is interesting to observe are like Prior's, of the panegyrical order, and are composed after the manner of Cowley. In the ode addressed to the Athenian Society there are lines specially deserving of notice, since they mark how strong and early were the stirrings of ambition in the mind of their remarkable author :- Were I to form a regular thought of Fame, I would not draw the idea from an empty name; Because alas! when we all die Careless and ignorant posterity, Although they praise the learning and the wit, The name and man by whom the book was writ, Whether that very name was he, or you, or I? It is perhaps not wonderful that when this bald unmusical composition, or one of the other odes written at Moor Park, was shown to Dryden, he should have said: "Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." But in the |