Page images
PDF
EPUB

Lords Somers, Halifax, Oxford, and Portland for their share in the Partition Treaty. It was published anonymously, but attracted much attention. On his second visit to England, in 1702, Swift avowed himself to be the author of the tract, and was immediately admitted into the society of the leading Whigs, Somers, Halifax, and Sunderland.

If we can trust Swift's own averment, he made, upon this occasion, a free and candid avowal of his principles, both in church and state, declaring himself in the former to be a High-church man, and in the latter a Whig; a declaration which both Lord Halifax and Somers called to mind years afterwards, at the time of Lord Godolphin's removal from office.

SWIFT, A WHIG.

Lord Jeffrey has remarked, with characteristic causticity,"the transformation of a young Whig with an old Tory-the gradual falling off of prudent men from unprofitable virtues, is, perhaps, too common an occurrence to deserve much notice, or justify much reprobation." But Swift's desertion of his first principles was neither gradual nor early. He was bred a Whig under Sir William Temple-he took the title publicly in various productions; and during all the reign of King William, was a strenuous, and, indeed, an intolerant advocate of Revolution principles and Whig pretensions.

Of his original Whig professions, abundant evidence is furnished by his first successful pamphlet in defence of Lord Somers, and the other Whig lords impeached in 1701; by his own express declaration in another work, that "having been long conversant with the Greek and Latin authors, and therefore a lover of liberty, he was naturally inclined to be what they call a Whig in politics;"-by the copy of verses in which he deliberately designates himself "Whig, and one who wears a gown;" by his exulting statement to Tisdal, whom he reproaches with being a Tory, saying-" To cool your insolence a little, know that the Queen, and Court, and House of Lords, and half the Commons almost, are Whigs, and the number daily increases :" and among innumerable other proofs, by the memorable verses on Whitehall, in which, alluding to the execution of King Charles in front of that building, he says:

That theatre produced an action truly great,
On which eternal acclamations wait, &c.

His first patrons were Somers, Portland, and Halifax; and under that ministry, the members of which he courted in private and defended in public, he received church preferment to the value of nearly 400l. a year (equal at least to 12007. at present), with the promise of still further favours.

"THE TALE OF A TUB."

In 1704, Swift published, anonymously, the Tale of a Tub, together with The Battle of the Books. In a scrap pasted by the late Mr. Douce in his copy of the Tale of a Tub now in the Bodleian Library, we read:-Dean Swift would never own he wrote the Tale of a Tub. When Faulkner, the printer, asked him one day, if "he was really the author of it ?" "Young man," said he, "I am surprised that you dare to ask me that question." The idea of the Tale of a Tub was, perhaps, taken from an allegorical tale of Fontenelle's on the Catholic and Protestant religion, published in Bayle's Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, about the year 1696. Ferranti Pallavichini's Divortio Celeste (a satire against the abuses of the Popish power), he might, perhaps, have seen.

Sir James Mackintosh, in the Preface to his Life of Sir Thomas More, however, throws more light upon the authorship, as follows:

The learned Mr. Douce has informed a friend of mine, that in Sebastian Munster's Cosmography, there is a cut of a ship to which a whale was coming too close for her safety, and of the sailors throwing a tub to the whale, evidently to play with. The practice of throwing a tub or barrel to a large fish, to divert the huge animal from gambols dangerous to a vessel, is also mentioned in an old prose translation of The Ship of Fools.

These passages satisfactorily explain the common phrase of throwing a tub to a whale; but they do not account for leaving out the whale, and introducing the new word "tale." The transition from the first phrase to the second is a considerable stride. It is not, at least, directly explained by Mr. Douce's citations, and no explanation of it has hitherto occurred which can be supported by proof. It may be thought probable, that in the process of time, some nautical wag compared a rambling story, which he suspected of being lengthened and confused, in order to turn his thoughts from a direction not convenient to the storyteller, with the tub which he and his shipmates were wont to throw out to divert the whale from striking the barque, and perhaps said, "This tale is like our tub to the whale." The comparison might have become popular, and it might gradually have been shortened into "A Tale of a Tub."

This celebrated production is founded upon a simple and

obvious allegory, conducted with all the humour of Rabelais, and without his extravagance. Its main purpose is to trace the gradual corruptions of the Church of Rome, and to exalt the English reformed church, at the expense both of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian establishments. It was written with a view to the interests of the High-church party, and it succeeded in rendering them the most important services; for what is so important to a party in Britain, whether in church or state, as to gain the laughers to their side? But the raillery was considered, not unreasonably, as too light for a subject of such grave importance; and it cannot be denied, that the luxuriance of Swift's wit has, in some parts of the Tale, carried him much beyond the bounds of propriety. Many of the graver clergy, even among the Tories, and particularly Dr. Sharpe, the Archbishop of York, were highly scandalized at the freedom of the satire; nor is there any doubt that the offence thus occasioned, proved the real bar to Swift's attaining the highest dignities in the church. For similar reasons, the Tale of a Tub was hailed by the infidel philosophers on the Continent, as a work well calculated to advance the cause of scepticism; and as such, was recommended by Voltaire to his proselytes.

Although the authorship of the Tale was in part claimed by Swift's cousin, and this presumption was resented by Swift, he far from openly avowed the production; but Scott relates as an anecdote to be depended upon, that Mrs. Whiteway observed the Dean, in the latter years of his life, looking over the Tale, when suddenly closing the book, he muttered, in an unconscious soliloquy, "Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that book!" Mrs. Whiteway begged the volume of the Dean, who made some excuse at the moment; but, on recurrence of her birthday, he presented her with the book, inscribed, "From her affectionate cousin." On observing the inscription, she ventured to say, "I wish, sir, you had said, 'the gift of the author."" The Dean bowed, smiled good-humouredly, and answered, "No, I thank you," in a very significant manner.

Notwithstanding the silence of the real author, no one appears to have entertained any doubt upon the subject. Of its effect Swift was himself sufficiently conscious, and points it out to Stella, though with the ambiguity he generally used in writing of his own publications, as the source of his favourable reception with Lord Oxford's ministry. "Nay,

many talk of the you know what, but Gad, if it had not been for that, I should never have been able to get the success I have had; and if that helped me to succeed, then that same thing will be serviceable to the church."

TRACTS, 1708-1709.

During these years, Swift published several tracts. An Argument against abolishing Christianity is a piece of grave irony; A Project for the Advancement of Religion was dedicated to Lady Berkeley, who was a woman of strict piety, and highly respected by Swift; this is the only work to which he ever put his name.

QUEEN ANNE'S FIFTY NEW CHURCHES IN LONDON

SUGGESTED BY SWIFT.

In the Dean's Project for the Advancement of Religion, which treatise may, in some respects, be considered a sequel to the humorous Argument against abolishing Christianity, the main argument for taking away the wicked from before the throne, that it might be established in righteousness, is obviously more laudable than capable of application to practical use. Swift's plan proposed censors or inspectors, who should annually make circuits of the kingdom, and report, upon oath, to the court or ministry, the state of public morals. With better chance of practical and effectual reform, the author recommends to the Court to discourage characters of marked and notorious impiety; to revise, with more attention to moral and religious qualifications, the lists of justices of peace; to suppress the gross indecency and profaneness of the stage; and to increase the number of churches in the city of London. The last of these useful and practical hints alone was attended to; for, in the subsequent administration of Harley, fifty new churches were erected in the city of London, almost avowedly upon the suggestion of this pamphlet. The treatise was dedicated to Lady Berkeley, and appears to have been laid before Queen Anne by the Archbishop of York, the very prelate who had denounced to her private ear the author of the Tale of a Tub, as a divine unworthy of church-preferment. The work was also commended in the Tatler, as that of a man whose virtues sit easy about him, and to whom vice is thoroughly contemptible, -who writes very much like a gentleman, and goes to heaven with a very good mien.

SWIFT GOES OVER TO THE TORIES.

The Doctor was dissatisfied with his Whig patrons, because his livings were not in England; and having been sent over on the affairs of the Irish clergy, in 1710, when he found the Whig ministry in a tottering condition, he temporized for a few months, till he saw their downfall was inevitable; and then, without even the pretext of any public motive, but on the avowed ground of not having been sufficiently rewarded for his former services, he went over in the most violent and decided manner to the prevailing party. For their gratification he abused his former friends and benefactors with a degree of virulence and rancour, to which it would be not too much to apply the term of brutality; and in the end, when the approaching death of the Queen, and their internal dissensions made his services of more importance to his new friends, he openly threatened to desert them also, and retire altogether from the scene, unless they made a suitable provision for him; and in this way he obtained the deanery of St. Patrick's, which, however, he always complained of as quite inadequate to his merits.

It is a singular fact, we believe, in the history of this sort of conversion, that Swift nowhere pretends to say that he had become aware of any danger to the country from the continuance of the Whig ministry-nor ever presumes to call in question the patriotism or penetration of Addison, and the rest of his former associates, who remained faithful to their first professions. His only apology for this sudden dereliction of principle was a pretence of ill usage from the party, but of which no mention is made till that same party is overthrown. He temporized for some months, kept on fair terms with his old friends, and did not give way to his well-considered resentment, till it was quite apparent that his interest must gain by its indulgence. He says, in his Journal to Stella, a few days after his arrival in London, in 1710:-"The Whigs would gladly lay hold on me, as a twig while they are drowning, and their great men are making me their clumsy apologies. But my Lord Treasurer [Godolphin] received me with a great deal of coldness, which has enraged me so, that I am almost sowing revenge.' In a few weeks after,-the change being by this time complete, he takes his part definitively, and makes his ap

[ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »