The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1876-04-12
For THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN.
THE LIFE OF JONATHAN SWIFT.
BY JOHN FORSTER.

The first thing that strikes the eye in thi
elegant volume is the beauty of the typo
graphy. 1t is really = luxury to see ant
handle such book. 1t is literally, as th'
Scotch proverb has it, ga sight for sore
'een," and for sound ones. The subject o.
this volume is in several points of view one
of the most interesting in the annals of lit
erature. He was nothing like SO great q
man as Milton, morally or Intellectually
but We are by no means certain that We are
not likely to have another Milton before we
have another Swift. The epithes bestowed
upon Ben Johnson, rare Ben, might with at
least equal propriety have been applied to
Swift. There was no man out of Office in
his own day who welded so wide and so pow
erful political influence. DR.. Samuel
johnson, who was evidently not partial to
him, says that he dictated at one time the
political opinions of the English people,
During the Tory ascendancy he was Cabi-
Hob bllul6GST III oil UUb tu0 udMO. Iuo 4 a
piers letters produced more profound and
practical impression than any political tract
or pamphlet ever published in Europe;
stronger than that produced by Millions an
swer to Salmasus-than any of the writings
of Burke than the political diatribes of Paine
or Cobbett, or than even the letters of Ju-
MUS. Works as original as the Tale Of a
Tub, or Gulliver's Travels, are as unlikely
to be seen again as the DetanciO pro populO
AngIcano, or the Paradise Lost.
As master of strong, plain, learned and
manly English, Swift stands alone and un-
equalled. His poetry has not one gleam of
sentiment, but it has strong sense and abun-
dant wit, and he that runs may read and un-
derstand it. We can hardly conceive of
better alternative for those whose taste has
been depraved by the mystical and hyper
sentimental poets now so fashionable, from
Shelley to Browning-the gilded poetical
puzzles that do so abound-which we find in
well nigh all the more popular poets of the
Century, with the exception of Scott, Byron
and Campbell, than a course of some of
Dean Swift's verses, which with all their
grossness, never offend US by affectation of
any sort, and least of all by the affectation
of sentimental refnements and metaphysical
subtleties
Although Swift was az mnch talked about
as any man of his day, and was power in
the State; and although we have extended
biographies of him by as able and eminent
men as DR.. Samuel Johnson and Sir Walter
Scott, elaborate essays on him by critics as
celebrated as Lord Jeffrey, and incidental
discussions of his character and genius by
the most brilliant of all the modern British
Essayists, and the most incisive and trench
ant of all the English novelis,s, there was
still room for the present more thorough and
instructive work from the biographer of
Goldsmith, of Landor and of Dickens. 1t
has deep interest of its own, but it may
derive an accidental and extrinsic interest
to some minds from the fact that it is the
last work which we shall ever have from the
Industrious pen of its accomplished author.
The perfectly new matter accumulated in
this work is surprising, when We remember
that so many diligent explorers have so long
been digging in this mine. We cannot say
that Our view of Swift's character has been
materially changed by the book, although
his admiring biographer has been able to
bring to light facts before unknown, which
tend to relieve his reputation of some of the
darker blots which had so long rested upon
it. 1t is evident that Swift was neither an
amiable nor happy man; and yet his life is
perhaps not the less interesting and not the
less useful as a subject of study, on that ac-
count. Just as the darkest periods of ma
tional history are often the more fruitful in
lessons of instruction to the political econo-
mist; to the practical statesman and to the
moral philosopher, the decline and fall Of
the Roman Empire, for example, or the
tragic events and frantic excuses of the
first French Revolution.
| The life of Swift could under no circum-
stances have been a happy life. Moody, &C.
centric, suspicious, quick to take offence and
slow to forgive, selfish, grasping, ambitious,
with large experience of life in very cor
rupt society grievously disappointed in the
long quest of great prizes eagerly coveted,
he was filled with. iEsplacable disgust and
scorn, not of those only who had blasted his
hopes, and frustrated his plans, but of hu-
man nature ITSELF His life abounds with
contradictions, and is study in morbid
anatomy; not the less instructive because
morbid, and not the more devoid of painful
interest of its own. Like Lord Byron he
was fond of charging himself with faults
which he had never committed, and of i'm
putting his own best actions to bad motives.
We think no one can read this book-no
one at least interested in what his friend
Pope calls " the robust study of mankind =
or in the works and working of very pow
erful, independent, sagaciOus and original
mind, without strong though painful inter
est, or without gaining many lessons of NOR
al wisdom which he might fail to receive
from the study of the life and character of a
more amiable, more religious person.
J. NJ. A.
| K Volnme lat New York; Harper & Brothers