Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-11-27
WIT OF AN OLD MASTER
WORTH READING TODAY
The Biting Satire and Hilarious Humor Of Dean Soit Repub
ished in a Carefully Edited Edition
BY FELIX e. SCHELLING

Professor Of English In tn,
THERE are authors whom it pleases
l. us to remember, like misfortune, as
good thing to have done with. There
are some who to know too well is to
think less well Of. And there are a
few--and they are the salt of the earth
to whom we return with pleasure and
leave with an impression of their great
ness enhanced with each closer acQuaint-
ance. I never read or reread Jona-
than Swift. the great dean of st. Pat
rick's. without a new appreciation OF
his extraordinary personality, his un-
matchable wit. without an overwhelm-
ing sense of his sheer power of brain,
TO say nothing of a style as perspicuous
as daylight in its clarity where he pur-
poses to be clear and as opaque and
disconcerting as London fog where his
purpose is stification.
A Nd Dean Swift's purpose was very
a often mystification. Indeed, he ap-
pears to have treated life itself-the life
of political and social bickering trim
ming and intrigue which disfgurcd the
age of Queen Anne and the first Georges
as a species of huge Gargantuan joke.
to be played with at hide and seek,
Knocked ana pantered, ridic,led and
satirized. il one was not to go mad
ms he ultimately did--with the misery
and the pitifulness Of it all. For iona
tha- G,,.,ft 1na1y ~ hiY,, hnw will
is a tragic figure, with all his antics and
all his mockery. An awkward Irish lad.
expelled from college for "inveterate fire.
ouenting of the town; the rebellious
dependent on the bounty of n great man,
Sir William Temple; a great scholar
and writer who treated scholarship and
authorship with contempt as merely
his means to the aim of his life, politi-
cal power: short lived triumph on
| the crest of the wave of that power dur
ing which he could make and unmake
. ministers. create bishops and hector no
blemen, and then long eclipse in Irish
exile from all for which he carcd-the
end a madhousc. Never was there more
veritably a tragedy than this.
owing to Swift's indifference. rea
" or affected. to the products of hi
pen and the intentional mystihcatiol
which he practiced in the publication
: Of many of his books. to edit him mus
be a 10Y. The photography of Swift
like his biography, is bristlng wit
problems and difficulties. Most of h!
work was first printed without M
name, some of it. he would have us be
lieve, without his sanction. And tn
story goes that he scorned the not in
considerable monetary return from II
in one case which had involved collisio
with the law. declaring that the printe
should have the return, as he had ru
the greater risk. The book before u
is one of class of editings as yet rarel
undertaken in this country. 1t is no
calculated for q definite class of buyers
those who want school book, or
picture book or a volume fit for tina
unfittest place for book, the parlo
center table. This edition of Swift
famous pamphlet, "a Tale of Tub.
to which is added the 'Battl
of the Books" is planned defnitivel
TO edit an English classic. bcstowin
Upon it nil the apparatus OF notes an
commentary necessary to an ideal per
formance Of this pious task. Messrs
IA. G. Guthkelch and ID. Nichol Smith
the editors. are thoroughly competen
for such an undertaking. sinking thei
personalities in their work with nativ
modcsty which should be an example t
some of our beagles of small researc
who keep up such an intolerable barkin
whenever they run On unimportant lac
to earth. Onl the scholar who has un
: dcrtaken this absorbing and compellin
I kind of work can appreciate to the fu
tbe labor that goes with it. The intro
auction. notes and addenda of this vol
umc leave little to be desired, achieving
as they do, detachment, freedot