Mr Addison and I are as different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will go off, by this damned business of party... but I love him still as well as ever, though we seldom meet.

Day by day, we are told of party intrigues and of promises held out to Swift: 'The Tories drily tell me I may make my fortune if I please,' he noted in 1710, 'but I do not understand them, or rather I do understand them. A few weeks later, he wrote

To say the truth, the present ministry have a difficult task, and want me. Perhaps they may be as grateful as others: but, according to the best judgment I have, they are pursuing the true interest of the public; and therefore 'I am glad to contribute what is in my power.'

And, in February 1711,

They call me nothing but Jonathan, and I said I believed they would leave me Jonathan, as they have found me; and that I never knew a ministry do anything for those whom they make companions of their pleasures; and I believe you will find it so; but I care not.

Swift's financial troubles constantly come to light in these letters. 'People have so left town,' he says, 'that I am at a loss for a dinner... it cost me eighteenpence in coach-hire before I could find a place to dine in.' When he first came to London, he took rooms at eight shillings a week: 'Plaguy dear, but I spend nothing for eating, never go to a tavern, and very seldom in a coach.' In another place, he says, 'This rain ruins me in coach hire.' How much exaggeration there was in these protests against expense, it is not easy to say. The Journal abounds in arrogant references to great ladies and others; but the arrogance was partly affected and partly the result of a fear of being patronised. Once, when he was to have supped with Lady Ashburnham, he says: "The drab did not call for me in her coach as she promised but sent for us, and so I sent my excuses.' When the duchess of Shrewsbury expostulated with him for not dining with her, Swift said he expected more advances from ladies, especially duchesses. Swift's genuine kindness to, and love of, those who were his friends is constantly appearing. When William Harrison, whom he had assisted to start a continuation of The Tatler, was ill, Swift was afraid to knock at the door; when he found that Harrison was dead, he comforted the mother. When Lady Ashburnham died, he wrote,

She was my greatest favourite and I am in excessive concern for her loss.... I hate life when I think it exposed to such accidents; and to see so many thousand wretches burdening the earth, while such as her die, makes me think God did never intend life for a blessing.

Swift took much interest in a small poet called Diaper, a young fellow who had written some Eclogues: 'I hate to have any new wits rise, but when they do rise I will encourage them: but they tread on our heels and thrust us off the stage.' When his friend Mrs Anne Long died, Swift said he was never more afflicted. Mrs Long had 'all sorts of amiable qualities and no ill ones, except but the indiscretion of too much neglecting her own affairs.' For his servant, Patrick, to whom there are constant references, he showed the greatest forbearance. Patrick had good points, but he drank, and sometimes stopped out at night; he was, however, a favourite both of Swift and Mrs Vanhomrigh.

The 'little language' which Swift employed in writing to Stella had probably been used between them ever since they were at Moor park together. He constantly addressed Stella and Mrs Dingley as 'sirrahs,' 'girls,' 'dearest lives,' and so on; but we can generally distinguish references intended for Stella only. There are frequent references to Stella's weak eyes. 'What shall we do to cure them, poor dear life?' 'It is the grief of my soul to think you are out of order.' 'I will write plainer for Dingley to read from, henceforth, though my pen is apt to ramble when I think who I am writing to.' Nothing gave him any sort of dream of happiness, but a letter now and then from

his own dearest M. D.... Yes, faith, and when I write to M. D., I am happy too; it is just as if methinks you were here, and I prating to you, and telling you where I have been.

In another place, he says to Stella:

I can hardly imagine you absent when I am reading your letter or writing to you: No, faith, you are just here upon this little paper, and therefore I see and talk with you every evening constantly, and sometimes in the morning.

Besides the personal interest, the Journal throws valuable light on the social life of the day, both in Dublin and in London. There are constant allusions to Stella's life in Ireland and to the friends with whom she mixed. There was a club, with ombre, claret and toasted oranges; there are descriptions of Stella's rides and walks; of dinners at three or four o'clock; of London sights; of the Mohocks and other terrors; of the polite ways of society, and of snuff taken by ladies and of jokes which they indulged in. We hear, too, of the dangers of robbers at night across the fields of Chelsea and of the risk of French privateers in the Irish channel. The Journal is a mine of information for the historian and the student of manners, and of absorbing interest as a picture of character.

Character of Swift's Life and Work 127

Swift's general correspondence is remarkable, like his other writings, for the ease with which he could always find apt words to express the exact meaning which he wished to convey. He also has the merit, essential in a good correspondent, that he can adapt himself readily to the character and point of view of the person to whom he is writing. In his letters, we have not only a graphic picture of Swift's own feelings and character, but clear indications of the nature of the men with whom he was in communication. In the letters to Pope, there is something of the artificiality of the poet; in those to King, the dignity and stateliness befitting a dignitary of the church; and, in those to Arbuthnot, the sincere affection which was a marked charm in the doctor. Unfortunately, when Swift wrote to the companions who occupied too much of his time in the period of his decay, he condescended to jests unworthy of him. In writing to his friends, he 'never leaned on his elbow to consider what he should write.' There is evidence that letters of importance were often carefully revised and considered before they were despatched; but, ordinarily, he wrote 'nothing but nature and friendship,' as he said to Pope, without any eye to the public.

Various interpretations have been placed on Swift's life and work. Much has been written in his defence since the unsympathetic studies of Macaulay, Jeffrey and Thackeray appeared; but he remains somewhat of a mystery. It is not easy to reconcile his contempt for mankind with his affection for his friends and their affection for him; or his attacks on woman with his love for one, and the love which two women felt for him. It is, again, difficult, in view of the decorum of his own life and his real, if formal, religion, to explain the offensiveness of some of his writings. Probably, this was due to a distorted imagination, the result of physical or mental defect; and it must be remembered that it is only here and there that coarseness appears. Sterne remarked, 'Swift has said a thousand things I durst not say.' But there is no lewdness in Swift's work, and no persistent strain of indecency, as in Sterne.

Some have suggested that Swift's avoidance of the common ties of human life was due to fears of approaching madness; others have supposed that the explanation was physical infirmity; others, again, have found the key in his coldness of temperament or in his strong desire for independence. He appears to have hungered for human sympathy, but to have wanted nothing more. From the passion of love, he seems to have turned with disgust.

The early years of poverty and dependence left an indelible mark on him, and he became a disappointed and embittered man. His mind, possessed by a spirit of scorn, turned in upon itself, and his egotism grew with advancing years. Cursed with inordinate pride and arrogance, he became like a suppressed volcano. His keenness of vision caused him to see with painful clearness all that was contemptible and degrading in his fellow men; but he had little appreciation for what was good and great in them. The pains and giddiness to which Swift was subject left their impression upon his work; 'at best,' he said, 'I have an ill head, and an aching heart.' His misanthropy was really a disease, and his life of loneliness and disappointment was a tragedy, calling for pity and awe, rather than for blame.

Swift's style is very near perfection. Clear, pointed, precise, he seems to have no difficulty in finding words to express exactly the impression which he wishes to convey. The sentences are not always grammatically correct, but they come home to the reader, like the words of a great orator or advocate, with convincing force. He realizes so clearly what he is describing that the reader is, of necessity, interested and impressed. There are no tricks of style, no recurring phrases; no ornaments, no studied effects; the object is attained without apparent effort, with an outward gravity marking the underlying satire or cynicism, and an apparent calmness concealing bitter invective. There is never any doubt of his earnestness, whatever may be the mockery on the surface. For the metaphysical and the speculative, he had no sympathy.

Swift was a master satirist, and his irony was deadly. He was the greatest among the writers of his time, if we judge them by the standard of sheer power of mind; yet, with some few exceptions, his works are now little read. Order, rule, sobriety -these are the principles he set before him when he wrote, and they form the basis of his views on life, politics and religion. Sincerity is never wanting, however much it is cloaked with humour; but we look in vain for lofty ideals or for the prophetic touch which has marked the bearers of the greatest names in our literature. That which is spiritual was strangely absent in Swift. He inveighs against folly and evil; but he seems to have no hope for the world. He is too often found scorning the pettiness of his fellow creatures, as in Lilliput, or describing with loathing the coarseness of human nature, as in Brobdingnag. Satire and denunciation alone are unsatisfying, and the satirist must, in the end, take a lower place than the creative writer.

CHAPTER V

ARBUTHNOT AND LESSER PROSE WRITERS

ARBUTHNOT's name is familiar to all readers of the literature of the early portion of the eighteenth century; but, to most people, he is known only by the references to him in the correspondence of Pope and Swift, and what he wrote is now little read. This is due, in part, to the nature of the topics which he chose, but chiefly to the fact that he was lavish in the assistance which he gave to his friends and took little trouble to preserve his work or to ensure its receiving recognition.

John Arbuthnot was born in 1667 at Arbuthnott, where his father had become parson in 1665. The village is near Arbuthnott castle in Kincardineshire; but whether the Arbuthnots were connected with the patron of the living, Viscount Arbuthnott, is not certain. After the revolution, Arbuthnot's father refused to conform to the General Assembly and was deprived of his living. He retired to a small property in the neighbourhood, and died in

His sons left their old home; John-who had studied at Marischal college, Aberdeen, from 1681 to 1685-going to London, where he earned a living by teaching mathematics. In 1692, he published a translation of a book by Huygens on the laws of chance, and, two years later, he entered University college, Oxford, as a fellow-commoner, and acted as private tutor to a young man admitted to the college on the same day. In the summer of 1696, Arbuthnot decided to try some other course of life, and, in September, he took his doctor's degree in medicine at St Andrews, where, we are told, he acquitted himself extraordinarily well in both his public and private trials. He seems to have returned to London to practise, and, at the end of 1697, he published An Examination of Dr Woodward's Account of the Deluge, etc., in which he pointed out the difficulties which made it impossible to accept Woodward's theory. Arbuthnot was now on friendly terms with many wellknown literary and scientific men, including Pepys.

E. L. IX. CH. V.

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