GL Stacks Gift Sadler 7-13-71 904906-291

PREFACE

HE present volume is intended to supply what

Writings of Jonathan Swift. There my object was
to offer what I considered the best specimens (within
certain necessary limits) of Swift's prose style, as
shown in his public works, his satires, political papers,
and narrative pieces-in short, his literary style, in
which there is more of the author than the man. In
the present selection it is not the style, but Swift the
man, in whom we are interested, and the letters and
journals are chosen with a view of illustrating his
manner of life, his friendships and tastes,—to show us
the satirist at home, with his armour off, the cynic
delighting in the society of the few people whom
he excluded from his general condemnation of the
"animal called man.'
"" It is true that the letters
are as delightful as any of Swift's works in point
of style. They possess the greatest charm letters
can have, perfect sincerity and frankness: Swift
writes as though he were talking face to face with
his friends. But they have also the vigour, the
terse directness, the finish of thought and expression,

which were integral parts of Swift's composition, whether it were mere correspondence or a classic like Gulliver. In the following pages will be found examples of every mood and manner: from the somewhat formal, but exquisitely finished, letters to Bolingbroke, to the admirable nonsense he wrote to dear Tom Sheridan, or the tender "little language" which he consecrated to Stella.

I will not, however, allow myself to be betrayed into a disquisition upon Swift as a letter writer. There is a great advantage attaching to a second volume in a series: it is possible to profit by the criticisms that have been passed upon the first. Some of my reviewers (for whom I have too much fellowfeeling to think of disputing their judgments, though the public, perversely enough, do not echo them) were advised that my introduction to the Prose Writings was too discursive, and indeed a trifle superfluous; it discoursed, pleasantly, they were so kind as to allow, concerning all things extant and a few besides, and this they opined was unnecessary in a volume of selections from Swift. Perhaps it was; introductory essays may not be required for so wellthumbed a classic as Swift appears to be; and I shall therefore in the present instance follow my critics' advice and confine myself to the briefest possible remarks.

The Letters and Journals do not suffer from one disadvantage which was noticed in the Prose Writings; they hardly require any excisions to satisfy the fastidious taste of the present day. It was with genuine pleasure that I observed that the criticisms on the Prose Writings did not contest points of editing or notes, but agreed, with some flattering exceptions,

in preferring two main counts against me: the one that I had "Bowdlerized" Swift, which was unnecessary and unjustifiable; the other that I had given a great many short extracts, when the whole of Gulliver and the Tale of a Tub would have formed a much better representation of Swift's style and method of composition. My reviewers did me too much honour in supposing that I was the editor of the "Parchment Library," for that hypothesis could alone explain the first of these criticisms; inasmuch as it is well known that the "Parchment Library" is published on the principle that none of its volumes shall contain anything that may not be read aloud in the drawing-room. I think the principle an excellent one, considering the character of the "Library;" but I do not claim the credit or responsibility of formulating it, neither can I be condemned for complying with it. The second count comes to some degree under the first; for if my critics prefer to read the whole of Gulliver or The Tale of a Tub in a drawing-room to a mixed audience, composed of people of ordinary views on religion and decency, it is at least doubtful whether they would find a second audience prepared to suffer like things. But a complete answer to the suggestion that these two classical works together would form a satisfactory volume of the "Parchment Library" is furnished by practical considerations of space. As far as can be guessed, without what the printers call a cast off," a volume so composed would almost take the shape of the geometrical figure termed a cube, being as fat as it is high; and, though the breadth would look imposing in a shelf, there are obvious objections to its use in the hand.

66