CHARACTERIZATION BY LORD JEFFREY.' 1. The distinguishing feature of Swift's writings is the force and the vehemence of the invective in which they abound-the copiousness, the steadiness, the perseverance, and the dexterity Critical and Miscellaneous Essays by Lord Jeffrey. with which abuse and ridicule are showered upon the adversary. This, we think, was, beyond all doubt, Swift's great talent, and the weapon by which he made himself formidable. He was, without exception, the greatest and most efficient libeller that ever exercised the trade; and possessed in an eminent degree all the qualifications which it requires a clear head, a cold heart, a vindictive temper, no admiration of noble qualities, no sympathy with suffering, not much conscience, not much consistency, a ready wit, a sarcastic humor, a thorough knowledge of the baser parts of human nature, and a complete familiarity with everything that is low, homely, and familiar in language. 2. These were his gifts, and he soon felt for what ends they were given. Almost all his works are libels-generally upon individuals, sometimes upon sects and parties, sometimes upon human nature. Whatever be his end, however, personal abuse— direct, vehement, unsparing invective-is his means. It is his sword and his shield, his panoply and his chariot of war. In all his writings, accordingly, there is nothing to raise or exalt our notions of human nature, but everything to vilify and degrade. 3. Though a great polemic, he makes no use of general principles, nor ever enlarges his views to a wide or comprehensive conclusion. Everything is particular with him, and, for the most part, strictly personal. To make amends, however, we do think him quite without a competitor in personalities. With a quick and sagacious spirit, and a bold and popular manner, he joins an exact knowledge of all the strong and the weak parts of every cause he has to manage; and, without the least restraint from delicacy, either of taste or of feeling, he seems always to think the most effectual blows the most advisable, and no advantage unlawful that is likely to be successful for the moment. Disregarding all laws of polished hostility, he uses at one and the same moment his sword and his poisoned dagger, his hands and his teeth, and his envenomed breath-and does not even scruple, upon occasion, to imitate his own Yahoos, by discharging on his unhappy victims a shower of filth from which neither courage nor dexterity can afford any protection. 4. The Voyages of Captain Lemuel Gulliver is indisputably his greatest work. The idea of making fictitious travels the vehicle of satire as well as of amusement is at least as old as Lucian, but has never been carried into execution with such success, spirit, and originality as in this celebrated performance. The brevity, the minuteness, the homeliness, the unbroken seriousness of the narrative, all give a character of truth and simplicity to the work, which at once palliates the extravagance of the picture, and enhances the effect of those weighty reflections and cutting severities in which it abounds. Yet, though it is probable enough that without those touches of satire and observation the work would have appeared childish and preposterous, we are persuaded that it pleases chiefly by the novelty and vivacity of the extraordinary pictures it presents, and the entertainment we receive from following the fortunes of the traveller in his several extraordinary adventures. The greater part of the wisdom and satire, at least, appears to us to be extremely vulgar and commonplace; and we have no idea that they could possibly appear either impressive or entertaining if presented without these accompaniments. 5. Of Swift's style, it has been usual to speak with great, and, we think, exaggerated, praise. It is less mellow than Dryden's, less elegant than Pope's or Addison's, less free and noble than Lord Bolingbroke's, and utterly without the glow and loftiness which belonged to our earlier masters. It is radically a low and homely style without grace, and without affectation, and chiefly remarkable for a great choice and profusion of common words and expressions. Other writers who have used a plain and direct style have been for the most part jejune and limited in their diction, and generally give us an impression of the poverty as well as the tameness of their language; but Swift, without ever trespassing into figured or poetical expressions, or even employing a word that can be called fine or pedantic, has a prodigious variety of good set phrases always at his command, and displays a sort of homely richness, like the plenty of an old English dinner, or the wardrobe of a wealthy burgess. 6. In humor and in irony, and in the talent of debasing and defiling what he hated, we join with all the world in thinking the Dean of St. Patrick's without a rival. His humor, though sufficiently marked and peculiar, is not to be easily defined. The nearest description we can give of it would make it consist in expressing sentiments the most absurd and ridiculous, the most shocking and atrocious, or sometimes the most energetic and original, in a sort of composed, calm, and unconscious way, as if they were plain, undeniable, commonplace truths, which no person could dispute, or expect to gain credit by announcing, and in maintaining them always in the gravest and most familiar language, with a consistency which somewhat palliates their extravagance, and a kind of perverted ingenuity which seems to give pledge for their sincerity. The secret, in short, seems to consist in employing the language of humble good sense, and simple, undoubting conviction, to express in their honest nakedness sentiments which it is usually thought necessary to disguise under a thousand pretences, or truths which are usually introduced with a thousand apologies. 2 POPE'S LINES ON SWIFT. O thou! whatever title please thine ear, 1 Dean, because can of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. 'Drapier, because he signed the name M. B. Drapier to a series of wonderfully vigorous letters on a local political subject. 3 Bickerstaff, because under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff he wrote an amus. ing mystification in regard to astrology. Gulliver, because author of Gulliver's Travels. Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. Rabelais, the greatest of French humorists. THE ACADEMY OF LAGADO. [INTRODUCTION. - The following extract is from Part III. of Gulliver's Travels, the "Voyage to Laputa." The feigned Laputa, or flying island, seems to be located, by Swift, off the coast of China, and Lagado, the seat of the Academy described, was the chief city of the kingdom. The aim of Swift in this piece is to satirize the knavish "projectors" (inventors) and the quack philosophers, both so numerous in his day. Gulliver's Travels was first published in 1726.] 1. I was received very kindly by the warden, and went for many days to the academy. Every room has in it one or more projectors, and I believe I could not be in fewer than five hundred rooms. The first man I saw was of a meagre* aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same color. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers,* which were to be put in vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He told me he did not doubt in eight years Le more that he should be able to supply the governor's gardens NOTES.-Line 1. the warden: properly the keeper of a mad-house, but whose students sufficiently pro- 3. projectors, inventors. 7. eight years upon. Supply engaged. LITERARY ANALYSIS.-1-17. Of the seven sentences in the first paragraph, one is simple, three are complex, and three are compound: select those of each type. Is the order of words in the sentences direct or rhetorical? (See Defs. 44, 45.) 8. sunbeams out of cucumbers. What class of persons does Swift intend to satirize in the description of the genius who was engaged on the project for "extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers ?"-Considering that the success of the satire turns on the extreme absurdity of the schemes on which the projectors were engaged, what do you think as to the aptness of this example? Point out, in this paragraph, some touches characteristic of the whole class of chimerical inventors. 10, 11. in eight years more. Place this adverbial phrase in a position that shall be better by being nearer the word it modifies. |