Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world

- By Jonathan Swift
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Anglo-Irish satirist and cleric (1667–1745) For other uses, see Jonathan Swift (disambiguation). The Very ReverendJonathan SwiftPortrait by Charles Jervas, 1710Born(1667-11-30)30 November 1667Dublin, IrelandDied19 October 1745(1745-10-19) (aged 77)Dublin, IrelandResting placeSt Patrick's Cathedral, DublinPen nameIsaac BickerstaffM. B. DrapierLemuel GulliverSimon WagstaffEsq.OccupationWriterpoetpolitical pamphleteerpriestLanguageModern EnglishEducationB.A.Alma materTrinity College DublinPeriod18th centuryGenresSatireparablepolemicnovelessaypoetrycorrespondenceotherSubjectsReligionpoliticsotherLiterary movementClassicismEnlightenmentYears activefrom 1696Notable worksA Tale of a TubDrapier's LettersGulliver's TravelsA Modest ProposalPartnerEsther Johnson (?)Signature Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish[1] satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin,[2] hence his common sobriquet, "Dean Swift". Swift is remembered for works such as A Tale of a Tub (1704), An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1712), Gulliver's Travels (1726), and A Modest Proposal (1729). He is regarded by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the foremost prose satirist in the English language.[1] He originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M. B. Drapier—or anonymously. He was a master of two styles of satire, the Horatian and Juvenalian styles. His deadpan, ironic writing style, particularly in A Modest Proposal, has led to such satire being subsequently termed "Swiftian".[3] Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Jonathan Swift was born on 30 November 1667 in Dublin in the Kingdom of Ireland. He was the second child and only son of Jonathan Swift (1640–1667) and his wife Abigail Erick (or Herrick) of Frisby on the Wreake.[4] His father was a native of Goodrich, Herefordshire, but he accompanied his brothers to Ireland to seek their fortunes in law after their Royalist father's estate was brought to ruin during the English Civil War. His maternal grandfather, James Ericke, was the vicar of Thornton in Leicestershire. In 1634 the vicar was convicted of Puritan practices. Sometime thereafter, Ericke and his family, including his young daughter Abigail, fled to Ireland.[5] Swift's father joined his elder brother, Godwin, in the practice of law in Ireland.[6] He died in Dublin about seven months before his namesake was born.[7][8] He died of syphilis, which he said he got from dirty sheets when out of town.[9] His mother returned to England after his birth, leaving him in the care of his uncle Godwin Swift (1628–1695), a close friend and confidant of Sir John Temple, whose son later employed Swift as his secretary.[10] At the age of one, child Jonathan was taken by his wet nurse to her hometown of Whitehaven, Cumberland, England. He said that there he learned to read the Bible. His nurse returned him to his mother, still in Ireland, when he was three.[11] The house in which Swift was born; 1865 illustration Swift's family had several interesting literary connections. His grandmother Elizabeth (Dryden) Swift was the niece of Sir Erasmus Dryden, grandfather of poet John Dryden. The same grandmother's aunt Katherine (Throckmorton) Dryden was a first cousin of Elizabeth, wife of Sir Walter Raleigh. His great-great-grandmother Margaret (Godwin) Swift was the sister of Francis Godwin, author of The Man in the Moone which influenced parts of Swift's Gulliver's Travels. His uncle Thomas Swift married a daughter of poet and playwright Sir William Davenant, a godson of William Shakespeare. Swift's benefactor and uncle Godwin Swift took primary responsibility for the young man, sending him with one of his cousins to Kilkenny College (also attended by philosopher George Berkeley).[10] He arrived there at the age of six, where he was expected to have already learned the basic declensions in Latin. He had not and thus began his schooling in a lower form. Swift graduated in 1682, when he was 15.[12] Jonathan Swift in 1682, by Thomas Pooley. The artist had married into the Swift family.[13] He attended Trinity College Dublin in 1682,[14] financed by Godwin's son Willoughby. The four-year course followed a curriculum largely set in the Middle Ages for the priesthood. The lectures were dominated by Aristotelian logic and philosophy. The basic skill taught to students was debate, and they were expected to be able to argue both sides of any argument or topic. Swift was an above-average student but not exceptional, and received his B.A. in 1686 "by special grace."[15] Adult life[edit] Swift was studying for his master's degree when political troubles in Ireland surrounding the Glorious Revolution forced him to leave for England in 1688, where his mother helped him get a position as secretary and personal assistant of Sir William Temple at Moor Park, Farnham.[16] Temple was an English diplomat who had arranged the Triple Alliance of 1668. He had retired from public service to his country estate, to tend his gardens and write his memoirs. Gaining his employer's confidence, Swift "was often trusted with matters of great importance".[17] Within three years of their acquaintance, Temple introduced his secretary to William III and sent him to London to urge the King to consent to a bill for triennial Parliaments. Swift took up his residence at Moor Park where he met Esther Johnson, then eight years old, the daughter of an impoverished widow who acted as companion to Temple's sister Lady Giffard. Swift was her tutor and mentor, giving her the nickname "Stella", and the two maintained a close but ambiguous relationship for the rest of Esther's life.[18] In 1690, Swift left Temple for Ireland because of his health, but returned to Moor Park the following year. The illness consisted of fits of vertigo or giddiness, now believed to be Ménière's disease, and it continued to plague him throughout his life.[19] During this second stay with Temple, Swift received his M.A. from Hart Hall, Oxford, in 1692. He then left Moor Park, apparently despairing of gaining a better position through Temple's patronage, in order to become an ordained priest in the Established Church of Ireland. He was appointed to the prebend of Kilroot in the Diocese of Connor in 1694,[20] with his parish located at Kilroot, near Carrickfergus in County Antrim. Swift appears to have been miserable in his new position, being isolated in a small, remote community far from the centres of power and influence. While at Kilroot, however, he may well have become romantically involved with Jane Waring, whom he called "Varina", the sister of an old college friend.[17] A letter from him survives, offering to remain if she would marry him and promising to leave and never return to Ireland if she refused. She presumably refused, because Swift left his post and returned to England and Temple's service at Moor Park in 1696, and he remained there until Temple's death. There he was employed in helping to prepare Temple's memoirs and correspondence for publication. During this time, Swift wrote The Battle of the Books, a satire responding to critics of Temple's Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1690), though Battle was not published until 1704. Temple died on 27 January 1699.[17] Swift, normally a harsh judge of human nature, said that all that was good and amiable in mankind had died with Temple.[17] He stayed on briefly in England to complete editing Temple's memoirs, and perhaps in the hope that recognition of his work might earn him a suitable position in England. His work made enemies among some of Temple's family and friends, in particular Temple's formidable sister Martha, Lady Giffard, who objected to indiscretions included in the memoirs.[18] Moreover, she noted that Swift had borrowed from her own biography, an accusation that Swift denied.[21] Swift's next move was to approach King William directly, based on his imagined connection through Temple and a belief that he had been promised a position. This failed so miserably that he accepted the lesser post of secretary and chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, one of the Lords Justice of Ireland. However, when he reached Ireland, he found that the secretaryship had already been given to another. He soon obtained the living of Laracor, Agher, and Rathbeggan, and the prebend of Dunlavin[22] in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.[23] Swift ministered to a congregation of about 15 at Laracor, which was just over four and a half miles (7.2 km) from Summerhill, County Meath, and twenty miles (32 km) from Dublin. He had abundant leisure for cultivating his garden, making a canal after the Dutch fashion of Moor Park, planting willows, and rebuilding the vicarage. As chaplain to Lord Berkeley, he spent much of his time in Dublin and travelled to London frequently over the next ten years. In 1701, he anonymously published the political pamphlet A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome. Writer[edit] Swift resided in Trim, County Meath, after 1700. He wrote many of his works during this period. In February 1702, Swift received his Doctor of Divinity degree from Trinity College Dublin. That spring he travelled to England and then returned to Ireland in October, accompanied by Esther Johnson—now 20—and his friend Rebecca Dingley, another member of William Temple's household. There is a great mystery and controversy over Swift's relationship with Esther Johnson, nicknamed "Stella". Many, notably his close friend Thomas Sheridan, believed that they were secretly married in 1716; others, like Swift's housekeeper Mrs Brent and Rebecca Dingley (who lived with Stella all through her years in Ireland), dismissed the story as absurd.[24] Swift certainly did not wish her to marry anyone else: in 1704, when their mutual friend William Tisdall informed Swift that he intended to propose to Stella, Swift wrote to him to dissuade him from the idea. Although the tone of the letter was courteous, Swift privately expressed his disgust for Tisdall as an "interloper", and they were estranged for many years. During his visits to England in these years, Swift published A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books (1704) and began to gain a reputation as a writer. This led to close, lifelong friendships with Alexander Pope, John Gay, and John Arbuthnot, forming the core of the Martinus Scriblerus Club (founded in 1713). Swift became increasingly active politically in these years.[25] Swift supported the Glorious Revolution and early in his life belonged to the Whigs.[26][27] As a member of the Anglican Church, he feared a return of the Catholic monarchy and "Papist" absolutism.[27] From 1707 to 1709 and again in 1710, Swift was in London unsuccessfully urging upon the Whig administration of Lord Godolphin the claims of the Irish clergy to the First-Fruits and Twentieths ("Queen Anne's Bounty"), which brought in about £2,500 a year, already granted to their brethren in England. He found the opposition Tory leadership more sympathetic to his cause, and when they came to power in 1710, he was recruited to support their cause as editor of The Examiner. In 1711, Swift published the political pamphlet The Conduct of the Allies, attacking the Whig government for its inability to end the prolonged war with France. The incoming Tory government conducted secret (and illegal) negotiations with France, resulting in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) ending the War of the Spanish Succession. Swift was part of the inner circle of the Tory government,[28] and often acted as mediator between Henry St John (Viscount Bolingbroke), the secretary of state for foreign affairs (1710–15), and Robert Harley (Earl of Oxford), lord treasurer and prime minister (1711–14). Swift recorded his experiences and thoughts during this difficult time in a long series of letters to Esther Johnson, collected and published after his death as A Journal to Stella. The animosity between the two Tory leaders eventually led to the dismissal of Harley in 1714. With the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I that year, the Whigs returned to power, and the Tory leaders were tried for treason for conducting secret negotiations with France. Swift has been described by scholars[who?] as "a Whig in politics and Tory in religion" and Swift related his own views in similar terms, stating that as "a lover of liberty, I found myself to be what they called a Whig in politics ... But, as to religion, I confessed myself to be an High-Churchman."[26] In his Thoughts on Religion, fearing the intense partisan strife waged over religious belief in seventeenth-century England, Swift wrote that "Every man, as a member of the commonwealth, ought to be content with the possession of his own opinion in private."[26] However, it should be borne in mind that, during Swift's time period, terms like "Whig" and "Tory" both encompassed a wide array of opinions and factions, and neither term aligns with a modern political party or modern political alignments.[26] Also during these years in London, Swift became acquainted with the Vanhomrigh family (Dutch merchants who had settled in Ireland, then moved to London) and became involved with one of the daughters, Esther. Swift furnished Esther with the nickname "Vanessa" (derived by adding "Essa", a pet form of Esther, to the "Van" of her surname, Vanhomrigh), and she features as one of the main characters in his poem Cadenus and Vanessa. The poem and their correspondence suggest that Esther was infatuated with Swift and that he may have reciprocated her affections, only to regret this and then try to break off the relationship.[29] Esther followed Swift to Ireland in 1714 and settled at her old family home, Celbridge Abbey. Their uneasy relationship continued for some years; then there appears to have been a confrontation, possibly involving Esther Johnson. Esther Vanhomrigh died in 1723 at the age of 35, having destroyed the will she had made in Swift's favour.[30] Another lady with whom he had a close but less intense relationship was Anne Long, a toast of the Kit-Cat Club. Final years[edit] Jonathan Swift (shown without wig) by Rupert Barber, 1745, National Portrait Gallery, London Before the fall of the Tory government, Swift hoped that his services would be rewarded with a church appointment in England. However, Queen Anne appeared to have taken a dislike to Swift and thwarted these efforts. Her dislike has been attributed to A Tale of a Tub, which she thought blasphemous, compounded by The Windsor Prophecy, where Swift, with a surprising lack of tact, advised the Queen on which of her bedchamber ladies she should and should not trust.[31] The best position his friends could secure for him was the Deanery of St Patrick's;[32] this was not in the Queen's gift, and Anne, who could be a bitter enemy, made it clear that Swift would not have received the preferment if she could have prevented it.[33] With the return of the Whigs, Swift's best move was to leave England and he returned to Ireland in disappointment, a virtual exile, to live "like a rat in a hole".[34] Llist of deans of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, including Jonathan Swift Once in Ireland, however, Swift began to turn his pamphleteering skills in support of Irish causes, producing some of his most memorable works: Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720), Drapier's Letters (1724), and A Modest Proposal (1729), earning him the status of an Irish patriot.[35] This new role was unwelcome to the Government, which made clumsy attempts to silence him. His printer, Edward Waters, was convicted of seditious libel in 1720, but four years later a grand jury refused to find that the Drapier's Letters (which, though written under a pseudonym, were universally known to be Swift's work) were seditious.[36] Swift responded with an attack on the Irish judiciary almost unparalleled in its ferocity, his principal target being the "vile and profligate villain" William Whitshed, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.[37] Also during these years, he began writing his masterpiece, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships, better known as Gulliver's Travels. Much of the material reflects his political experiences of the preceding decade. For instance, the episode in which the giant Gulliver puts out the Lilliputian palace fire by urinating on it can be seen as a metaphor for the Tories' illegal peace treaty; having done a good thing in an unfortunate manner. In 1726 he paid a long-deferred visit to London,[38] taking with him the manuscript of Gulliver's Travels. During his visit, he stayed with his old friends Alexander Pope, John Arbuthnot and John Gay, who helped him arrange for the anonymous publication of his book. First published in November 1726, it was an immediate hit, with a total of three printings that year and another in early 1727. French, German, and Dutch translations appeared in 1727, and pirated copies were printed in Ireland. Swift returned to England one more time in 1727, and stayed once again with Alexander Pope. The visit was cut short when Swift received word that Esther Johnson was dying, and rushed back home to be with her.[38] On 28 January 1728, Johnson died; Swift had prayed at her bedside, even composing prayers for her comfort. Swift could not bear to be present at the end, but on the night of her death he began to write his The Death of Mrs Johnson. He was too ill to attend the funeral at St Patrick's.[38] Many years later, a lock of hair, assumed to be Johnson's, was found in his desk, wrapped in a paper bearing the words, "Only a woman's hair". Death[edit] Bust in St Patrick's Cathedral Death became a frequent feature of Swift's life from this point. In 1731 he wrote Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, his own obituary, published in 1739. In 1732, his good friend and collaborator John Gay died. In 1735, John Arbuthnot, another friend from his days in London, died. In 1738 Swift began to show signs of illness, and in 1742 he may have suffered a stroke, losing the ability to speak and realising his worst fears of becoming mentally disabled. ("I shall be like that tree", he once said, "I shall die at the top.")[39] He became increasingly quarrelsome, and long-standing friendships, like that with Thomas Sheridan, ended without sufficient cause. To protect him from unscrupulous hangers-ons, who had begun to prey on the great man, his closest companions had him declared of "unsound mind and memory". However, it was long believed by many that Swift was actually insane at this point. In his book Literature and Western Man, author J. B. Priestley even cites the final chapters of Gulliver's Travels as proof of Swift's approaching "insanity". Bewley attributes his decline to 'terminal dementia'.[19] In part VIII of his series, The Story of Civilization, Will Durant describes the final years of Swift's life as such: "Definite symptoms of madness appeared in 1738. In 1741, guardians were appointed to take care of his affairs and watch lest in his outbursts of violence, he should do himself harm. In 1742, he suffered great pain from the inflammation of his left eye, which swelled to the size of an egg; five attendants had to restrain him from tearing out his eye. He went a whole year without uttering a word."[40] In 1744, Alexander Pope died. Then on 19 October 1745, Swift, at nearly 78, died.[41] After being laid out in public view for the people of Dublin to pay their last respects, he was buried in his own cathedral by Esther Johnson's side, in accordance with his wishes. The bulk of his fortune (£12,000) was left to found a hospital for the mentally ill, originally known as St Patrick's Hospital for Imbeciles, which opened in 1757, and which still exists as a psychiatric hospital.[41] Epitaph in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin near his burial site (Text extracted from the introduction to The Journal to Stella by George A. Aitken and from other sources). Jonathan Swift wrote his own epitaph: Hic depositum est Corpus IONATHAN SWIFT S.T.D. Hujus Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Decani, Ubi sæva Indignatio Ulterius Cor lacerare nequit. Abi Viator Et imitare, si poteris, Strenuum pro virili Libertatis Vindicatorem. Obiit 19º Die Mensis Octobris A.D. 1745 Anno Ætatis 78º. Here is laid the Body of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Sacred Theology, Dean of this Cathedral Church, where fierce Indignation can no longer injure the Heart. Go forth, Voyager, and copy, if you can, this vigorous (to the best of his ability) Champion of Liberty. He died on the 19th Day of the Month of October, A.D. 1745, in the 78th Year of his Age. W. B. Yeats poetically translated it from the Latin as: Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast. Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveller; he Served human liberty. Swift, Stella and Vanessa – an alternative view[edit] British politician Michael Foot was a great admirer of Swift and wrote about him extensively. In Debts of Honour[42] he cites with approbation a theory propounded by Denis Johnston that offers an explanation of Swift's behaviour towards Stella and Vanessa. Pointing to contradictions in the received information about Swift's origins and parentage, Johnston postulates that Swift's real father was Sir William Temple's father, Sir John Temple who was Master of the Rolls in Dublin at the time. It is widely thought that Stella was Sir William Temple's illegitimate daughter. So Swift was Sir William's brother and Stella's uncle. Marriage or close relations between Swift and Stella would therefore have been incest, an unthinkable prospect. It follows that Swift could not have married Vanessa either without Stella appearing to be a cast-off mistress, which he would not contemplate. Johnston's theory is expounded fully in his book In Search of Swift.[43] He is also cited in the Dictionary of Irish Biography[44] and the theory is presented without attribution in the Concise Cambridge History of English Literature.[45] Works[edit] Swift was a prolific writer. The collection of his prose works (Herbert Davis, ed. Basil Blackwell, 1965–) comprises fourteen volumes. A 1983 edition of his complete poetry (Pat Rodges, ed. Penguin, 1983) is 953 pages long. One edition of his correspondence (David Woolley, ed. P. Lang, 1999) fills three volumes. Major prose works[edit] This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: "Jonathan Swift" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Jonathan Swift at the Deanery of St Patrick's, illus. from 1905 Temple Scott edition of Works Swift's first major prose work, A Tale of a Tub, demonstrates many of the themes and stylistic techniques he would employ in his later work. It is at once wildly playful and funny while being pointed and harshly critical of its targets. In its main thread, the Tale recounts the exploits of three sons, representing the main threads of Christianity, who receive a bequest from their father of a coat each, with the added instructions to make no alterations whatsoever. However, the sons soon find that their coats have fallen out of current fashion, and begin to look for loopholes in their father's will that will let them make the needed alterations. As each finds his own means of getting around their father's admonition, they struggle with each other for power and dominance. Inserted into this story, in alternating chapters, the narrator includes a series of whimsical "digressions" on various subjects. In 1690, Sir William Temple, Swift's patron, published An Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning a defence of classical writing (see Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns), holding up the Epistles of Phalaris as an example. William Wotton responded to Temple with Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1694), showing that the Epistles were a later forgery. A response by the supporters of the Ancients was then made by Charles Boyle (later the 4th Earl of Orrery and father of Swift's first biographer). A further retort on the Modern side came from Richard Bentley, one of the pre-eminent scholars of the day, in his essay Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris (1699). The final words on the topic belong to Swift in his Battle of the Books (1697, published 1704) in which he makes a humorous defence on behalf of Temple and the cause of the Ancients. The title page to Swift's 1735 Works, depicting the author in the Dean's chair, receiving the thanks of Ireland. The Horatian motto reads, Exegi Monumentum Ære perennius, "I have completed a monument more lasting than brass." The 'brass' is a pun, for William Wood's halfpennies (alloyed with brass) lie scattered at his feet. Cherubim award Swift a poet's laurel. In 1708, a cobbler named John Partridge published a popular almanac of astrological predictions. Because Partridge falsely determined the deaths of several church officials, Swift attacked Partridge in Predictions for the Ensuing Year by Isaac Bickerstaff, a parody predicting that Partridge would die on 29 March. Swift followed up with a pamphlet issued on 30 March claiming that Partridge had in fact died, which was widely believed despite Partridge's statements to the contrary. According to other sources,[citation needed] Richard Steele used the persona of Isaac Bickerstaff, and was the one who wrote about the "death" of John Partridge and published it in The Spectator, not Jonathan Swift. The Drapier's Letters (1724) was a series of pamphlets against the monopoly granted by the English government to William Wood to mint copper coinage for Ireland. It was widely believed that Wood would need to flood Ireland with debased coinage in order to make a profit. In these "letters" Swift posed as a shopkeeper—a draper—to criticise the plan. Swift's writing was so effective in undermining opinion in the project that a reward was offered by the government to anyone disclosing the true identity of the author. Though hardly a secret (on returning to Dublin after one of his trips to England, Swift was greeted with a banner, "Welcome Home, Drapier") no one turned Swift in, although there was an unsuccessful attempt to prosecute the publisher John Harding.[46] Thanks to the general outcry against the coinage, Wood's patent was rescinded in September 1725 and the coins were kept out of circulation.[47] In "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift" (1739) Swift recalled this as one of his best achievements. Gulliver's Travels, a large portion of which Swift wrote at Woodbrook House in County Laois, was published in 1726. It is regarded as his masterpiece. As with his other writings, the Travels was published under a pseudonym, the fictional Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon and later a sea captain. Some of the correspondence between printer Benj. Motte and Gulliver's also-fictional cousin negotiating the book's publication has survived. Though it has often been mistakenly thought of and published in bowdlerised form as a children's book, it is a great and sophisticated satire of human nature based on Swift's experience of his times. Gulliver's Travels is an anatomy of human nature, a sardonic looking-glass, often criticised for its apparent misanthropy. It asks its readers to refute it, to deny that it has adequately characterised human nature and society. Each of the four books—recounting four voyages to mostly fictional exotic lands—has a different theme, but all are attempts to deflate human pride. Critics hail the work as a satiric reflection on the shortcomings of Enlightenment thought. In 1729, Swift's A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick was published in Dublin by Sarah Harding.[48] It is a satire in which the narrator, with intentionally grotesque arguments, recommends that Ireland's poor escape their poverty by selling their children as food to the rich: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food ..." Following the satirical form, he introduces the reforms he is actually suggesting by deriding them: Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients ... taxing our absentees ... using [nothing] except what is of our own growth and manufacture ... rejecting ... foreign luxury ... introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance ... learning to love our country ... quitting our animosities and factions ... teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. ... Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.[49] Essays, tracts, pamphlets, periodicals[edit] "A Meditation upon a Broom-stick" (1703–10) "A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind" (1707–11)[50] The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers (1708–09) "An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity" (1708–11): Full text The Intelligencer (with Thomas Sheridan (1719–1788)): Text: Project Gutenberg The Examiner (1710): Texts: Project Gutenberg "A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue" (1712): Full texts: Jack Lynch, U of Virginia[permanent dead link] "On the Conduct of the Allies" (1711) "Hints Toward an Essay on Conversation" (1713): Full text: Bartleby.com "The Publick Spirit of the Whigs, set forth in their generous encouragement of the author of the crisis" (1714) "A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Entered into Holy Orders" (1720) "A Letter of Advice to a Young Poet" (1721): Full text: Bartleby.com Drapier's Letters (1724, 1725): Full text: Project Gutenberg "Bon Mots de Stella" (1726): a curiously irrelevant appendix to "Gulliver's Travels" "A Modest Proposal", perhaps the most notable satire in English, suggesting that the Irish should engage in cannibalism. (Written in 1729) "An Essay on the Fates of Clergymen" "A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding": Full text: Bartleby.com "A modest address to the wicked authors of the present age. Particularly the authors of Christianity not founded on argument, and of The resurrection of Jesus considered" (1743–45?) Poems[edit] An 1850 illustration of Swift "Ode to the Athenian Society", Swift's first publication, printed in The Athenian Mercury in the supplement of Feb 14, 1691. Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Texts at Project Gutenberg: Volume One, Volume Two "Baucis and Philemon" (1706–09): Full text: Munseys "A Description of the Morning" (1709): Full annotated text: U of Toronto; Another text: U of Virginia[permanent dead link] "A Description of a City Shower" (1710): Full text: U of Virginia[permanent dead link] "Cadenus and Vanessa" (1713): Full text: Munseys "Phillis, or, the Progress of Love" (1719): Full text: theotherpages.org Stella's birthday poems: 1719. Full annotated text: U of Toronto 1720. Full text: U of Virginia[permanent dead link] 1727. Full text: U of Toronto "The Progress of Beauty" (1719–20): Full text: OurCivilisation.com "The Progress of Poetry" (1720): Full text: theotherpages.org "A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General" (1722): Full text: U of Toronto "To Quilca, a Country House not in Good Repair" (1725): Full text: U of Toronto "Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers" (1726): Full text: U of Toronto "The Furniture of a Woman's Mind" (1727) "On a Very Old Glass" (1728): Full text: Gosford.co.uk "A Pastoral Dialogue" (1729): Full text: Gosford.co.uk "The Grand Question debated Whether Hamilton's Bawn should be turned into a Barrack or a Malt House" (1729): Full text: Gosford.co.uk "On Stephen Duck, the Thresher and Favourite Poet" (1730): Full text: U of Toronto "Death and Daphne" (1730): Full text: OurCivilisation.com "The Place of the Damn'd" (1731): Full text at the Wayback Machine (archived 27 October 2009) "A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed" (1731): Full annotated text: Jack Lynch; Another text: U of Virginia[permanent dead link] "Strephon and Chloe" (1731): Full annotated text: Jack Lynch; Another text: U of Virginia Archived 30 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine "Helter Skelter" (1731): Full text: OurCivilisation.com "Cassinus and Peter: A Tragical Elegy" (1731): Full annotated text: Jack Lynch "The Day of Judgment" (1731): Full text "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D." (1731–32): Full annotated texts: Jack Lynch, U of Toronto; Non-annotated text:: U of Virginia[permanent dead link] "An Epistle to a Lady" (1732): Full text: OurCivilisation.com "The Beasts' Confession to the Priest" (1732): Full annotated text: U of Toronto "The Lady's Dressing Room" (1732): Full annotated text: Jack Lynch "On Poetry: A Rhapsody" (1733)[51] "The Puppet Show" "The Logicians Refuted" Correspondence, personal writings[edit] "When I Come to Be Old" – Swift's resolutions. (1699) A Journal to Stella (1710–13): Full text (presented as daily entries): The Journal to Stella; Extracts: OurCivilisation.com; Letters: Selected Letters To Oxford and Pope: OurCivilisation.com The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Edited by David Woolley. In four volumes, plus index volume. Frankfurt am Main; New York : P. Lang, c. 1999 – c. 2007. Sermons, prayers[edit] Three Sermons and Three Prayers. Full text: U of Adelaide, Project Gutenberg Three Sermons: I. on mutual subjection. II. on conscience. III. on the Trinity. Text: Project Gutenberg Writings on Religion and the Church. Text at Project Gutenberg: Volume One, Volume Two "The First He Wrote Oct. 17, 1727." Full text: Worldwideschool.org "The Second Prayer Was Written Nov. 6, 1727." Full text: Worldwideschool.org Miscellany[edit] Directions to Servants (1731): Full text: Jonathon Swift Archive[permanent dead link] A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738) "Thoughts on Various Subjects." Full text: U of Adelaide Archived 14 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine Historical Writings: Project Gutenberg Swift quotes at Bartleby: Bartleby.com – 59 quotations, with notes The Benefit of Farting Explained, published under the pseudonym Don Fartinando Puff-Indorst, Professor of Bumbast in the University of Crackow.[52] Legacy[edit] Literary[edit] Swift's death mask John Ruskin named him as one of the three people in history who were the most influential for him.[53] George Orwell named him as one of the writers he most admired, despite disagreeing with him on almost every moral and political issue.[54] Modernist poet Edith Sitwell wrote a fictional biography of Swift, titled I Live Under a Black Sun and published in 1937.[55] A. L. Rowse wrote a biography of Swift,[56] essays on his works,[57][58] and edited the Pan Books edition of Gulliver's Travels.[59] Literary scholar Frank Stier Goodwin wrote a full biography of Swift: Jonathan Swift – Giant in Chains, issued by Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York (1940, 450pp, with Bibliography). In 1982, Soviet playwright Grigory Gorin wrote a theatrical fantasy called The House That Swift Built based on the last years of Jonathan Swift's life and episodes of his works.[60] The play was filmed by director Mark Zakharov in the 1984 two-part television movie of the same name. Jake Arnott features him in his 2017 novel The Fatal Tree.[61] A 2017 analysis of library holdings data revealed that Swift is the most popular Irish author, and that Gulliver’s Travels is the most widely held work of Irish literature in libraries globally.[62] The first woman to write a biography of Swift was Sophie Shilleto Smith, who published Dean Swift in 1910.[63][64] Eponymous places[edit] Swift crater, a crater on Mars's moon Deimos, is named after Jonathan Swift, who predicted the existence of the moons of Mars.[65] In honour of Swift's long-time residence in Trim, there are several monuments in the town marking his legacy. Most notable is Swift's Street, named after him. Trim also holds a recurring festival in honour of Swift, called the Trim Swift Festival. In 2020, the festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and has not been held since.[66] See also[edit] Poetry portal Poor Richard's Almanack Sweetness and light Founding Fathers of India Notes[edit] ^ a b Jonathan Swift at the Encyclopædia Britannica ^ "Swift", Online literature, archived from the original on 3 August 2019, retrieved 17 December 2011 ^ "What higher accolade can a reviewer pay to a contemporary satirist than to call his or her work Swiftian Archived 23 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine?" Frank Boyle, "Johnathan Swift", Ch 11 in A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern (2008), edited by Ruben Quintero, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0470657952. ^ Stephen, Leslie (1898). "Swift, Jonathan" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 55. pp. 204–227. ^ Stubbs, John (2016). Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel. New York: WW Norton & Co. pp. 25–26. ^ Stubbs (2016), p. 43. ^ Degategno, Paul J.; Jay Stubblefield, R. (2014). Jonathan Swift. Infobase. ISBN 978-1438108513. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2020. ^ "Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World". The Barnes & Noble Review. Archived from the original on 2 July 2014. Retrieved 16 March 2014. ^ Stubbs (2016), p. 54. ^ a b Stephen DNB, p. 205. ^ Stubbs (2016), pp. 58–63. ^ Stubbs (2016), pp. 73–74. ^ Hourican, Bridget (2002). "Thomas Pooley". Royal Irish Academy – Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 3 November 2020. ^ "Alumni Dublinenses Supplement p. 116: a register of the students, graduates, professors and provosts of Trinity College in the University of Dublin (1593–1860) Burtchaell, G.D/Sadlier, T.U: Dublin, Alex Thom and Co., 1935. ^ Stubbs (2016), pp. 86–90. ^ Stephen DNB, p. 206. ^ a b c d Stephen DNB, p. 207. ^ a b Stephen DNB, p. 208. ^ a b Bewley, Thomas H., "The health of Jonathan Swift", Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 1998;91:602–605. ^ "Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae: The succession of the prelates Volume 3" Cotton, H. p. 266: Dublin, Hodges & Smith, 1848–1878. ^ Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (23 September 2004). "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. ref:odnb/55435. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/55435. Retrieved 19 January 2023. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) ^ "Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae: The succession of the prelates Volume 2" Cotton, H. p. 165: Dublin, Hodges & Smith, 1848–1878. ^ Stephen DNB, p. 209. ^ Stephen DNB, pp. 215–217. ^ Stephen DNB, p. 212. ^ a b c d Fox, Christopher (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift. Cambridge University Press. pp. 36–39. ^ a b Cody, David. "Jonathan Swift's Political Beliefs". Victorian Web. Archived from the original on 8 November 2018. Retrieved 26 October 2018. ^ Stephen DNB, pp. 212–215. ^ Stephen DNB, pp. 215–216. ^ Stephen DNB, p. 216. ^ Gregg, Edward (1980). Queen Anne. Yale University Press. pp. 352–353. ^ "Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae: The succession of the prelates Volume 2" Cotton, H. pp. 104–105: Dublin, Hodges & Smith, 1848–1878. ^ Gregg (1980), p. 353. ^ Stephen DNB, p. 215. ^ Stephen DNB, pp. 217–218. ^ Sir Walter Scott. Life of Jonathan Swift, vol. 1, Edinburgh 1814, pp. 281–282. ^ Ball, F. Elrington (1926). The Judges in Ireland 1221–1921, London John Murray, vol. 2 pp. 103–105. ^ a b c Stephen DNB, p. 219. ^ Stephen DNB, p. 221. ^ "The Story of Civilization", vol. 8., 362. ^ a b Stephen DNB, p. 222. ^ Foot, Michael (1981) Debts of Honour. Harper & Row, New York, p. 219. ^ Johnston, Denis (1959) In Search of Swift Hodges Figgis, Dublin ^ Dictionary of Irish Biography ^ Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, 1970, p. 387. ^ Elrington Ball. The Judges in Ireland, vol. 2 pp. 103–105. ^ Baltes, Sabine (2003). The Pamphlet Controversy about Wood's Halfpence (1722–25) and the Tradition of Irish Constitutional Nationalism. Peter Lang GmbH. p. 273. ^ Traynor, Jessica. "Irish v English prizefighters: eye-gouging, kicking and sword fighting". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 9 January 2020. Retrieved 12 April 2020. ^ Swift, Jonathan (2015). A Modest Proposal. London: Penguin. p. 29. ISBN 978-0141398181. ^ This work is often wrongly referred to as "A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind". ^ Rudd, Niall (Summer 2006). "Swift's 'On Poetry: A Rhapsody'". Hermathena. 180 (180): 105–120. JSTOR 23041663 – via JSTOR. ^ Jonathan, Swift (2007). The Benefit of Farting. Oneworld Classics. ISBN 9781847490315. ^ In the preface of the 1871 edition of Sesame and Lilies Ruskin mentions three figures from literary history with whom he feels an affinity: Guido Guinicelli, Marmontel and Dean Swift; see John Ruskin, Sesame and lilies: three lectures Archived 11 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Smith, Elder, & Co., 1871, p. xxviii. ^ "Politics vs. Literature: an examination of Gulliver's Travels" ^ Gabriele Griffin (2003). Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay Writing. Routledge. p. 244. ISBN 978-1134722099. Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2016. ^ Rowse, A. L. (1975). Jonathan Swift Major Prophet. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01141-9. ^ Rowse, A. L. (1944). "XXVI: Jonathan Swift". The English Spirit: Essays in History and Literature. London: Macmillan. pp. 182–192. ^ Rowse, A. L. (1970). "Swift as Poet". In A. Norman Jeffares (ed.). Swift. Modern Judgements. Nashville and London: Aurora Publishers Incorporated. pp. 135–142. ISBN 0-87695-092-6. ^ Swift, Jonathan (1977). A. L. Rowse (ed.). Gulliver's Travels. London and Sydney: Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-25190-2. ^ Justin Hayford (12 January 2006). "The House That Swift Built". Performing Arts Review. Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on 9 February 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2020. ^ Arnott, Jake (2017). The Fatal Tree. Sceptre. ISBN 978-1473637740. ^ "What is the most popular Irish book?". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2017. ^ Barnett, Louise (2007). Jonathan Swift in the Company of Women. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-19-518866-0. ^ Smith, Sophie Shilleto. Dean Swift. Methuen & Company, 1910. ^ MathPages – Galileo's Anagrams and the Moons of Mars Archived 12 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine. ^ "Home - The Jonathan Swift Festival". The Jonathan Swift Festival. Archived from the original on 2 October 2023. Retrieved 21 January 2024. References[edit] Damrosch, Leo (2013). Jonathan Swift : His Life and His World. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-16499-2.. Includes almost 100 illustrations. Delany, Patrick (1754). Observations Upon Lord Orrery's Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift. London: W. Reeve. OL 25612897M. Fox, Christopher, ed. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-00283-7. Ehrenpreis, Irvin (1958). The Personality of Jonathan Swift. London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-416-60310-1.. — (1962). Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age. Vol. I: Mr. Swift and his Contemporaries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-85830-1. — (1967). Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age. Vol. II: Dr. Swift. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-85832-8. — (1983). Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age. Vol. III: Dean Swift. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-85835-2. Nokes, David (1985). Jonathan Swift, a Hypocrite Reversed: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-812834-2. Orrery, John Boyle, Earl of (1752) [1751]. Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift (third, corrected ed.). London: Printed for A. Millar. OL 25612886M.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Stephen, Leslie (1882). Swift. English Men of Letters. New York: Harper & Brothers. OL 15812247W. Noted biographer succinctly critiques (pp. v–vii) biographical works by Lord Orrery, Patrick Delany, Deane Swift, John Hawkesworth, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Sheridan, Walter Scott, William Monck Mason, John Forester, John Barrett, and W.R. Wilde. Stephen, Leslie (1898). "Swift, Jonathan" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 55. pp. 204–227. Wilde, W. R. (1849). The Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life. Dublin: Hodges and Smith. OL 23288983M. Samuel Johnson's "Life of Swift": JaffeBros Archived 7 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine. From his Lives of the Poets. William Makepeace Thackeray's influential vitriolic biography: JaffeBros Archived 7 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine. From his English Humourists of The Eighteenth Century. Sir Walter Scott Memoirs of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin . Paris: A. and W. Galignani, 1826. Whibley, Charles (1917). Jonathan Swift: the Leslie Stephen lecture delivered before the University of Cambridge on 26 May 1917. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. External links[edit] “Gulliver's Travels’ ‘nonsense’ language is based on Hebrew, claims scholar” by Alison Flood, The Guardian, 17 August 2015. Jonathan Swift at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from Wikisource Library resources about Jonathan Swift Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Jonathan Swift at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA) "Swift, Jonathan" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 224–231. BBC audio file "Swift's A modest Proposal". BBC discussion. In our time. Jonathan Swift at the National Portrait Gallery, London Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745) Dean of St Patrick's Dublin Satirist at the National Archives. Online works Works by Jonathan Swift in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Jonathan Swift at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Jonathan Swift at Internet Archive Works by Jonathan Swift at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Works by Jonathan Swift at Open Library Works by Jonathan Swift at The Online Books Page vteJonathan SwiftSermons Sermons of Jonathan Swift Satires Meditation Upon a Broomstick (1701) A Tale of a Tub (1704) The Battle of the Books (1704) Gulliver's Travels (1726–1727, 1735) A Modest Proposal (1729) Essays Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting (1706) An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity (1708) The Conduct of the Allies (1711) Drapier's Letters (1724/25) Directions to Servants (published 1745) Miscellany Isaac Bickerstaff writings (1708) The Examiner newspaper (1710–1714) "Cadenus and Vanessa" (1713 poem) "The Lady's Dressing Room" (1732 poem) A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738) A Journal to Stella (published posthumously – 1766) Related Esther Johnson Esther Vanhomrigh Scriblerus Club Swift crater The House That Swift Built (1982 film) "The Reasons that Induced Dr. S. to Write a Poem Call'd the Lady's Dressing Room" (1734 poem) vteJonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726)Characters Lemuel Gulliver Glumdalclitch Locations Balnibarbi Brobdingnag Glubbdubdrib Japan Lagado Laputa Lilliput and Blefuscu Lindalino Luggnagg Other characters The Engine Houyhnhnm Struldbrugg Yahoo Films Gulliver's Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants (1902) Gulliver en el país de los Gigantes (1903) Gulliver's Travels (1924) Gulliver Mickey (1934) The New Gulliver (1935) Gulliver's Travels (1939) The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon (1965) Gulliver's Travels (1977) Jajantaram Mamantaram (2003) Gulliver's Travels (2010) Gulliver Returns (2021) Television The Mind Robber (1968) The Adventures of Gulliver (1968–1969) Saban's Gulliver's Travels (1992–1993) Gulliver's Travels (1996) Related Cultural influence of Gulliver's Travels vteIrish poetryTopics Irish poetry Aisling Dán Díreach Metrical Dindshenchas Irish syllabic poetry Kildare Poems Filí Chief Ollam of Ireland Irish bardic poetry Contention of the bards Irish Literary Revival Weaver Poets An Gúm Táin Bó Cúailnge PoetsBardic Mael Ísu Ua Brolcháin Muircheartach Ó Cobhthaigh Gilla Mo Dutu Úa Caiside Baothghalach Mór Mac Aodhagáin Giolla Brighde Mac Con Midhe Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh Flann mac Lonáin Donnchadh Mór Ó Dálaigh Lochlann Óg Ó Dálaigh Fear Flatha Ó Gnímh Mathghamhain Ó hIfearnáin Cormac Mac Con Midhe Eoghan Carrach Ó Siadhail Fear Feasa Ó'n Cháinte Tadhg Olltach Ó an Cháinte Eochaidh Ó hÉoghusa Proinsias Ó Doibhlin Tarlach Rua Mac Dónaill Gilla Cómáin mac Gilla Samthainde Tadhg Dall Ó hÚigínn Niníne Éces Colmán of Cloyne Cináed ua hArtacáin Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh Cearbhall Óg Ó Dálaigh Máeleoin Bódur Ó Maolconaire Diarmaid Mac an Bhaird Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh Dallán Forgaill Óengus of Tallaght Sedulius Scottus Saint Dungal Maol Sheachluinn na n-Uirsgéal Ó hÚigínn Philip Ó Duibhgeannain 15th/16th century Tomás Ó Cobhthaigh 17th century Dáibhí Ó Bruadair Piaras Feiritéar Donnchadh Mac an Caoilfhiaclaigh Aogán Ó Rathaille 18th century Aogán Ó Rathaille Brian Merriman Jonathan Swift Oliver Goldsmith John Hewitt 19th century Thomas Moore Charles Gavan Duffy James Clarence Mangan Samuel Ferguson William Allingham Douglas Hyde James Henry Antoine Ó Raifteiri Aeneas Coffey Robert Dwyer Joyce Thomas Davis Speranza Katharine Tynan Edward Walsh Oscar Wilde 20th century James Joyce Patrick Pearse Joseph Plunkett Thomas MacDonagh Francis Ledwidge Padraic Colum F. R. Higgins Austin Clarke Samuel Beckett Brian Coffey Denis Devlin Thomas MacGreevy Blanaid Salkeld Mary Devenport O'Neill Patrick Kavanagh John Hewitt Louis MacNeice Máirtín Ó Direáin Seán Ó Ríordáin Máire Mhac an tSaoi Michael Hartnett Gabriel Rosenstock Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Micheál Mac Liammóir Robert Greacen Roy McFadden Padraic Fiacc John Montague Michael Longley Derek Mahon Seamus Heaney Paul Muldoon Thomas Kinsella Michael Smith Trevor Joyce Geoffrey Squires Augustus Young Randolph Healy John Jordan Paul Durcan Basil Payne Eoghan Ó Tuairisc Patrick Galvin Cathal Ó Searcaigh Bobby Sands Nora Tynan O'Mahony Rita Ann Higgins Eavan Boland Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin Medbh McGuckian Paula Meehan Dennis O'Driscoll Seán Dunne Anthony Cronin W. F. Marshall W. B. Yeats 21st century Thomas McCarthy John Ennis Pat Boran Mairéad Byrne Ciarán Carson Patrick Chapman Harry Clifton Tony Curtis Pádraig J. Daly Gerald Dawe Greg Delanty Eamon Grennan Vona Groarke Seamus Heaney Pat Ingoldsby Trevor Joyce Brendan Kennelly Hugh McFadden Sinéad Morrissey Gerry Murphy Bernard O'Donoghue Conor O'Callaghan Caitriona O'Reilly Justin Quinn Maurice Riordan Maurice Scully William Wall Catherine Walsh PoemsAnthologies Faber Book of Irish Verse Epics The Wanderings of Oisin Bardic Timna Cathaír Máir Caithréim Cellaig Le dís cuirthear clú Laighean Is acher in gaíth in-nocht... Is trúag in ces i mbiam Sen dollotar Ulaid ... An Díbirt go Connachta Foraire Uladh ar Aodh A aonmhic Dé do céasadh thrínn A theachtaire tig ón Róimh An sluagh sidhe so i nEamhuin? 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Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world

A LETTER FROM CAPTAIN GULLIVER TO HIS COUSIN SYMPSON.
Written in the Year 1727. I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentleman of either university to put them in order, and correct the style, as my cousin Dampier did, by my advice, in his book called "A Voyage round the world." But I do not remember I gave you power to consent that any thing should be omitted, and much less that any thing should be inserted; therefore, as to the latter, I do here renounce every thing of that kind; particularly a paragraph about her majesty Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious memory; although I did reverence and esteem her more than any of human species. But you, or your interpolator, ought to have considered, that it was not my inclination, so was it not decent to praise any animal of our composition before my master Houyhnhnm: And besides, the fact was altogether false; for to my knowledge, being in England during some part of her majesty's reign, she did govern by a chief minister; nay even by two successively, the first whereof was the lord of Godolphin, and the second the lord of Oxford; so that you have made me say the thing that was not. Likewise in the account of the academy of projectors, and several passages of my discourse to my master Houyhnhnm, you have either omitted some material circumstances, or minced or changed them in such a manner, that I do hardly know my own work. When I formerly hinted to you something of this in a letter, you were pleased to answer that you were afraid of giving offence; that people in power were very watchful over the press, and apt not only to interpret, but to punish every thing which looked like an innuendo (as I think you call it). But, pray how could that which I spoke so many years ago, and at about five thousand leagues distance, in another reign, be applied to any of the Yahoos, who now are said to govern the herd; especially at a time when I little thought, or feared, the unhappiness of living under them? Have not I the most reason to complain, when I see these very Yahoos carried by Houyhnhnms in a vehicle, as if they were brutes, and those the rational creatures? And indeed to avoid so monstrous and detestable a sight was one principal motive of my retirement hither.
Thus much I thought proper to tell you in relation to yourself, and to the trust I reposed in you. I do, in the next place, complain of my own great want of judgment, in being prevailed upon by the entreaties and false reasoning of you and some others, very much against my own opinion, to suffer my travels to be published. Pray bring to your mind how often I desired you to consider, when you insisted on the motive of public good, that the Yahoos were a species of animals utterly incapable of amendment by precept or example: and so it has proved; for, instead of seeing a full stop put to all abuses and corruptions, at least in this little island, as I had reason to expect; behold, after above six months warning, I cannot learn that my book has produced one single effect according to my intentions. I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright; pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility's education entirely changed; the physicians banished; the female Yahoos abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all disgracers of the press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink. These, and a thousand other reformations, I firmly counted upon by your encouragement; as indeed they were plainly deducible from the precepts delivered in my book. And it must be owned, that seven months were a sufficient time to correct every vice and folly to which Yahoos are subject, if their natures had been capable of the least disposition to virtue or wisdom. Yet, so far have you been from answering my expectation in any of your letters; that on the contrary you are loading our carrier every week with libels, and keys, and reflections, and memoirs, and second parts; wherein I see myself accused of reflecting upon great state folk; of degrading human nature (for so they have still the confidence to style it), and of abusing the female sex. I find likewise that the writers of those bundles are not agreed among themselves; for some of them will not allow me to be the author of my own travels; and others make me author of books to which I am wholly a stranger.
I find likewise that your printer has been so careless as to confound the times, and mistake the dates, of my several voyages and returns; neither assigning the true year, nor the true month, nor day of the month: and I hear the original manuscript is all destroyed since the publication of my book; neither have I any copy left: however, I have sent you some corrections, which you may insert, if ever there should be a second edition: and yet I cannot stand to them; but shall leave that matter to my judicious and candid readers to adjust it as they please.
I hear some of our sea Yahoos find fault with my sea-language, as not proper in many parts, nor now in use. I cannot help it. In my first voyages, while I was young, I was instructed by the oldest mariners, and learned to speak as they did. But I have since found that the sea Yahoos are apt, like the land ones, to become new-fangled in their words, which the latter change every year; insomuch, as I remember upon each return to my own country their old dialect was so altered, that I could hardly understand the new. And I observe, when any Yahoo comes from London out of curiosity to visit me at my house, we neither of us are able to deliver our conceptions in a manner intelligible to the other.
If the censure of the Yahoos could any way affect me, I should have great reason to complain, that some of them are so bold as to think my book of travels a mere fiction out of mine own brain, and have gone so far as to drop hints, that the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos have no more existence than the inhabitants of Utopia.
Indeed I must confess, that as to the people of Lilliput, Brobdingrag (for so the word should have been spelt, and not erroneously Brobdingnag), and Laputa, I have never yet heard of any Yahoo so presumptuous as to dispute their being, or the facts I have related concerning them; because the truth immediately strikes every reader with conviction. And is there less probability in my account of the Houyhnhnms or Yahoos, when it is manifest as to the latter, there are so many thousands even in this country, who only differ from their brother brutes in Houyhnhnmland, because they use a sort of jabber, and do not go naked? I wrote for their amendment, and not their approbation. The united praise of the whole race would be of less consequence to me, than the neighing of those two degenerate Houyhnhnms I keep in my stable; because from these, degenerate as they are, I still improve in some virtues without any mixture of vice.
Do these miserable animals presume to think, that I am so degenerated as to defend my veracity? Yahoo as I am, it is well known through all Houyhnhnmland, that, by the instructions and example of my illustrious master, I was able in the compass of two years (although I confess with the utmost difficulty) to remove that infernal habit of lying, shuffling, deceiving, and equivocating, so deeply rooted in the very souls of all my species; especially the Europeans.
I have other complaints to make upon this vexatious occasion; but I forbear troubling myself or you any further. I must freely confess, that since my last return, some corruptions of my Yahoo nature have revived in me by conversing with a few of your species, and particularly those of my own family, by an unavoidable necessity; else I should never have attempted so absurd a project as that of reforming the Yahoo race in this kingdom: But I have now done with all such visionary schemes for ever.
April 2, 1727
PART I. A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT. CHAPTER I.
The author gives some account of himself and family. His first inducements to travel. He is shipwrecked, and swims for his life. Gets safe on shore in the country of Lilliput; is made a prisoner, and carried up the country.
My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire: I was the third of five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge at fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years. My father now and then sending me small sums of money, I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts of the mathematics, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be, some time or other, my fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father: where, by the assistance of him and my uncle John, and some other relations, I got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty pounds a year to maintain me at Leyden: there I studied physic two years and seven months, knowing it would be useful in long voyages.
Soon after my return from Leyden, I was recommended by my good master, Mr. Bates, to be surgeon to the Swallow, Captain Abraham Pannel, commander; with whom I continued three years and a half, making a voyage or two into the Levant, and some other parts. When I came back I resolved to settle in London; to which Mr. Bates, my master, encouraged me, and by him I was recommended to several patients. I took part of a small house in the Old Jewry; and being advised to alter my condition, I married Mrs. Mary Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton, hosier, in Newgate-street, with whom I received four hundred pounds for a portion.
But my good master Bates dying in two years after, and I having few friends, my business began to fail; for my conscience would not suffer me to imitate the bad practice of too many among my brethren. Having therefore consulted with my wife, and some of my acquaintance, I determined to go again to sea. I was surgeon successively in two ships, and made several voyages, for six years, to the East and West Indies, by which I got some addition to my fortune. My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory.
The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors; but it would not turn to account. After three years expectation that things would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain William Prichard, master of the Antelope, who was making a voyage to the South Sea. We set sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699, and our voyage was at first very prosperous.
It would not be proper, for some reasons, to trouble the reader with the particulars of our adventures in those seas; let it suffice to inform him, that in our passage from thence to the East Indies, we were driven by a violent storm to the north-west of Van Diemen's Land. By an observation, we found ourselves in the latitude of 30 degrees 2 minutes south. Twelve of our crew were dead by immoderate labour and ill food; the rest were in a very weak condition. On the 5th of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock within half a cable's length of the ship; but the wind was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split. Six of the crew, of whom I was one, having let down the boat into the sea, made a shift to get clear of the ship and the rock. We rowed, by my computation, about three leagues, till we were able to work no longer, being already spent with labour while we were in the ship. We therefore trusted ourselves to the mercy of the waves, and in about half an hour the boat was overset by a sudden flurry from the north. What became of my companions in the boat, as well as of those who escaped on the rock, or were left in the vessel, I cannot tell; but conclude they were all lost. For my own part, I swam as fortune directed me, and was pushed forward by wind and tide. I often let my legs drop, and could feel no bottom; but when I was almost gone, and able to struggle no longer, I found myself within my depth; and by this time the storm was much abated. The declivity was so small, that I walked near a mile before I got to the shore, which I conjectured was about eight o'clock in the evening. I then advanced forward near half a mile, but could not discover any sign of houses or inhabitants; at least I was in so weak a condition, that I did not observe them. I was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life, and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked, it was just day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the mean time, I felt at least forty more of the same kind (as I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so loud, that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground. However, they soon returned, and one of them, who ventured so far as to get a full sight of my face, lifting up his hands and eyes by way of admiration, cried out in a shrill but distinct voice, Hekinah degul: the others repeated the same words several times, but then I knew not what they meant. I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in great uneasiness. At length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the strings, and wrench out the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground; for, by lifting it up to my face, I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me, and at the same time with a violent pull, which gave me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased I heard one of them cry aloud Tolgo phonac; when in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which, pricked me like so many needles; and besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body, (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a groaning with grief and pain; and then striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but by good luck I had on a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself: and as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the greatest army they could bring against me, if they were all of the same size with him that I saw. But fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows; but, by the noise I heard, I knew their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at work; when turning my head that way, as well as the pegs and strings would permit me, I saw a stage erected about a foot and a half from the ground, capable of holding four of the inhabitants, with two or three ladders to mount it: from whence one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long speech, whereof I understood not one syllable. But I should have mentioned, that before the principal person began his oration, he cried out three times, Langro dehul san (these words and the former were afterwards repeated and explained to me); whereupon, immediately, about fifty of the inhabitants came and cut the strings that fastened the left side of my head, which gave me the liberty of turning it to the right, and of observing the person and gesture of him that was to speak. He appeared to be of a middle age, and taller than any of the other three who attended him, whereof one was a page that held up his train, and seemed to be somewhat longer than my middle finger; the other two stood one on each side to support him. He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness. I answered in a few words, but in the most submissive manner, lifting up my left hand, and both my eyes to the sun, as calling him for a witness; and being almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The hurgo (for so they call a great lord, as I afterwards learnt) understood me very well. He descended from the stage, and commanded that several ladders should be applied to my sides, on which above a hundred of the inhabitants mounted and walked towards my mouth, laden with baskets full of meat, which had been provided and sent thither by the king's orders, upon the first intelligence he received of me. I observed there was the flesh of several animals, but could not distinguish them by the taste. There were shoulders, legs, and loins, shaped like those of mutton, and very well dressed, but smaller than the wings of a lark. I ate them by two or three at a mouthful, and took three loaves at a time, about the bigness of musket bullets. They supplied me as fast as they could, showing a thousand marks of wonder and astonishment at my bulk and appetite. I then made another sign, that I wanted drink. They found by my eating that a small quantity would not suffice me; and being a most ingenious people, they slung up, with great dexterity, one of their largest hogsheads, then rolled it towards my hand, and beat out the top; I drank it off at a draught, which I might well do, for it did not hold half a pint, and tasted like a small wine of Burgundy, but much more delicious. They brought me a second hogshead, which I drank in the same manner, and made signs for more; but they had none to give me. When I had performed these wonders, they shouted for joy, and danced upon my breast, repeating several times as they did at first, Hekinah degul. They made me a sign that I should throw down the two hogsheads, but first warning the people below to stand out of the way, crying aloud, Borach mevolah; and when they saw the vessels in the air, there was a universal shout of Hekinah degul. I confess I was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and forwards on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came in my reach, and dash them against the ground. But the remembrance of what I had felt, which probably might not be the worst they could do, and the promise of honour I made them-for so I interpreted my submissive behaviour-soon drove out these imaginations. Besides, I now considered myself as bound by the laws of hospitality, to a people who had treated me with so much expense and magnificence. However, in my thoughts I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to mount and walk upon my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at the very sight of so prodigious a creature as I must appear to them. After some time, when they observed that I made no more demands for meat, there appeared before me a person of high rank from his imperial majesty. His excellency, having mounted on the small of my right leg, advanced forwards up to my face, with about a dozen of his retinue; and producing his credentials under the signet royal, which he applied close to my eyes, spoke about ten minutes without any signs of anger, but with a kind of determinate resolution, often pointing forwards, which, as I afterwards found, was towards the capital city, about half a mile distant; whither it was agreed by his majesty in council that I must be conveyed. I answered in few words, but to no purpose, and made a sign with my hand that was loose, putting it to the other (but over his excellency's head for fear of hurting him or his train) and then to my own head and body, to signify that I desired my liberty. It appeared that he understood me well enough, for he shook his head by way of disapprobation, and held his hand in a posture to show that I must be carried as a prisoner. However, he made other signs to let me understand that I should have meat and drink enough, and very good treatment. Whereupon I once more thought of attempting to break my bonds; but again, when I felt the smart of their arrows upon my face and hands, which were all in blisters, and many of the darts still sticking in them, and observing likewise that the number of my enemies increased, I gave tokens to let them know that they might do with me what they pleased. Upon this, the hurgo and his train withdrew, with much civility and cheerful countenances. Soon after I heard a general shout, with frequent repetitions of the words Peplom selan; and I felt great numbers of people on my left side relaxing the cords to such a degree, that I was able to turn upon my right, and to ease myself with making water; which I very plentifully did, to the great astonishment of the people; who, conjecturing by my motion what I was going to do, immediately opened to the right and left on that side, to avoid the torrent, which fell with such noise and violence from me. But before this, they had daubed my face and both my hands with a sort of ointment, very pleasant to the smell, which, in a few minutes, removed all the smart of their arrows. These circumstances, added to the refreshment I had received by their victuals and drink, which were very nourishing, disposed me to sleep. I slept about eight hours, as I was afterwards assured; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the emperor's order, had mingled a sleepy potion in the hogsheads of wine.
It seems, that upon the first moment I was discovered sleeping on the ground, after my landing, the emperor had early notice of it by an express; and determined in council, that I should be tied in the manner I have related, (which was done in the night while I slept;) that plenty of meat and drink should be sent to me, and a machine prepared to carry me to the capital city.
This resolution perhaps may appear very bold and dangerous, and I am confident would not be imitated by any prince in Europe on the like occasion. However, in my opinion, it was extremely prudent, as well as generous: for, supposing these people had endeavoured to kill me with their spears and arrows, while I was asleep, I should certainly have awaked with the first sense of smart, which might so far have roused my rage and strength, as to have enabled me to break the strings wherewith I was tied; after which, as they were not able to make resistance, so they could expect no mercy.
These people are most excellent mathematicians, and arrived to a great perfection in mechanics, by the countenance and encouragement of the emperor, who is a renowned patron of learning. This prince has several machines fixed on wheels, for the carriage of trees and other great weights. He often builds his largest men of war, whereof some are nine feet long, in the woods where the timber grows, and has them carried on these engines three or four hundred yards to the sea. Five hundred carpenters and engineers were immediately set at work to prepare the greatest engine they had. It was a frame of wood raised three inches from the ground, about seven feet long, and four wide, moving upon twenty-two wheels. The shout I heard was upon the arrival of this engine, which, it seems, set out in four hours after my landing. It was brought parallel to me, as I lay. But the principal difficulty was to raise and place me in this vehicle. Eighty poles, each of one foot high, were erected for this purpose, and very strong cords, of the bigness of packthread, were fastened by hooks to many bandages, which the workmen had girt round my neck, my hands, my body, and my legs. Nine hundred of the strongest men were employed to draw up these cords, by many pulleys fastened on the poles; and thus, in less than three hours, I was raised and slung into the engine, and there tied fast. All this I was told; for, while the operation was performing, I lay in a profound sleep, by the force of that soporiferous medicine infused into my liquor. Fifteen hundred of the emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and a half high, were employed to draw me towards the metropolis, which, as I said, was half a mile distant.
About four hours after we began our journey, I awaked by a very ridiculous accident; for the carriage being stopped a while, to adjust something that was out of order, two or three of the young natives had the curiosity to see how I looked when I was asleep; they climbed up into the engine, and advancing very softly to my face, one of them, an officer in the guards, put the sharp end of his half-pike a good way up into my left nostril, which tickled my nose like a straw, and made me sneeze violently; whereupon they stole off unperceived, and it was three weeks before I knew the cause of my waking so suddenly. We made a long march the remaining part of the day, and, rested at night with five hundred guards on each side of me, half with torches, and half with bows and arrows, ready to shoot me if I should offer to stir. The next morning at sun-rise we continued our march, and arrived within two hundred yards of the city gates about noon. The emperor, and all his court, came out to meet us; but his great officers would by no means suffer his majesty to endanger his person by mounting on my body.
At the place where the carriage stopped there stood an ancient temple, esteemed to be the largest in the whole kingdom; which, having been polluted some years before by an unnatural murder, was, according to the zeal of those people, looked upon as profane, and therefore had been applied to common use, and all the ornaments and furniture carried away. In this edifice it was determined I should lodge. The great gate fronting to the north was about four feet high, and almost two feet wide, through which I could easily creep. On each side of the gate was a small window, not above six inches from the ground: into that on the left side, the king's smith conveyed fourscore and eleven chains, like those that hang to a lady's watch in Europe, and almost as large, which were locked to my left leg with six-and-thirty padlocks. Over against this temple, on the other side of the great highway, at twenty feet distance, there was a turret at least five feet high. Here the emperor ascended, with many principal lords of his court, to have an opportunity of viewing me, as I was told, for I could not see them. It was reckoned that above a hundred thousand inhabitants came out of the town upon the same errand; and, in spite of my guards, I believe there could not be fewer than ten thousand at several times, who mounted my body by the help of ladders. But a proclamation was soon issued, to forbid it upon pain of death. When the workmen found it was impossible for me to break loose, they cut all the strings that bound me; whereupon I rose up, with as melancholy a disposition as ever I had in my life. But the noise and astonishment of the people, at seeing me rise and walk, are not to be expressed. The chains that held my left leg were about two yards long, and gave me not only the liberty of walking backwards and forwards in a semicircle, but, being fixed within four inches of the gate, allowed me to creep in, and lie at my full length in the temple.
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Word Lists:

Yahoo : a rude, noisy, or violent person.
Deducible :
Ligature : a thing used for tying or binding something tightly
Innuendo : an allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one
Jabber : talk rapidly and excitedly but with little sense
Disapprobation : strong disapproval, typically on moral grounds
Submissive : ready to conform to the authority or will of others; meekly obedient or passive
Potion : a liquid with healing, magical, or poisonous properties
Erroneously : in a mistaken way; incorrectly
Smith : a worker in metal

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Rating: Words in the Passage: 5542 Unique Words: 1,436 Sentences: 150
Noun: 1199 Conjunction: 635 Adverb: 357 Interjection: 6
Adjective: 364 Pronoun: 651 Verb: 855 Preposition: 774
Letter Count: 23,451 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Neutral (Slightly Conversational) Difficult Words: 915
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