But no obliging tender friend
To help at my approaching end;
My life is now a burden grown

To others, ere it be my own.

Ye formal weepers for the sick,
In your last offices be quick;

And spare my absent friends the grief
To hear, yet give me no relief;

Expired to-day, entombed to-morrow,

When known, will save a double sorrow.1

But such lamentations are moderate compared to the bitterness of resentment concentrated in the verse written after the accession of George II. In this the momentary joy of battle, aroused by the conflict over Wood's Halfpence, has died out; the hopes excited by the compliments of Queen Caroline have been exchanged for the gloom of disappointment, while the gall projected outwards on courts and ministers in Gulliver's Travels is now poured into the lacerated heart of the man remembering old times, comparing them with present neglect, and brooding self-consciously over the indifference with which the tidings of his death will be received at their cardtables by those who call themselves his friends :

My female friends, whose tender hearts
Have better learned to act their parts,

Receive the news in doleful dumps :

"The Dean is dead; (Pray, what is trumps?)

Then Lord have mercy on his soul!

(Ladies, I'll venture on the vole);

Six deans, they say, must bear the pall
(I wish I knew what king to call!).
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend?”
"No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight,
And he's engaged to-morrow night :
My Lady Club will take it ill

If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loved the Dean (I lead a heart),
But dearest friends, they say, must part :
His time was come; he ran his race;
We hope he's in a better place.2

1 In Sickness, October 1714.

2 Lines on His Own Death.

Amidst this vision of hard hearts the image of his own ill-requited merits looms gigantic, and he draws a portrait of himself by the hand of one, as he supposes, " indifferent in the cause." It is in curious contrast with the humorous self-depreciation of his own character, as described to Lewis in the early imitation of Horace :—

He never thought an honour done him,
Because a peer was proud to own him;
Would rather slip aside, and choose
To talk with wits in dirty shoes;

And scorn the tools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station,
Nor persons held in admiration ;
Of no man's greatness was afraid,
Because he sought for no man's aid.
Though trusted long in great affairs,
He gave himself no haughty airs:
Without regarding private ends,
Spent all his credit for his friends,
And only chose the wise and good;
No flatterers; no allies in blood ;
But succoured virtue in distress,
And seldom failed of good success,
As numbers in their hearts must own,
Who, but for him, had been unknown.

He kept with princes due decorum,
Yet never stood in awe before 'em :
He followed David's lesson just,
In princes never put his trust;
And would you make him truly sour,
Provoke him with a slave in power.
The Irish senate if you named,
With what impatience he declaimed !
Fair LIBERTY was all his cry,
For her he stood prepared to die ;
For her he boldly stood alone,
For her he oft exposed his own.
Two kingdoms, just as faction led,
Had set a price upon his head;
But not a traitor could be found
To sell him for six hundred pound.1

The old self-esteem seems here to have grown into

1 On His Own Death.

self-worship; and in the following lines On the Day of Judgment, the correlative indignation against mankind mounts into something like the rage of a madman :

With a whirl of thought oppressed,

I sank from reverie to rest.

An horrid vision seized my head:

I saw the graves give up their dead!

Jove, armed with terrors, burst the skies,
And thunder roars, and lightning flies.
Amazed, confused, its fate unknown,

The world stands trembling at His throne.
While each pale sinner hung his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
Offending race of human kind,

By nature, reason, learning, blind :
You, who through frailty stepped aside,
And you, who never fell, through pride;
You, who in different sects were shammed,
And come to see each other damned,
(So some folks told you, but they knew
No more of Jove's designs than you)———
The world's mad business now is o'er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools. Go, go!

1

Go, go! You're bit."

It would appear, then, that the key to Swift's thought lies in an intellectual scorn-scorn alike for the shallow wits who, deeming themselves capable of fathoming the insoluble mystery of life, sneered at the doctrine of revealed religion, and for the unthinking public who took the speculations of such men seriously-blended with an ever-growing egotism. His own view of truth resembled that of Donne; but he was essentially a man of action, and saw that it was necessary to assume as the basis of action-at least of national action-the compromise in Church and State arrived at in the Revolution of 1688. These two principles in combination also determine the conscious aim of Swift's literary style, which, as Johnson says, is "well suited to his thought." He himself describes, in a letter to Isaac Bickerstaff, the nature of the "simplicity" after which he strove a mode of

1 See vol. iii. p. 151.

expression founded on polite conversation, and equally removed from pedantry and slang:-

I should be glad to see you the instrument of introducing into our style that simplicity which is the best and truest ornament of most things in life, which the politer ages always aimed at in their buildings and dress (simplex munditiis) as well as their productions of wit. It is manifest that all new affected modes of speech, whether borrowed from the Court, the town, or the theatre, are the first perishing parts in any language; and, as I could prove by many hundred instances, have been so in ours. The writings of Hooker, who was a country clergyman, and of Parsons, the Jesuit, both in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, are in a style that, with very few allowances, would not offend any present reader; much more clear and intelligible than those of Sir H. Wooton, Sir Robert Naunton, Osborn, Daniel the historian, and several others who wrote later; but, being men of the Court, and affecting the phrases then in fashion, they are often either not to be understood, or appear perfectly ridiculous.1

Guided by this main principle of composition, Swift's style naturally moved ever farther away from the Pindaric manner with which he started. As he wrote mainly for the unsophisticated public, whose minds, he himself says, unless imposed upon, are open to reason, his tendency was, more and more, to banish ornament; and the metaphorical conceits of the seventeenth century became increasingly distasteful to him. The specimens of his verse already given illustrate the truth of Johnson's observation as to the scarcity of his metaphors; and they also point to his growing preference for octosyllabic verse as a vehicle for familiar writing. The genius of the heroic couplet required more antithesis than he cared to bestow on it, since his effects were always wrought much more by force of argument, unexpected turns of humour, or sheer intensity of feeling, than by the mere balance of ideas and words. In his metrical and in his prose writings the ideal was the same, “proper words in proper places": poetical diction, as a style to be aimed at per se, was a thing abhorrent to him, when once he had rejected the Pindaric manner.

1 The Tatler, No. 230.

Comparing his familiar idiom in octosyllabic verse with that of Prior, I think every one will be struck with Swift's habit of confining each sentence, or at least each clause of a sentence, within two lines. For example, the poem entitled The Logicians Refuted consists of fifty-eight lines; and in these there are only two clauses which extend beyond the rhyme of the couplet.1 This octosyllabic verse is founded on the style of Hudibras, which Swift constantly imitates by his use of disyllabic or trisyllabic rhymes: but his direct and trenchant manner is his own, and he studiously avoids the display of encyclopædic learning, which is characteristic of Butler. The following passage, from the delightful imitation of Horace which I have before alluded to, shows the familiar style of Swift at its best2:

Said Harley: "I desire to know
From his own mouth if this be so.
Step to the Doctor straight, and say
I'd have him dine with me to-day."
Swift seemed to wonder what he meant,
Nor would believe my Lord had sent;
So never offered once to stir,

But coldly said, "Your servant, sir!
"Does he refuse me?" Harley cried
"He does, with insolence and pride.
Some few days after, Harley spies
The Doctor, fastened by the eyes
At Charing Cross among the rout,
Where painted monsters are hung out:
He pulled the string, and stopped his coach,
Beckoning the Doctor to approach.

1 Viz.:

And

Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius,

By ratiocinations specious,

Have strove to prove with great precision

With definition and division,

Homo est ratione præditum:

But for my soul I cannot credit 'em.

No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,

No pickpockets, or poetasters,
Are known to honest quadrupeds.

For the earlier lines see p. 134.