The author of the
"Battle of the Books" (written in 1697) tells us in the preface to the
Third Part of Temple's "Miscellanea" (1701) that he "cannot well inform
the reader upon what occasion" the essay upon Ancient and Modern
Learning "was writ, having been at that time in another kingdom"; and
the professed confidant of a ministry, whom the Stuart Papers have
proved to have been in correspondence with the Pretender, puts on an air
of innocence (in his "Enquiry into the Behavior of the Queen's last
Ministry") and undertakes to convince us that nothing could be more
absurd than to accuse them of Jacobitism. It may be, as Orrery asserted,
that Swift was "employed, not trusted," but this is hardly to be
reconciled with Lewis's warning him on the Queen's death to burn his
papers, or his own jest to Harley about the one being beheaded and the
other hanged. The fact is that, while in certain contingencies Swift was
as unscrupulous a liar as Voltaire, he was naturally open and truthful,
and showed himself to be so whenever his passions or his interest would
let him. That Mr. Forster should make a hero of the man whose life he
has undertaken to write is both natural and proper; for without sympathy
there can be no right understanding, and a hearty admiration is alone
capable of that generosity in the interpretation of conduct to which all
men have a right, and which he needs most who most widely transcends the
ordinary standards or most resolutely breaks with traditionary rules.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178