Jonathan Swift: 1667-1745

Life

1667: b. 30 Nov. 1667 [‘born in Dublin on St. Andrew’s Day’, acc a TCD MS], 7 Hoey’s Court, Dublin (Parish of St. Werburgh’s); son of Jonathan Swift, steward at King’s Inn whose his handwriting is preserved in the so-called “Black Book”, and Abigaile Swift [née Erick, b. Wigston Magna, Leicestershire, dg. a butcher; d. 24 April 1710], married by special licence of the Archbishop of Armagh, June 1664), his father dying before his birth (on the supposition that JS Snr. was actually his father); gs. of Thomas Swift (d.1658), vicar of Goodrich in Yorkshire, nr. Ross, dispossessed as Royalist in Civil War; abducted by an over-affectionate nurse who later returned him to Ireland [both poss. on instructions from Sir John Temple]; after his mother’s return to Leicestershire, the young Jonathan Swift [JS] supported by Godwin Swift, an uncle and Attorney-General of palatine county of Tipperary; entered Kilkenny Grammar School, 1673, with Congreve; entered TCD, 1682; convicted of taking part in college disturbances and obliged to beg pardon of the Dean on bended knee; grad. BA (e speciale gratia) [1686];

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1688: leaves Ireland during the viceroyship of Richard Talbot, Catholic viceroy of James II, and joins his mother in Leicester; apparently sent by her to Sir William Temple, then at Sheen outside London, with a seat at Moor Park, nr. Farnham, 1689; in that household meets Esther Johnson (‘Stella’; 1680-1728), then aged 8, being the dg. of lady servant of Temple’s sister Lady Giffard and poss. the illegitimate dg. of Sir William; sent by Temple to Ireland with letter of recommendation to Sir William Southwell, minister of state to William III; fails to secure fellowship at TCD; returns to Moor Hall, acting as secretary to Temple (during 1691-94), and thence to Oxford, where he secures an MA, ad eundum, 1692; wrote Pindaric Odes, 1690-91, one of which, appearing in Athenian Gazette [var. Mercury], provokes Dryden’s remark, ‘Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet’ (acc. Johnson’s Lives); quit Sir William’s household and ordained in Dublin, 1694; obliged to seek Temple’s patronage again to secure living; appointed rector of Kilroot, nr. Belfast, Co. Antrim, with parishes at Ballinure and Templecorran; Jan. 1695; sought marriage with one Jane Waring, dg. of Archdeacon of Dromore (‘Varina’), in the only extant letter of the period; returns to Moor Park and there writes The Battle of the Books, 1696-98; acts as Temple’s literary executor at his death in 1699, and returns to Dublin that year; opposes marriage of his sister Jane (b. April 1666) to one Joseph Fenton, offering her 」500 pounds to break it off (acc. to Deane Swift); disappointed in ecclesiastical preferments; appt. chaplain to Earl of Berkeley and to Lord Pembroke, viceroys in Dublin; rectory of Agher, Co. Meath, with united parishes of Laracor and Rathbeggan, to which added prepend of Dunlavin at St. Patrick’s, 1700 (opened 1757), providing income of 」230 p.a.;

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1701: TCD DD, Feb. 1701 [var. 1702]; appt. prebendary of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, 1701; visits Leicester and London frequently, remaining in London, 1701-04, during which time he formed acquaintance with Pope, Steele, and Addison, et al.; ed. Sir William Temple, Miscellanea: The Third Part (1701), incl. sections on popular discontents, health and longevity, ancient and modern learning, and conversation; issues in London a pamphlet Discourses of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome (Sept. 1701), defending Whigs against Tory attack on Partition (or ‘Barrier’) Treaties and dissuasive of impeachment of Lords Somers, Orford, Portland, and Halifax; authorship of same disavowed by Burnet; issues A Tale of a Tub (April or May 1704), a satire on ‘corruption in religion and learning’, in defence of Temple’s Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1692), which William Wotton had criticised; emissary for the Irish clergy in London, 1707-09, winning wins First Fruits and twentieths, known as ‘Queen Anne’s Bounty’ and prev. granted to the English clergy, for the Irish Church, negotiating with the Godolphin ministry in London, 1707 [var. Feb. 1708-April. 1709];

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1707: first encounters Esther Van Homrigh [vars. Vanhomrigh, Van Homerigh, ‘‘Vanessa’’, b.1690; dg. of Bartholomew Van Homerigh, Dublin Alderman and former Williamite Commissar-General], at an inn in Dubstable en route between Dublin and London, Dec. 1707; later Sherriff of Dublin, MP for Londonderry, and Chief Comm. of Irish Revenue; Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1697; d. 1703, his widow living on till 1715]; issues Baucis and Philemon (Nov. 1707); wrote Story of an Injured Lady Written by Herself, complaining of Ireland’s ‘grief and ill-usage’ by Britain and of suing ‘to be free from the Persecutions of this unreasonable Man, and that he will let me manage my own little fortune to the Best advantage’ (written 1707, suppressed by the author and published in c.1746; issues An Argument To Prove, That the Abolishing of Christianity in England, May, as Things now Stand, be attended with some Inconveniencies [... &c.] (1708; publ. 1711); also The Sentiments of a Church of England Man with respect to Religion and Government (1708), and A Letter from a Member of the House of Commons in Ireland, Concerning the Sacramental Test (1708), harming him with the Whigs; satirical pieces in Tatler include ‘Bickerstaff Papers’ (from Jan. 1708), in which he ridicules the almanacker John Partridge by predicting his demise, spuriously confirming it on 30 March;

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1709: issues Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. (April 1709); also the poems ‘Description of a City Shower’ and ‘Description of the Morning’, depicting London life (Tatler, 1709); issues A Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners (1709); returns to Dublin, June 1709; living in London from Nov. 1710 [var. Sept.]; employed by Tory ministry of Robert Harley (1st Earl of Oxford), with Henry St. John (later Visc. Bolingbroke), 1710-13, writing The Examiner for them, 2 Nov. 1710-July 11; The Conduct of the Allies and Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty (1711), facilitating the dismissal of Marlborough and the creation of 12 new peers; faces antagonism of Bishop of York and Duchess of Somerset (both of whom had influence with Queen Anne); squibs and writings issued as Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1711), incl. ‘Mrs. Frances Harris’s Petition’ (1709), burlesque on a servant who has lost her purse; ‘On Mrs Biddy Floyd’ (1709); ‘A Meditation upon a Broomstick’ (1710); The Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician’s Rod (1710), sat. poem attack on Godolphin; The W[in]ds[o]r Prophecy (1711), attacking Duchess of Somerset; A Short Character of T. E. of W [Thomas, Earl of Wharton] (1711) [one time viceroy in Ireland, of dissenter background, and supposed author of “Lilliburlero”]; issues The Fable of Midas (1711); also Some Advice Humbly Offered to the Members of the October Club (1712), written against extreme Tories; issues ‘The Prediction of Merlin’, and ‘The History of Vanbrugh’s House’;

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1712: writes, while in London during 1710-13, the Journal to Stella addressing Stella and Mrs Dingley (1st cousin once removed of Sir William), then settled in Ireland; may have been intimate with Vanessa whom he re-encountered as he was living close to her mother’s lodgings, and who appears to have considered herself affianced to him; meets Pope and joins Scriblerus Club; contrib. to Martinus Scriblerus; contrib. to the Tatler, Spectator, and Intelligencer; issues Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712); writes History of the Four Last Years of the Queen, 1712-13 (published posthumously 1758), which contains his portrait of Harley; receives admission of love from Stella and alters the character of his communication with her;

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1713: appointed to Deanship of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, setting out for Dublin, June 1713 [var. 1714]; Journal ends 6th June, at Chester; writes Cadenus and Vanessa (1713; publ. 1726); arrives Dublin circa 8 June; victim of poetical squib by [prob.] John Smedley, Dean of Clogher, nailed to doors of St. Patrick’s (‘Look down, St Patrick, look, we pray [...; &c., as infra]; retires to his parish at Laracor within a fortnight and directly after his installation in July; quits Ireland in August 1713; issues A Preface to the B****p of S*r*m’s Introduction (1713), an attack on Bishop Burnet [bishop of Sarum/Salisbury]; issues pamphlets incl. The Importance of the Guardian Considered (1713); Mr C[olli]n’s Discourse on Free Thinking (1713), against Anthony Collins; The Public Spirit of the Whigs (1714), answering Steele’s Crisis, and further papers in defence of the second-named; returns from Dublin on eve of death of Queen Anne, when the Tories’ apparent indifference to the Protestant succession turned public opinion towards the Whigs, 1714; issues a pamphlet, Some Free Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs, adopting bold plans of Bolingbroke, incl. utter exclusion of Whigs and dissenters from government, remodelling of army, and restraints on heir to throne (written 1713 but amended by Bolingbroke and then suppressed [var. pub. 1714]);

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1714: granted 」1,000 by Bolingbroke during his 3-day ministry after the expulsion and exile of Oxford, but offers to join Oxford in retirement [var. in prison] and is refused, the news of both events arriving in the same post; receipt of Bolingbroke’s award intercepted by Queen’s death (1 Aug. 1714); lives in seclusion at Upper Letcombe, Berkshire, during final dissension between Oxford and Bolingbroke; visited by Vanessa before his departure for Dublin in mid-Aug. 1714; Vanessa follows him to Dublin, Nov. 1714, settling at the family home in Turnstile Abbey, Dublin (which she later sold on advice of Archbishop King), and at Celbridge [at Marlay Abbey; alt. Kildrochid, the name occas. employed in her letters], where Swift was to visit her in 1720, in response to a letter [prob.] from her to Stella enquiring if they are married, and resulting in a permanent breach between Swift and Vanessa; JS writes A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (Dublin 1720), answering the Declaratory Act of that year and stinging the triumphant Whig Administration; gives account of same in letter to Pope (‘a discourse to persuade the wretched people to wear their own manufactures’); prosecution of same by goverrnment dropped; issues The Swearer’s Bank (1720), an Irish pamphlet; writes prologue for performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet for the ‘distressed weavers’ of Dublin, 1 April 1721; issues Letter of Advice to a Young Poet (1721);

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1722: undertakes tour of Ireland that brings him to Clogher, Loughgall, et al., 1722; writes “‘The Description of an Irish Feast” [otherwise “O坦ourke痴 Feast”], 1720, a verse translation of ‘Pléaráca na Ruarcach’ written by Hugh MacGauran [anglice Gawran; Gowran], supposedly based on a literal translation provided by the poet [Williams, Poems, Vol. 1, pp.243-44; infra]; A Letter to a Young Gentleman lately entered into Holy Orders (1731); writes Letter from Dr Swift to Mr Pope (written 1722, published 1741); death of Vanessa, 2 June, 1723; Swift travels in Leinster, Munster, and Connacht to escape ‘obloquy’, June-Sept 1723; writes Gulliver’s Travels, 1721-25, breaking off to enter the controversy over a royal patent awarded to William Wood, an English ironmonger, arranged by Duchess of Kendall, which secured 40% of profit to these two on copper coinage to be minted for Ireland; issues Drapier’s Letters (March 1724-25 Dec 1725), commencing with A Letter to the Tradesmen, Shopkeepers, Farmers, and Common-People in General of the Kingdom of Ireland, by M[arcus] B[rutus], Drapier; asserts that no one is legally bound to accept coin not of gold or silver and computes that those who use ‘those Vile Half-pence ... must lose almost Eleven-Pence in every Shilling’; his “Observations on the Report of the Committee” resulted in a reduction of the bill to £40,000 with limits on the amount of currency citizens were obliged to accept (51d.); answered by Swift in letter damning the comprise as ‘perfect high treason’ and fortified by his account of the matter as a battle between ‘one rapacious individual and the whole Irish nation’; an offer of £300 for the disclosure of identity of the Drapier posted by Lord Chief Justice Whisgift, for which (as he later wrote) ‘no traitor could be found’ although all of Dublin knew the author; strenuous pursuit impeded by the sympathy of Viceroy Lord Carteret; JS issues Travels into Several Remote Nations of the Works by Lemuel Gulliver (1726); visits London for the last time, with hopes of of the dislodgement of Robert Walpole at death of George I, 1727; dines with Walpole, to whom he addresses a letter remonstrating about Ireland; issues “Letter of Advice to a very Young Lady on her Marriage” (1727); issues A Short View of the State of Ireland (1727), a pamphlet reprinted as No.15 of the Intelligencer, a weekly paper begun by Swift and his friend Thomas Sheridan in 1729;

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1728: death of Stella, 1728 (‘I cannot call to mind that I ever heard her make a wrong judgement of persons, books or affairs’), and her bequest to Berkeley rather than to Swift; issues A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to their Parents or their Country and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (Dublin: S. Harding 1729); An Examination of certain Abuses, Corruptions and Enormities in the City of Dublin (1732); The Grand Question Debated (1729); produced the Intelligencer (1729-30) with Thomas Sheridan; receives Freedom of Dublin, 1729 for the Drapier’s Letters; issues Traulus (1630), attacking Lord Allen; writes Directions to Servants (c.1731; publ. 1745); writes A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation (1731; publ. 1738); writes ‘Hamilton’s Bawn’, a poem; writes Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift (1731; publ. London 1739); issues The Day of Judgement (1731); issues The Lady’s Dressing-Room (1732) and The Beasts Confession to the Priest (1732), on ‘universal folly of mankind in mistaking their talents’; issues A Serious and Useful Scheme to make an Hospital for Incurables, whether the Incurable Disease were Knavery, Folly, Lying, or Infidelity (1733); writes An Epistle to a Lady (1733) and On Poetry: A Rhapsody (1733), containing satirical advice; also writes A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed [1734]; Strephon and Chloe (1734); The Legion Club (1736), on the Irish Parliament, and regarded as his fiercest verse satire; first edition of his Works printed by George Faulkner (1735); issues imitations of 7th Epistle in Book I and First Ode of Book II of Horace (1738); suffers increasing attacks of giddiness, now known to be Menière’s disease and so diagnosed by Dr. J. C. Bucknill in 1882; spends one third of his money on Irish charity, and saved another third to establish St. Patrick’s Hospital for Imbeciles (opened in 1757);spends one third of his money on Irish charity and saved another third to establish St. Patrick’s Hospital for Imbeciles (opened in 1757);

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1742: declared of unsound mind and body [var. mad, insane] by committee of 19 in 1742, ‘a shocking object, though in person a very venerable figure’ (acc. Mary Delaney); exhibited by his manservant Patrick Brell; four sermons by Swift appeared in 1744; JS d. 19 Oct. 1745 (aetat. 78); bur. at night, beside Stella, 22 Oct. at foot of 2nd column from west end, south side of St. Patrick’s Cathedral; his epitaph written by himself (ubi saeva indignation ulterius cor lacerare nequit) appears on an oval plaque set in the wall; William Stopford, later Bishop of Cloyne, acted as one of his executors; the contents of his library catalogued by William Le Fanu in 1745; there are portraits of Swift by Jervas and Bindon, and a marble bust by Louis-Francois Roubillion in the TCD Library (Long Room); a commemorative service held at the Cathedral on the anniversary of his death. RR CAB DNB JMC PI DIB DIW DIL OCEL ODQ FDA OCIL

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Works

Prose
A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and the Commons in Athens and Rome (1701); A Tale of a Tub Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind, To Which is Added, a Full and True Account of the Battle Fought Last Friday Between the Ancient and the Modern Books in St. James’s Library (London: J. Nutt 1704; rep. 1705 [3 imps.]); Do. [another edn. as] A Tale of a Tub Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind To which is added, An Account of a Battel between the Antient and Modern Books in St. James’s Library [] The Fifth Edition, with the Author’s Apology and Explanatory Notes. By W. W--tt--n, B. D. and others (London: for John Nutt 1710) [infra], incls. “A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit. In a Letter to a Friend: A Fragment”; The Bickerstaff Papers (1708, 1709) [as infra]; A Letter from a Member of the House of Commons in Ireland, Concerning the Sacramental Test (1708, 1709); A Project for the Advancement of Religion and the Reformation of Manners (1709) [on the Test Act]; An Argument To Prove, That the Abolishing of Christianity in England, May, as Things now Stand, be Attended with some Inconveniencies, and Perhaps, not Produce those Many Good Effects Proposed Thereby (1711); The Sentiments of a Church-of-England Man with Respect to Religion and Government (1711); The Conduct of the Allies (1711); A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712); Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty (1712); The History of the Four Last Years of the Queen. (1714); Public Spirit of the Whigs. Pamphlet (1714); A Letter to the Shop Keepers, Tradesmen, Farmers, and Common-People of Ireland, Concerning the Brass Half-Pence coined by Mr Woods, with a Design to have them Pass in this Kingdom […] by M. B. Drapier (Dublin: J. Harding 1724); Lemuel Gulliver [pseud.,]. Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in Four parts, by Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon and then a Captain of several Ships, 4 Pts. (London: Benjamin Motte 1726; rev. edn. 1727) [publ. 25 Nov., 1727 and generally known as Gulliver’s Travels]; A Short View of the State of Ireland (1727) [composed 1720; infra]; Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720); [attrib.,] A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately entered into Holy Orders. By a Person of Quality [2nd edn.] (London 1721) [1st edn. As A Letter from a Lay-Patron]; An Answer to a Paper Called a Memorial of the Poor Inhabitants, Tradesmen and Labourers of the Kingdom of Ireland (1728); A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public (1729); Maxims Controlled in Ireland [1729]; City cries, instrumental and vocal; or, An examination of certain abuses, corruptions, and enormities, in London and Dublin (Dublin [reprinted for] J. Roberts 1732), 30, [2]p., 8o [19.5cm]. A Proposal for Giving Badges to the Beggars of Dublin (1737); A Compleat Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, According to the Most Polite Mode and Method, now used at Court, and in the Best Companies of England. In Several Dialogues (1738); On the Wisdom of This World [q.d.]; Letter to a Very Young Lady on Her Marriage[q.d.]; Thoughts on Religion [q.d.]; Thoughts on Various Subjects [q.d.]

 

Miscellaneous
“A Meditation upon a Broom-stick: According to the Style and Manner of the Honourable Robert Boyle’s Meditations” (1703); The Tatler 230 (Sept 28, 1710); The Examiner 14 (Nov. 9, 1710); The Tatler 5 (23-27 Jan. 1711) [Harrison’s continuation] ; “On the Corruption of the English Tongue”, Tatler 230 (September 28, 1720); Martin Scriblerus [pseud.; with Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Parnell, Gay, and the Earl of Oxford], Memoirs (written 1712-14; publ. 1741); Martin Scriblerus [pseud.], Miscellanies (1727-32); “A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind” (1707); Letters to Esther Johnson and Rebecca Dingley (1710-11; publ. 1766-68), and Do. [as] Journal to Stella (1784); "Remarks upon a Book Intituled ‘The Rights of the Christian Church, &c.’" (1708) [Milton’s Divorce Tracts]. Also, James Woolley, ed., Jonathan Swift and Thomas Sheridan: The Intelligencer (Oxford: Clarendon 1992), xv, 363pp.

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Poetry
Individual titles, “Pindaric Ode to King William; “To Dr. William Sancroft” (1692); “Ode to the Athenian Society” (in The Athenian Gazette, 1692); “To Sir William Temple” (1692); “A Description of Mother Ludwell’s Cave” (1692-93); “Verses Occasioned by Sir William Temple’s Late Illness and Recovery” (1692-93); “To Congreve” (1693). OTHER VERSE: “Baucis and Philemon. Imitated, From the Eighth Book of Ovid” (1706-69); “A Description of the Morning” (in The Tatler, 30 April 1709); “A Description of a City Shower”, Poem. The Tatler (October 1710); “Mrs. Frances Harris’s Petition” (1709); Cadenus and Vanessa (1713; 1726); “Phillis, or, the Progress of Love” (1719); “On Stella’s Birth-day, 1719” (1719); “The Progress of Poetry” [1720]; “Stella’s Birth-day 1721”; “A Satirical Elegy On the Death of a late Famous General” [Duke of Marlborough] (1722); “The Furniture of a Woman’s Mind”, Poem. 1727); “Stella’s Brith-day, 1727” (1927); “A Pastoral Dialogue” (1729); “Upon the Horrid Plot Discovered by Harlequin, the Bishop of Rochester’s French Dog” [1727]; “The Lady’s Dresing Room” (1730, pub 1732); “A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed” (1731); “Strephon and Chloe” [1731]; “Cassinus and Peter: A Tragical Elegy” [1731]; “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D. S. P. D.: Occasioned by Reading a Maxim in Rochefoucault” [1731]; “The Beasts’ Confession to the Priest” (1732-33); “The Day of Judgment” (1732-33); “On Poetry: A Rhapsody” (1733); “Verses on the Death of Dr Swift, DSPD” (written 1731, publ. 1739).

Collected & Selected, William E. Browning, ed., The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., 2 vols. (London 1910); Harold Williams, ed., The Poems of Jonathan Swift, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1937; rev. edn. 1958) [also cited as Vols I-V of Works]; Herbert Davis, ed., Swift, Poetic Works (London: OUP 1967); Pat Rogers, ed., The Complete Poems (Yale UP; Penguin Edn. 1983), 956pp., 1 map [Bibl. pp.33-35], and Do. (London: OUP 1985); Pat Rogers, ed. & intro., Selected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1993), xv, 222pp.; A. Norman Jeffares, ed. & intro., The Selected Poems (London: Kylie Cathie 1992), 257pp.

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Collected Editions
Works of Jonathan Swift
, 4 vols. (Dublin: George Faulkner 1734) [dated 1735]; Dr. [John] Hawkesworth, ed., Works of Jonathan Swift, 12 vols (1755), 8o., and Do. [as] The Life and Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., 20 vols. (London (1764-79) [infra]; The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, D.D., arranged by Thomas Sheridan, AM, 17 vols. (London: W. Strahan et al. 1784) [dedicated to Henry Grattan], and Do., revised by John Nichols, FSA, 19 vols. (London 1801, 1804, 1808); Sir Walter Scott, ed., The Works […] Containing Additional Letters, Tracts, Poems, not Hitherto Published, with Notes and a Life, 19 vols. (Edinburgh & London: Constable 1814, 1821), and Do. [2nd edn], 19 vols. (Boston 1883); Roscoe (2 vols. 1849); Temple Scott, ed., The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D.. [Bohn Library] 12 vols. (London: Bell 1897-1908) [var. 14 vols.]; Herbert J. Davis, ed., The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift [Shakespeare Head Edn.] 16 vols. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1939-74) [var. 14 vols.]. William A. Eddy, ed., Satires and Personal Writings by Jonathan Swift (London & NY: OUP 1932). Robert A. Greenberg & William Bowman Piper, eds., The Writings of Jonathan Swift: Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism [Norton Critical Edition] (NY: Norton 1973).

Selected Editions
Derek Mahon, ed. & intro., Jonathan Swift: Selected Poems (London: Faber 2001).

Correspondence
John Hawkesworth [LL.D, ed., Letters written by Jonathan Swift, D.D. Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, and several of his friends from the year 1703 to 1740: published from the originals; with notes explanatory and historical 3 vols. [5th edn.] (London: printed for T. Davies; R. Davis; L. Davis & C. Reymers; and J. Dodsley 1767); F. Elrington Ball, ed., The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, 6 vols. (London: Bell, 1910-1914) [with a “Life”]; D. Nichol Smith, ed., The Letters of Swift to Charles Ford (Oxford: Clarendon 1934); Harold Williams, ed., Journal to Stella (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1948) [later embodied in Prose Works (1968)]; Harold Williams, ed., Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1963-65), Vols. IV & V being rev. by David Woolley (1972); Frank Ellis, ed., Swift vs. Mainwaring: The Examiner and the Medley (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1985); David Woolley, ed., The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D. (1998- ) [infra]

David Woolley, ed., The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D., 4 vols. (NY: P. Lang 1998), Vol. I: Letters 1690-1714 - Nos. 1-300; Vol. 2: Letters 1714-1726 - Nos. 301-700; Vol. 3: Letters 1726-1734 - Nos. 701-1100; Vol. 4: Letters 1734-1745 - Nos. 1101-1508. Also, Vol. 1: Letters, 1690-1714 - Nos. 1-300 (NY: Peter Lang 1999), 650pp. Vol 2: Letters, 1714-1726 - Nos. 301-700 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang 2001), 661pp. [for critique, see Commentary, infra.]

Individual works
(Scholarly & Popular Edns.), Herbert Davis, ed., The Drapier’s Letters to the People of Ireland against Receiving Wood ’Halfpence (Oxford: Clarendon 1935); A. C. Guthkelch and D. Nichol Smith, eds., A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books [2nd edn.] (London: OUP 1958); J. Hayward, ed., Selected Prose (London: Crescent Press 1949); Evelyn Hardy, Selected Writings of Jonathan Swift (1950); C. J. Rawson, ed. & intro, Swift [Focus Ser.] (London: Sphere Books 1971), 270pp. [Bibl. pp.265-270]; Selected Poems (Blackstaff 1990), 91pp.; Joseph McMinn, ed., Swift’s Irish Pamphlets: An Introductory Selection (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1991); Rogers, ed., Jonathan Swift, Selected Poems [Penguin Classics] (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1993), 222pp; A. N. Jeffares, ed., Jonathan Swift, Fair Liberty: Selected Poems (London: Kyle Cathie Ltd. 1992). Also, Carol Van Doren, ed., The Portable Swift (Penguin/Viking Press 1997); Angus Ross & David Woolley, Jonathan Swift: Major Works [Oxford Classics Ser.] (OUP 2003), 768pp.

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Irish Editions
A letter to the shop-keepers, tradesmen, farmers, and common-people of Ireland; Vol. IV of the author’s works in the XIX Vol. set (Dublin: by and for Georgre Faulkner 1735), 8o. Copy donated to Marsh’s Library by Prof. J. G. Simms; Gulliver, Lemuel, containing travels into several remote nations of the world; Vol. III of the author’s works in a set of XIX (Dublin: by and for George Faulkner 1735), 8o, incl. engraved port. of Catp. Lemuel Gulliver, intaglio and plinth, subscribed ‘Splendide Mendax Flor.’ [copy in Marsh’s Library.]

Modern reprints
Peter Dickson and John Chalker, eds., Gulliver's Travel (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1985); Robert Mahony, ed. [ from BM MS], in Irish Writings from the Age of Swift, Vol. VII, Different Styles of Poetry, Verse by Lord Roscommon, Thomas Parnell, and Jonathan Swift, (Dublin: Cadenus Press [1979]); A New Poem ascribed to ... the Gentlemen of the Grand Jury [on throwing out the bill of indictment against J. Harding, Printer of the Drapier’s Letters] (Dublin 1725) [prev. unpublished poem from British Library MS (BM Cat.). Note: There are very many reprints and selections of works by Swift ranging from the Nonesuch Series in UK to the Viking Portable (Van Doren) in the US.

Bibliographies
Herman Teerink, A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Jonathan Swift DD (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1937), 434pp., and Do. A. H. Scouten, ed. [2d rev. edn.], (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP 1963; rep. 2002), 453pp.; Louis A. Landa & James E. Tobin, Jonathan Swift: A List of Critical Studies published from 1895 to 1945 (NY: Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service 1945); James J. Stathis, A Bibliography of Swift Studies 1945-1965 (Nashville: Vanderbilt UP 1967); David Vieth, Swift’s Poetry, 1900-1980: An Annotated Bibliography (NY: Garland Publ. 1982); Richard H. Rodino, Swift Studies, 1965-1980: An Annotated Bibliography (NY: Garland Publ. 1984). Note, Teerink, A Bibliography [... &c.] incls. a chart of George Faulkner's Swiftian publications per number of vols. & year (p.45).

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Bibliographical details
A TALE of a TUB / Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind - Diu multumque desideratum - To which is a added, / An Account of a Battel / between the / Antient and Modern Books / in St. James’s Library / Basima eacabasa irraurista diarba da caeotaba fobor camelanthi. Iren. Lib. I. G. 18. - ... Juvat novos dcerpere flores,/Infignemque meo capiti petere inde oranam. Unde prius nulla vellarunt tempora Musae. Lucret. / The fifth Edition: with the Author's Apology and Explanatory Notes. By W. W--tt--on, B. D. and others. London: printed for John Nutt near Stationers-Hall. M DCCX [1710]. Facing 'An Apology [... &c.], ‘Treatises wrote bby the same Author, most of them mentioned in the following discourses; which will be speedily published. A A TALE of a TUB. / Written for the Universal Improvement of Mankind - Diu multumque desideratum - To which is a added, / An Account of a Battel / between the / Antient and Modern Books / in St. James’s Library / Basima eacabasa irraurista diarba da caeotaba fobor camelanthi. Iren. Lib. I. G. 18. - ... Juvat novos dcerpere flores,/Infignemque meo capiti petere inde oranam,.Unde prius nulla vellarunt tempora Musae. Lucret. / The fifth Edition: with the Author's Apology and Explanatory Notes. By W. W--tt--on, B. D. and others. London: printed for John Nutt near Stationers-Hall. M DCCX [1710]. A character of the present Set of Wits in this Island. / A Panegyrical Essay upon th Number three. A Dissertation upon the principal Productions of Grub-Street. / Lectures upon a Dissection of Human Nature. / A Panegyrick upon the World. / An analytical Discourse upon Zeal, Histori-theo-physi-logically considered. / A general History of Ears. / A modest Defence of the proceedings of the Rabble in all Ages. / A Description of the Kingdom of Absurdities. / A Voyage into England, by a Person of Quality in Terra Australis incognita, translated from the original. / A Critical Essay upon the Art of Canting, Philosophically, Physically, and Musically considered. Apology (June 3 1709 Postscript [25]; To the Right Honourable John Lord Somers [signed by[ Te Bookseller [6pp.]; The Bookseller to the Reader [2pp.]; The Epistle Dedicatory . to . His Royal Highness / Prince Posterity [1-12; dated Dec. 1697]l the preface [13-31]; A Tale of a Tub, &c. Sect. !, The introduction, incl. 'hiatus in MS, p.42 [33-54]; Section II [55-79] Sect. III A Digression concerning Criticks [80-97]; Sect. IV. A TALE of a TUB [98-121]; Sect. V. A Digression in the Modern Kind [122-133]; Sect. VI. A TALE of A TUB [134-147]; Sect. VII. A Digression in praise of Digressions [148-157]; Sect. VIII. A TALE of A TUB [158-171]; A Digresssion concerning the Original, the Use and Improvement of Madness in a Commonweatlth. [172-297]; Sect. X. A TALE of a TUB [198-234]; The Conclusion [235-241]. A Full and True Account / OF THE / BATTEL /Fought ast FRIDAY / Between the / Antient and the Modern / Books / in / ST. James’s / Library / London printed in the Year MDCCX [1710] the Bookseller to the Reader [2pp.]; The Preface of the Author [2pp.] A Full andTrue ACCOUNT of the BATTEL Fought last FRIDAY, &c. [249-299 [ending and, now * * * [&c.] Desunt caetera.] A Discourse / Concering the / Mechanical Operation / of the / Spirit / in a / Letter / to a FRIEND. / A Fragment. London: Printed in teh Year, MDCCX [1710]. The Booksellers’s Advertisement 1p. A Discourse [&c.] 305-344; sectioned at NOTE that the citation from Irenaeus in the title-page’ is admitted to be ‘all but gibberish’ in a ftn. to the Epistle Ded. (Cpopy in Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco.)

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Bickerstaff Papers (1708, 1709): “Predictions for the Year 1708 / Wherein the Month, and Day of the Month, are set down, the Persons named, and the great Actions and Events of next Year particularly related as they will come to pass; Written to prevent the People of England from being farther imposed on by vulgar Almanack-Makers by Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq” (1707-08); “The Accomplishment of the First of Mr. Bickerstaff’s Predictions / Being an Account of the Death of Mr. Partridge, the Almanack-maker, upon the 29th Inst. in a Letter to a Person of Honour” and “An Account of the Death of Mr. Partridge”, “A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.: Against What is Objected to Him by Mr. Partridge, in his ‘Almanack for the present Year 1709’. By the said Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq.” (1709).

John Hawkesworth, ed., The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin : Accurately revised, in twelve volumes. Adorned with copper-plates; with some account of the author's life, and notes historical and explanatory (London: Printed for C. Bathurst, T. Osborne, W. Bowyer, J. Hinton, W. Strahan, B. Collins, J. Rivington, R. Baldwin, L. Davis and C. Reymers, and J. Dodsley. MDCCLXXV [1765]; also Hawkesworth, The Works of Swift (1764-79), vols. 15, 16, 17, & 18 containing the bulk of his letters, edited by Deane Swift, and including the forty letters pertaining to the ‘Journal to Stella’, still the keeping of Robt. Marshall, her executor, previous printed by Williams as appendix to an edition of his letters (Dublin, Skinner’s Row: James Williams 1767) [see References, infra]. Remarks on 1765 Edn.: A further 5 vols. of were publ. in the same year, intended to accompany the original 12 vols.; Vol. 18 publ. in 1775) [COPAC].

Temple Scott, et al., eds., Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, 14 vols. (Bohn Edn. 1897-1908), and Do., with two additional vols. of Poems (1910) [Intro. W. E. H. Lecky]. Vol. 1: Tale of a Tub; Battle of the Books; Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind; The Bickerstaff Pamphlets, ... &c., ed. Scott. VOL. 2: Journal to Stella, ed. F. Ryland [2 ports. of Stella]. VOLS. 3 & 4: Writings on Religion and The Church, ed. Scott. VOL. 7: The Drapier’s Letters, ed. Scott; Vol. 8 & 11: Literary essays, with Gulliver’s Travels, ed. G. R. Dennis; A Proposal for Correcting ... The English Language; Hints towards an Essay on Conversation; Character; Directions to Servants, and an Autobiographical Fragment, ed. Scott.VOL. 9: contribs. to Examiner, Tatler, Spectator, &c. VOL. X: Historical writings incl. Four Last Years; Abstract of English History; Remarks on Burnet, ed. Temple Scott. VOL. 12: essays on the Portraits, &c.; W. Spencer Jackson, ‘Bibliography of Swift’, & Index. VOLS. 13 & 14, Poems, ed. W. Ernst Browning; 12 ports. of Swift and others of Stella & Vanessa].

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Criticism

  • William King, LL.D., Some Remarks on the Tale of a Tub, to which are annexed Mully of Mountoun, and Orpheus and Euridice (London: for A. Baldwin 1704), [10], 63, [3]pp., 8o. [bio-dates 1663-1712; not Archb. King.]
  • William Wotton, ‘Observations upon the Tale of a Tub’, in A Defense of the Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning, In Answer to the Objections of Sir W. Temple, and Others, with Observations upon the Tale of a Tub (1705).
  • Matthew Concanen, Letter on Swift and Pope’s Miscellanies, in British Journal (25 Nov. 1727).
  • Concanen, Matthew, et al., A Compleat Collection of all the Verses, Essays, Letters, and Advertisements Occasion’d by Mr. Pope and Swift’s Miscellanies (London: A. Moore 1728), xv. 52pp.
  • Laetitia Pilkington, ‘Swift’s Conduct as a Host’, in Memoirs, Vol. 1 [1749], rep. in Robert A. Greenberg & William Bowman Piper, eds., The Writings of Jonathan Swift [Norton Critical Edition] (NY: 1973), pp.605-08 [see also Spence’s Laetitia Pilkington].
  • Lord Orrery [John Boyle; 5th Earl], Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift in a Series of Letters to his Son the Hon. Hamilton Boyle (Dublin: Faulkner 1752), port of Swift [prev. in The Monthly Review, Nov. 1751; infra].
  • Patrick Delany, Observations on Orrery’s "Remarks" [...&c.] (1754).
  • Deane Swift, Essay upon the Life of Swift (1755).
  • John Hawkesworth, Life of Swift (1755); [poss. in The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, (London: for C. Bathurst, et al. 1765)].
  • Gentleman’s Magazine (Nov. 1757).
  • Samuel Johnson, ‘Life of Swift’, in Johnson, Lives of the Poets [2 vols.] (1779-81), rep. in Lives of the English Poets (London: Dent 1925), Vol. 2, pp.245-74 [infra].
  • Thomas Sheridan, The Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift (Dublin 1785) [incls. ‘The Composition of ‘A Meditation upon a Broomstick’].
  • Nathan Drake, Jonathan Swift, 3 vols. (London: C. Whittingham 1805).
  • Rev. John Barrett, An Essay on the Early Life (1808).
  • Sir Walter Scott, Life of Swift (1814).
  • W. Monck Mason, ‘Life of Swift’, as appendix to his History of St. Patrick’s (1819).
  • Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, pp.578-89.
  • ‘Swift’, in Rev. W. Harris, et. al., eds., The Oxford Encyclopaedia (Oxford: Bartlett and Hinton 1828), vol. 6, p.748.
  • Thackeray, W. M., ‘Swift’, in The Four Georges: The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (London: Smith, Elder 1895), pp.119-55.
  • John Foster, The Life of Jonathan Swift, Vol. 1 [and only]: 1667-1711 London: John Murray 1875), xvi, 477pp., pl. & port. engr. [. Rajon after C. Jervas].
  • Henry Craik, The Life of Jonathan Swift (London: John Murray 1882), xxiii, 576pp., and Do., as The Life of Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, 2 vols. [2nd edn.] (London: Macmillan 1894) [standard up to 1949 acc. Encyc. Brit.].
  • Sir William Wilde, The Closing Years of the Life of Dean Swift (Dublin: Hodges & Smith 1849.
  • 2nd rev. & enl. edn., 1849).
  • W. H. Lecky, in Leaders of Public Opinion (1861).
  • Sir Leslie Stephen, Swift [English Men of Letters ] (London: Macmillan 1882, 1902, 1903, 1908, 1925), x, 214pp., and Do. [rep. edn.] (NY: AMS 1968).
  • J[ohn] Churton Collins [err. Ellis], Jonathan Swift, A Biographical and Critical Study (1893).
  • Sir Shane Leslie, The Skull of Swift: An Extempore Exhumation (London: Chatto & Windus 1928), 347pp.
  • G. P. Moriarty, Dean Swift and His Writings (1893).
  • Max Simon, Swift; étude psychologique et littéraire, suivie d’un essai sur les médecins de Gil Blas [à propos du prétendu plagiat de Le Sage] (Paris 1893).
  • Augustine Birrell, ‘Dean Swift’, in Essays about Men, Women, and Books (London: Stock 1895), pp.1-15.
  • Lytton Strachey, ‘Jonathan Swift’ [1909], in Spectatorial Essays (London: Chatto & Windus 1964), pp.141-46.
  • Alexander M. Freeman, ed., Vanessa and Her Correspondence with Jonathan Swift (1921).
  • Van Doren Carl, Life of Swift (NY: The Viking Press 1930), 279pp. [Bibl. Note, pp.253-55].
  • Stephen Gwynn, The Life and Friendships of Dean Swift (London: Thornton Butterworth 1933).
  • S W. D. Taylor, Jonathan Swift: A Critical Essay (London 1933).
  • J. Mario M. Rossi and Joseph M. Hone, Swift, or The Egotist (London 1934).
  • F. R. Leavis, ‘The Irony of Swift’, in Scrutiny, 2, 4 (March 1934), pp.364-78; rep. in The Common Pursuit (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1962), pp.73-87; also in Ernest Tuveson, ed., Swift: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1964), pp.15-29.
  • Shane Leslie, The Script of Jonathan Swift and Other Essays [Rosenbach Bibliography Fellowship, 4] (London: OUP.
  • Pennsylvania UP 1935), 97pp.
  • Richard Foster Jones, Ancients and Moderns: A Study of the Background of The Battle of the Books (St. Louis 1936; rev. edn. 1961).
  • Ricardo Quintana, The Mind and Art of Jonathan Swift (NY: OUP 1936; 2nd edn. Gloucester MA; London: Methuen 1953).
  • Maxwell B. Gold, Swift’s Marriage to Stella (Harvard UP 1937).
  • Robert J. Allen, ‘Swift’s Earliest Political Tract and Sir William Temple’s Essays’, in Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 19 (1937), pp.3-12.
  • Newman Bertram, Life of Swift (London: Allen & Unwin 1937), 432pp.
  • Robert Wyse Jackson, Jonathan Swift: Dean and Pastor (London: SPCK; NY: Macmillan 1939), x, 185pp.
  • Herman Teerink, A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Jonathan Swift (The Hague: M. Nijhoff 1937), xi, 434pp.; [ 315 copies; 1,574 items; see revised ed. 1963, infra.]
  • Maynard Mack, ‘The First Printing of the Letters of Pope and Swift’ in Library 19 (1939), pp.45-85.
  • John F. Ross, Swift and Defoe: A Study in Relationship (California UP 1941).
  • Donald M. Berwick, The Reputation of Jonathan Swift, 1781-1882 (Philadelphia 1941).
  • Denis Johnston, ‘The Mysterious Origin of Dean Swift’, in Dublin Historical Record, III, 4 (June-Aug. 1941), pp.81-97 [infra].
  • Herbert Davis, Stella: A Gentlewoman of the Eighteenth Century (1942).
  • David Frederick Ruddell Wilson, Dean Swift [RDS lecture Nov. 1941] (Church of Ireland Printing Co. [1941]) 27pp.
  • Ricardo Quintana, Situational Satire: A Commentary on the Method of Swift (Tronoto UP 1948).
  • Evelyn Hardy, The Conjured Spirit (1949).
  • Maurice Johnson, The Sin of Wit: Jonathan Swift as a Poet (Syracuse UP 1950).
  • Kathleen Williams, ‘Gulliver’s Voyage to the Houyhnhnms’, in A Journal of English Literary History 18 (Dec. 1951), pp.275-86.
  • Harold Williams, The Text of Gulliver’s Travels (Cambridge UP 1952).
  • Martin Price, Swift’s Rhetorical Art: A Study in Structure and Meaning (Yale UP 1953).
  • Louis A. Landa, Swift and the Church of Ireland (NY 1954).
  • John Middleton Murry, Jonathan Swift: A Critical Biography (London: Jonathan Cape 1954).
  • William Bragg Ewald, Jr., The Masks of Jonathan Swift (Harvard UP 1954).
  • Louis A. Landa, Swift and the Church of Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon 1954).
  • Phyllis Greenacre, Swift and Carroll: A Psychoanalytic Study of Two Lives (NY 1955).
  • Ricardo Quintana, Swift: An Introduction (OUP 1955, reps. 1962), and Do. [rep. edn.] (Conn: Greenwood Publ. 1979, 1994), viii, 204pp.
  • John H. Sutherland, ‘A Reconsideration of Gulliver’s Third Voyage’, in Studies in Philology, 54 (Jan.1957), pp.45-52.
  • Irwin Greenacre, The Personality of Jonathan Swift (Harvard 1958).
  • Kathleen Williams, Jonathan Swift and the Age of Compromise (Lawrence: Kansas UP 1958; London: Constable 1959), 9+238pp, 4 pls.
  • Denis Johnston, In Search of Swift (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1959).
  • Norman O. Brown, ‘The Excremental Vision’, in Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History (Wesleyan UP; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1959), pp.179-201; rep. in Robert A. Greenberg & William Bowman Piper, eds., The Writings of Jonathan Swift (NY: Norton 1973), pp.611-30.
  • Ronald Paulson, Theme and Structure in Swift’s ‘Tale of a Tub’ (New Haven: Yale UP 1960).
  • O’Hehir, Brendan, ‘Meaning in Swift’s “Description of a City Shower’’’, in A Journal of English Literary History, 27 (Sept. 1960), pp.194-207.
  • Charles Beaumont, Swift’s Classical Rhetoric (Georgia UP 1961).
  • Phillip Harth, Swift and Augustan Rationalism: The Religious Background of the Tale of A Tub (Yale UP 1961).
  • B. A. Goldgar, The Curse of Party: Swift’s Relations with Addison and Steele (Lincoln, Nebraska, Nebraska UP 1961).
  • J. M. Bullitt, Jonathan Swift and the Anatomy of Satire (Harvard UP 1961).
  • A. Norman Jeffares, ed., A Review of English Literature, “A Swift Number”, III, 3 (London: Longmans 1962) [incls. ‘Swift and the Gaelic Tradition; ‘Swift’s Satirical Elegy on a Late Famous General’, ‘Alector’s Whip’, ‘The Meaning of Gulliver’s Last Voyage’, and ‘Swift’s Personalty and Death Masks’ (ill.)].
  • Irwin Ehrenpreis, ‘The Meaning of Gulliver’s Last Voyage’, in A Review of English Literature 3 (July 1962), pp.18-38.
  • J. C. Andreasen, ‘Swift’s Satire on the Occult in A Tale of a Tub’, in Texas Studies in Literature and Language 5 (Autumn 1963), pp.410-21.
  • Nigel Dennis, Jonathan Swift: A Short Character (NY: Macmillan; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1964).
  • Irwin Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works and the Age, 3 vols. (Harvard UP 1962-83).
  • Sybil le Brocquy, Cadenus: a Resassessment in the Light of New Evidence of the Relationships between Swift, Stella, and Vanessa (Dublin: Dolmen 1962), 160pp. [infra].
  • Oliver Ferguson, Jonathan Swift and Ireland (Urbana: Illinois UP 1962).
  • Edward W. Rosenheim, Swift and the Satirist’s Art (Chicago UP 1963), ix, 243pp.
  • Arthur H. Scouten, A Bibliography of the Writings of Jonathan Swift, D.D. [2nd rev. & corr. edn.] (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press [1963]; rep. 2002), xviii, 453pp.
  • Herbert Davis, Jonathan Swift, Essays on His Satire and Other Studies (OUP 1964). Ernest Tuveson, ed., Swift: A Collecton of Critical Essays (N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1964) [contribs. Richard Quintana, et al.]
  • Hopkins, Robert H., ‘The Personation of Hobbism in Swift’s Tale of a Tub and Mechanical Operation of the Spirit’, in Philological Quarterly 45 (April 1966), pp.372-78.
  • Roger McHugh & Philip Edwards, eds., A Collection of Essays: A Centenary Tribute (Dublin: Dolmen 1967).
  • Richard Cook, Jonathan Swift as Tory Pamphleteer (Seattle: Washington UP 1967).
  • Donald Greene, ‘On Swift’s “Scatological” Poems’, in Sewanee Review 75 (Autumn 1967), pp.672-89.
  • A. Norman Jeffares, ed., Fair Liberty Was all His Cry: A Tercentenary Tribute to Jonathan Swift 1677-1745 (London: Macmillan 1967) [incl. Mackie Jarrell, ‘"Jack and the Dane": Swift Traditions in Ireland’, pp.311-41].
  • Bruce Arnold, et al., eds., The Dublin Magazine, ‘Swift Tercentenary Edition’ (Autumn-Winter 1967) [incl. Padraic Colum, ‘Swift’s Poetry’; Anselm Schlösser, ‘Gulliver in Houhyhynmland’, T. G. Wilson, ‘Prince of Journalists’, and reviews by Robert Jackson Wyse of Jeffares, ed., Fair Liberty was all His Cry, and Sybil le Brocquy, A View on Vanessa, and Stella’s Birthdays].
  • W. B. Carnochan, Lemuel Gulliver’s Mirror for Man (Berkeley: University of California Press 1968).
  • Roger McHugh, & Philip Edwards, eds., Jonathan Swift 1667-1967 (Chester Springs, PA 1968).
  • Brian Vickers, ed., The World of Jonathan Swift: Essays for the Tercentenary (Harvard UP 1968).
  • Denis Johnston, 全wift of Dublin,' Éire-Ireland, 3, 3 (Autumn 1968), pp.38-50.
  • Michael Foot, The Pen and the Sword ([1968]).
  • Kathleen Williams, Jonathan Swift [Profiles in Literature Ser.] (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1968), viii, 111pp. [infra]
  • Denis Donoghue, Jonathan Swift: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: CUP 1969).
  • Kathleen Williams, ed., Swift: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge 1970.
  • rep. 1995), ix, 348pp.
  • Frank Brady, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of Gulliver’s Travels. (N.J.: Prentice-Hall 1968).
  • John R. Clark, Form and Frenzy in Swift’s "Tale of a Tub" (London: Cornell UP 1970).
  • Robert W. Uphaus, 全wift’s Stella Poems and Fidelity to Experience', Éire-Ireland, 5, 3 (Autumn 1970), pp.40-52.
  • Joseph R. McElrath, Jr., 全wift’s Friend: Dr. Patrick Delany', Éire-Ireland, 5, 3 (Autumn 1970), pp.53-62.
  • Martin Kallich, The Other End of the Egg: Religious Satire in "Gulliver’s Travels" (Connecticut: Conference on British Studies at the University of Bridgeport 1970).
  • Robert W. Uphaus, 選mages of Swift: A Review of Some Recent Criticism', in Éire-Ireland, 6, 3 (Autumn 1971), pp.16-22.
  • Kathleen M. Swaim, A Reading of Gulliver’s Travels (The Hague: Mouton 1972).
  • Claude [Julien] Rawson, Gulliver and the Gentle Reader: Studies in Swift and Our Time (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1973), x, 190pp.
  • A. L. Rowse, Jonathan Swift (London: Thames & Hudson 1975).
  • Nora C. Jaffe, The Poet Swift (Hanover: New England UP 1977).
  • Peter J. Schakel, Poetry of Jonathan Swift: Allusion and the Development of a Poetic Style (Winsconsin UP 1978).
  • Peter Smith, Jonathan Swift: Preacher and Jester (OUP 1978).
  • Frederik N. Smith, Language and Reality in Swift’s A Tale of a Tub Ohio State UP 1979).
  • Ricardo Quintana, Two Augustans: John Locke, Jonathan Swift ( Wisconsin UP 1978), vii, 149pp.
  • F. P. Lock, The Politics of Gulliver’s Travels (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980).
  • John I. Fischer, On Swift’s Poetry (Gainesville: Florida UP 1978).
  • A. B. England, Energy and Order in the Poetry of Swift (Lewsiburg: Bucknell UP 1980).
  • Louise K. Barnett, Swift’s Poetic Worlds (Newark: Delaware UP 1981).
  • A. C. Elias Jr., Swift at Moor Park (Philadelphia 1982).
  • Carole Fabricant, Swift’s Landscape (John Hopkins UP 1982; rep. University of Notre Dame Press 1995), 336pp.
  • Paul [var. Patrick] Reilly, Jonathan Swift: The Brave Desponder (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP 1982; Manchester UP 1982).
  • Claude J[ulien] Rawson, The Character of Swift’s Satire: A Revised Focus (London 1983).
  • Edward Said, ‘Swift’s Tory Anarchy’, and ‘Swift as Intellectual’, in The World, The Text and the Critic (Cambridge UP 1983), pp.54-71.
  • 72-89.
  • Everett Zimmerman, Swift’s Narrative Satires: Author and Authority (Ithaca: Cornell UP 1983).
  • F. P. Lock, Swift’s Tory Politics (Newark: Delaware UP 1983).
  • Bernard Tucker, Jonathan Swift (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1983).
  • J[ames] A[lan] Downie, Jonathan Swift, Political Writer (London: Routledge Kegan Paul 1984), xv, 391pp.
  • David Nokes, Jonathan Swift, A Hypocrite Reversed: a Critical Biography (Oxford: OUP 1985) [var. The Hypocrite ... &c.].
  • Ellen Pollak, The Poetics of Sexual Muth: Gender and Ideology in the Verse of Swift and Pope (Chicago UP 1985).
  • Claude Rawson, Order from Confusion Sprung: Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature from Swift to Cowper (London: George Allen & Unwin 1985), xv, 431pp.
  • Hurtley, Jacqueline, ‘Thomas More and Jonathan Swift: The Utopia as Satire’, in Anuario de Filología, 11 (Universidad de Barcelona 1985), pp.393-99.
  • Charles Peake, Jonathan Swift and the Art of Raillery [Princess Grace Library] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1986).
  • Harold Bloom, ed., Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels [Modern Critical Interpretations] (NY: Chelsea House 1986).
  • Clive T. Probyn, Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels [Penguin Critical Studies] (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1987).
  • Ann Cline Kelly, Swift and the English Language Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP 1988).
  • Deborah Baker Wyrick, Jonathan Swift and the Vested Word (Chapel Hill: North Carolina UP 1988).
  • Brean Hammond, Gulliver’s Travels [Guides to Literature] (Milton Keynes: Open University Press [1988]), xii, 129pp. , ill [1p. of pls.]
  • Claude Rawson [with Jenny Mezciems], ed., Pope, Swift, and Their Circle [Yearbook of English studies, V, 18] London: MHRA 1988), ix, 366pp.
  • John Irwin Fischer, Hermann Real & James D. Woolley, eds., Swift and His Contexts (NY: AMS 1989) [essays by C. P. Daw, et al.].
  • Brian Tippett, Gulliver’s Travels [The Critics Debate] (N.J.: Humanities 1989).
  • Frederik N. Smith, ed., The Genres of Gulliver’s Travels (Newark: Delaware UP 1990).
  • ‘"Savage Indignation": An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language and Semiotics in Jonathan Swift’, in Swift Studies (Wilhem Fink Verlag 1990), pp.11-37.
  • Daniel Eilon, Factions’ Fictions: Ideological Closure in Swift’s Satire (Newark: Delaware UP 1990).
  • Richard Nash, ‘Entrapment and Ironic Modes in Tale of a Tub’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 24, 4 (1991), pp.414-31.
  • Joseph M. Levine, The Battle of the Books: History and Literature in the Augustan Age (Ithaca: Cornell UP 1991).
  • Carole Fabricant, ‘The Battle of the Ancients and Post Moderns: Rethinking Swift Through Contemporary Perspectives’, in The Eighteenth Century, 32, 3 (1991), pp.256-73.
  • Joseph McMinn, Jonathan Swift, A Literary Life (Dublin:Gill & Macmillan; London: Macmillan 1991).
  • Edward W. Said, ‘Swift’s Tory Anarchy’ and ‘Swift as Intellectual’, in The World, the Text, and the Critic [1983] (London: Vintage (1991), pp.54-72.
  • Jean-Paul Forster, Jonathan Swift: The Fictions of the Satirist [Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe XIV, Angelsächsische Sprache und Literatur, vol. 220] (Berne: Peter Lang 1991; NY: Peter Lange 1992); rev. edn. (Berne & NY: Peter Lang 1998), 258pp.
  • Thomas Bartlett, The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1992).
  • Kenneth Craven, Jonathan Swift and the Millennium of Madness: The Information Age in Swift’s ‘A Tale of a Tub’ (NY: E. J. Brill 1992).
  • Camille R. La Bossière, ‘"Upon Sleeping in Church": Swift’s Sermons and the Ethics of Wit’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 19, 1 (July 1993), pp.1-21.
  • S[ean] J. Connolly, Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland 1600-1760 (Oxford: OUP 1992).
  • Frank Palmeri, Critical Essays on Jonathan Swift (NY: G. K. hall & Co. 1993).
  • Richard H. Rodino and Hermann Real, eds., Reading Swift: Papers from the Second Munster Symposium on Jonathan Swift. (Munich: Wilhelm Fink 1993).
  • Joseph McMinn, Jonathan’s Travels, Swift and Ireland, with a Foreword by Michael Foot (Belfast: Appletree 1994), 160pp.
  • Ian Higgins, Swift’s Politics: A Study in Disaffection (Cambridge UP 1994).
  • Marilyn Francus, The Converting Imagination: Linguistic Theory and Swift’s Satiric Prose (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP 1994).
  • Ian Higgins, Swift’s Politics: A Study in Disaffection [Cambridge Studies in 18th-century English Literature & Thought, No. 20] (Cambridge UP 1994).
  • Christopher Fox, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift [Case Studies in Contemp. Criticism ser.] (Boston: St. Martin’s Press; London: Macmillan 1995), 416pp. [contribs. incl. Carol Barash, Terry Castle, Michael Conlon, Carole Fabricant, Felicity Nussbaum, with comp. text & crit. essays].
  • Christopher Fox & Brenda Tooley, eds., Walking Naboth’s Vineyard [Ward Phillips Lect. Ser./Notre Dame Sesquicentennial Irish Meetings] (Notre Dame UP 1995), 224pp. [sel. of nine papers, chiefly emphasising Irish contexts, incl. essays by Seamus Deane, Michael DePorte, Margaret Anne Doody, A. C. Elias, Carole Fabricant, Joseph McMinn, Robert Mahony, Heinz J. Vienken, and James Woolley].
  • Robert Mahony, Jonathan Swift: The Irish Identity (Yale UP 1995), 222pp.
  • Robert Mahony, ‘Jonathan Swift as the “Patriot Dean”’, in History Ireland (Winter 1995), pp.23-27.
  • Robert Phiddian, Swift’s Parody (Cambridge UP 1995), 221pp.
  • Alan D. Chalmers, Jonathan Swift and the Burden of the Future (Assoc. UP 1995), 175pp.
  • Ronald Knowles, Gulliver’s Travels: The Politics of Satire (Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall 1996), 169pp.
  • Donald Mell, ed., Pope, Swift and Women Writers (Assoc. UP 1996), 252pp.
  • Patrick Kelly, Aileen Douglas & Ian Campbell Ross, ed., Locating Swift: 250th Anniversary of the Death of Jonathan Swift, Dublin (Dublin: Four Courts 1998), 208pp. [incls. keynote contribs. by S. J. Connolly, Margaret Anne Doody & Carole Fabricant and contribs. from Mark Blackwell, Melinda Rabb, et. al].
  • Victoria Glendinning, Jonathan Swift (London: Hutchinson 1998), 324pp.
  • Keith Crook, A Preface to Swift (London: Longman 1998), 256pp.
  • Real, Hermann, & Helgard Stöver-Leidig, eds., Reading Swift: Papers of from the Third Münster Symposium (Munich: Wilhelm Fink 1998), 367pp.
  • Arnold, Bruce, Swift: An Illustrated Life (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1999), 128pp.
  • Christopher Fauske, Jonathan Swift and the Church of Ireland 1710-24 (Dublin: IAP 2000), 296pp.
  • Claude Rawson, God, Gulliver and Genocide: Barbarism and the European Imagination (Oxford: OUP 2001), xvi, 401pp. [16pp. pls].
  • Ann Cline Kelly, Jonathan Swift and Popular Culture: Myth, Media and Man (London: Palgrave 2002), 256pp.
  • Declan Kiberd, ‘Jonathan Swift: a Colonial Outsider?’ & ‘Home and Away: Gulliver’s Travels’, in Irish Classics (London: Granta 2000), pp.55-70; pp.71-85.
  • Christopher Fox, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Swift (Cambridge UP 2003), 283pp., pbk.
  • Sabine Baltes, The Pamphlet Controversy about Wood’s Halfpence (1722-25) and the Tradition of Irish Constitutional Nationalism (Franfurt: Peter Lang 2003), xviii, 355pp.

Collections & Symposia
Paul Hyland
& Neil Sammells, eds., Irish Writing [Bath College of Higher Ed.] (London: Macmillan 1991), incls. Paul Hyland, ‘Naming Names, Steele and Swift’, pp.13-31; Robert Phiddian, ‘The English Swift/The Irish Swift’, pp.32-44; Bryan Coleborne, ‘"They Sate in Counterview", Anglo-Irish Verse in the Eighteenth Century’, pp.45-63.

H. J. Real & H. J. Vienkens, eds., Proceedings of the First Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift (Munich: Wilhelm Fink 1985), incls. C. T. Probyn, ‘"Haranguing upon Texts": Swift and the Idea of the Book’, pp.187-97; Wolfgang Zach, ‘Jonathan Swift and Colonialism’ [q.pp.].

The Irish Times Commemorative Supplement: ‘Swift’ (30th Nov. 1967), Special Irish Times Supplement (6d.): Mario Praz, ‘The Dean Through Italian Eyes’; Denis Johnston, ‘Jonathan Swift’; Terence de Vere White,’Jonathan What?’ [counters Sybil le Brocquy’s ‘passionate plea’ on behalf in Cadenus]; T. G. Watson, ‘The Nature of his Illness’; Arland Ussher, ‘Of Swift’ [orig. on Radio Éireann]; Sybil le Brocquy, ‘Why Swift did not marry Esther Johnston’; Hubert Butler, ‘The End of Satire’; M.J. C. Hodgart, ‘Gulliver, Horses and Gentry’; Dr Robert Wyse-Jackson, ‘The Places that Hold Memories’.

St. Patrick’s Deanery (Dublin) is host to “Dean Swift: A Satirist and His Faith”, a symposium on Jonathan Swift and Christianity conducted at The Deanery of St. Patrick’s, Upper Kevin Street, Dublin 8, on 19 October 2002. Robert Mahony (Catholic U. of America), in the chair, also gave the Commemorative Address at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday 20th. The other guest-speakers were Anne Barbeau Gardiner (NY CU); Ruth A. Herman (Hertfordshire U); W. J. McCormack (Goldsmiths’ Coll., UL) and Brean S.Hammond (Nottingham U.) Lectures and addresses given on the occasion are published on the Techne website’s Swift Page.

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Notes

Drapier’s Letters: 1st Letter argues for the sovereign rights of kingdom of Ireland in terms derived from William Molyneux (‘by the laws of God, of nations, and of your own country, you are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England’; McMinn, ed., Irish Pamphlets, 1991, p.80); 2nd Letter assails Wood and the Duchess of Kendal (How dare he oppose a nation [... ...] how can he hope to oppose a nation?’); 3rd Letter addresses the nobility and gentry and asserts right of Ireland to autonomy as of equal status with England under the crown; 4th Letter launches invective against slavery, tyranny, injustice, addressing this time ‘the Whole People of Ireland’; 5th Letter addressed to Robert Molesworth, adopts a calm and reasonable tone, the patent having been by this date withdrawn.

Patrick Delany tells the story of Archbishop King, saying after Swift had just rushed from the room in tears, ‘You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must never ask questions’ (copied by Scott and Thackeray).

Marsh’s Library copy Clarendon’s The History of the rebellion and civil wars in England, begun in the year 1641, 3 vols. (Oxford: at the Theater 1707, 1703, 1704) holds extensive annotations by Jonathan Swift virulently antagonistic to the part played by the Scots, along with marginal corrections of Clarendon’s prose, especially repetitions of words within a short space, which Swift calls cacofonia.]

James Joyce echoes Swift: (Finnegans Wake 1939): Behove this sound of Irish sense. Really? / Here English may be seen. Royally? / One sovereign punned to petery pence. Regally? / The silence speaks the scene. Fake!’ [FW], a parody of Swift on the magazine fort. Cited in Atherton, Books at the Wake, p. 121. Swift is a pervasive figure in the Wake colouring many phrases, viz., ‘Gaping Gill, swift to mate errthors, stern to checkself [... &c.]’ (FW 037). Further, in Finnegans Wake, Joyce copies Swift's letter to Vanessa (Esther van Homerigh) on her birthday - St. Valentine’s Day: ‘[accept this torn letter] of a linenhall valentino with my fondest and much left to tutor. X.X.X.X.’ [FW 458.02] See A. Martin Freeman, Vanessa and Her Correspondence with Jonathan Swift, London 1921), p.11ff.

Biblical precedent for Modest Proposal: ‘And I will cause them to eat the flesh of theirs sons and the flesh of their daughters.’ (Jeremiah, 19, 9.)

Francis Doherty discusses the impact on Samuel Beckett of biographies of Swift by Stephen Gwynn (Life and Friendships of Dean Swift [London: Thornton Butterworth] 1933) and Mario Rossi & Joseph M. Hone (Swift, or The Egotist, London 1934) in ‘Watt in an Irish Frame’, Irish University Review (Autumn 1990), pp.191ff.

Moor Park, the home of Sir William Temple, whom Swift served as secretary, and were he taught Esther Johnston (‘Stella’), was later used as a lunatic asylum, a college of theology, a home or code-breaking unit in World War Two, and a centre for the study of primates; now attached to the University of Surrey. (See review of Moor Park, the 1994 novel by Gabriel Josipovici, in Times Literary Supplement, 23 Sept. 1994.)

Brinsley MacNamara, "On Seeing Swift at Laracor" [poem], which deals with his servant Patrick Brell, who ‘sold him for a show’.

‘Lost’ satirical letter by Swift was in the keeping of Mrs. Aldworth of Co. Cork, acc. to Arther Young (A Tour of Ireland, 1780; see under Arthur Young, Rx.)

John Jordan, in Patrician Stations (1971), writes of St. Patrick's Hospital, Dublin's Mental Asylum particularly dedicated to alcoholic retreats: ‘Your Toms, Dicks and Harrys are here, great Dean. / You gave your lolly to found our first democratic / institution. Paudeen and Algernon rub minds.’

Edmund Burke compares the French Assembly with the floating island in Gulliver’s Travels, ‘From its general aspect one would conclude that it had been for some time past under the special direction of the learned academicians of Laputa and Balbibarbi’ (Reflections, ed. Conor Cruise O’Brien, p.238).

George Faulkner had a bust of Swift, commissioned from Patrick Cunningham, installed outside his shop, 1763, an engraving of same being used for the 14 vols. duodecimo edn. of the works (1768); the bust was later presented to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and placed in a niche there in 1776. (See Robert Mahony, Jonathan Swift: The Irish Identity (Yale UP 1995).

Alexander Pope addresses the opening lines of The Dunciad to ‘Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff or Gulliver’ and compares him to Cervantes and to Rabelais (‘Rab’lais’).

Sean O’Casey includes Swift among the the symbolic population of his heroic Dublin in Red Roses for Me (Act. III): Rector, ‘I’ve read that tens of toughs such as those [whom Inspector has called ‘flotsam and jetsam’] followed Swift to the grave.’ Inspector, ‘Indeed, sir? A queer man, the poor demented Dean; a right queer man.’ (Three More Plays, Pan Edn. 1978, p.279).

Fr. Prout (Francis Sylvester Mahoney) provides himself with Swift for a father and Stella for a mother in his character as Fr. Prout of Watergrasshill, in ‘Dean Swift’s madness, or the Tale of a Churn’, also defends Swift agains charges of barefaced political opportunism in claiming that he ‘sought not the smiles of court, nor ever sighed for ecclesiastical dignities’. (Cited in Terry Eagleton, ‘Cork and the Carnivalesque: Frances Sylvester Mahony (Fr. Prout)’, in Irish Studies Review (Autumn 1996), pp.2-7; p.2.

The original letters of the Journal to Stella were offered for sale at Sotheby’s and bought by the British Museum in May 1919, as part of the Morrison collection; they were bound as a volume in fine calf with the inscription, ‘Original Letters of Dr Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, to Mrs Van Homrigh, celebrated by him in his published works under the name of Vanessa.//With the foul copies of her Letters and Answers in her own Writing.’ (See Sybil Le Brocquy, Cadenus, 1962 p.42).

Swift’s victory in the affair of Wood’s Ha’pence was called by Edmund Curtis ‘a small triumph for justice compared with the greater wrongs of the time, but it was important as the first note of Anglo-Irish opposition to the selfish deomination of Ireland by England.’ (A History of Ireland, 1936, p.267.)

Verses [reputedly] by Bishop of Clogher [John Smedley], and nailed to door of St. Patrick’s on the installation of Jon. Swift: ‘Today this Temple gets a Dean, / Of parts and fame uncommon; / Used both to pray, and to profane, / To serve both God and Mammon ... / This Place he got by wit and rhyme, / And many ways most odd; / And might a Bishop be in time, / Did he believe in God ... / Look down, St Patrick, look, we pray /On thine own Church and Steeple; / Convert thy Dean on this great Day, / Or else, God help the People.’ (Quoted in Sybil le Brocquy, Cadenus, 1962, p.33.)

Swift’s Epitaph: ‘Hic depositum est Corpus/IONATHAN SWIFT S.T.D. / Hujus Ecclesiae Cathedralis/Decani/Ubi saeva Indignatio /Ulterius / Cor lacerare nequit. / Abi Viator / Et imitare, si poteris, / Strenuum pro virili / Libertatis Vindicatorem / Obiit 190 Die Mensis Octobris / A.D. Anno Aetatis 78. Cf. W. B. Yeats's version: 全wift has sailed into his rest; / Savage indignation there / Cannot lacerate his breast. / Imitate him if you dare, / World-besotted traveller; he / Served human liberty.' Note, Stephen Leslie rendered Swift’s theme as ‘burning indignation against intolerable wrongs’.

Pope on Swift: ‘Let Ireland tell how wit upheld her cause / Her trade supported, and supplied her laws; / And leave on Swift this grateful verse engraved / The rights a court attack’d a poet sav’d behold / The hand that wrought a nation’s cure / Stretch’d to relieve the idiot and the poor / Proud vice to brand or injur’d worth adorn / and stretch the ray to ages yet unborn.’ (Copy posted at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.)

Swift’s library: The contents were compiled by William Le Fanu in ‘A Catalogue of Books belonging to Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick’s, 19 Dec. 1745.

Words Upon the Window Pane, a 100-min. film dir. Mary McGuckian (1994); elegant period piece, based on one-act play by Yeats, first film by this director; Jim Sheridan as Swift; Brid Brennan and Orla Brady as ‘two women who love him too passionately’; cast incls. Ian Richardson, Geraldine Chaplin, Donal Donnelly, Gerald James, John Lynch, Gemma Craven, Gerard McSorley, and Hugh O’Connor. (Programme of Walter Reade Theatre, 1994; see details under Yeats.)

Who said it? ‘After twenty times reading the whole, I never in my opinion saw so much good satire, or more good sense, in so many lines. How it passes in Dublin I know not yet; but I am sure it will be a great disadvantage to the poem, that the persons and facts will not be understood, till an explanation comes out, and a very full one. Again I insist, you must have your Asterisks filled up with some real names of real Dunces.’ (Davis, ed., Letters, Vo. III, p.32; cited in Hermann J. Real, ‘"Bacon advanced with Furious Mien": Gulliver’s Linguistic Travels’, in Vir Bonus Dicendi Peritus, Wiesbaden 1997, p.347.)

F. S. L. Lyons, Culture and Anarchy 1890-1939 (1989) defines Swift’s style defined in terms of the Anglo-Irish temperament and its tension between arrogance and insecurity, or between ‘the overcharged rhetoric of assertion and the sardonic irony of withdrawal’ (p.22.)

Sybil le Brocquy has argued on documentary records that he had a child called Patrick with Vanessa, the cause of his passionate quarrel with her and the sundering of his friendship with Stella (see Cadenus: a Resassessment in the Light of New Evidence of the Relationships between Swift, Stella, and Vanessa (Dublin: Dolmen 1962). the three-volume biography by Irvin Ehrenpreis (1962-83) is informed by literary, historical and psychological concerns; Bruce Arnold has written a modern biography informed by Irish interests; see also Declan Kiberd, Irish Classics (2001).

Armagh Public Library, being the library of the Protestant Primate of Ireland, holds a Ist edition copy of Gulliver’s Travels (1726), annotated for correction by Swift and valued at £30,000. In Dec. 2000 thieves entered the Library at 9.45 a.m. at first posing as researchers and tied up the young assistant Lorraine Frazer at gun-point having donned balaclavas; other artefacts stolen incl. a Geneva Bible (1611), a 23th c. Dutch missal, a miniature Koran, and 17th c. silver maces in Dublin silver valued at £25,000 each. The theft was thought to have been carried out to order for some collector. (securma@xs4all.nl; forwarded to Irish Studies list (Virginia), 15 Dec. 2000.] Note that two suspects were arrested and charged shortly afterwards. The library also contains “Pleas of the Innocents” addressed Oliver Cromwell.

Portraits: TCD Library holds a bust of Swift by Louis-Francois Roubillion (1945). There is also a portrait dated 1710 [var. c.1718] by Charles Jervas (c.1675-1739) in the National Gallery of Ireland. Jervas studied under Kneller and succeeded him as Royal portraitist, and did several portraits of Swift. Swift wrote of him, ‘Do you hear anything of Jervas going, for I hate to be in town when he is there (1716). Jervas also taught Alexander Pope to paint and painted him several times, while his own translation of Don Quixote (1742) was frequently reprinted [DNB]. There is A full-length portrait of Swift by Francis Bindon, who also painted Carolan [see Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland, 1989, p.297, & facing p.298]; note, the Bindon oil portrait of the Dean is in the King’s Hospital, Dublin (see Anne Crookshank, Irish Portraits Exhibition, Ulster Mus. 1965).Bindon’s painting bears the inscription, ‘The Drapier’s Fourth Letter to the Whole People of Ireland’ [See W. B. Yeats, A Centenary Exhibition, Nat. Gallery of Ireland 1965). A portrait of Esther Johnson ['Stella'] appeared in Faulkner’s edn. of Swift’s Works (Dublin 1768).

Barbadoes: Jonathan Swift was coined the term ‘barbadise’ as refering to the penal transportation of persons to the Barbadoes (Information supplied by Loreto Todd.)

 


Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)