As Gay's letter suggests, details concerning the contemporary reception of _Gulliver's Travels_ exhibit two sides of Jonathan Swift's character--the pleasant (that is, merry, witty, amusing) and the unpleasant (that is, sarcastic, envious, disaffected). A person with a powerful ego and astringent sense of humor, Swift must have been a delightful friend, if somewhat difficult, but also a dangerous enemy. _A Letter from a Clergyman_ (1726), here reproduced in a facsimile of its first and only edition, is a reaction typical of those who regard Swift and the sharp edge of his satire with great suspicion and revulsion. It displays the dangerously Satanic aspect of Swift--that side of his character which for some people represented the whole man since the allegedly blasphemous satire in _A Tale of a Tub_, published and misunderstood early in his career, critically affected, even by his own admission, his employment in the Church. It is this evil character of the author, the priest with an indecorous and politically suspect humor, that offended some contemporary readers. To them, the engraved frontispiece of Jonathan Smedley's scurrilous _Gulliveriana_ (1728) is the proper image of the author of the _Travels_. It portrays Swift in a priest's vestments that barely conceal a cloven hoof. In the following pages, we shall define the historical context of the clergyman's _Letter_ and illuminate the nature of the literary warfare in which Swift was an energetic if not particularly cheerful antagonist when _Gulliver's Travels_ was published late in 1726. In another letter, Gay remarked to Swift (17 November 1726) that "The Politicians to a man agree, that it [the _Travels_] is free from particular reflections"; nevertheless some "people of greater perspicuity" would "search for particular applications in every leaf." He also predicted that "we shall have keys publish'd to give light into Gulliver's design." His prediction was correct, for it was not long before four _Keys_, the earliest commentary in pamphlet form on the _Travels_, were published by a Signor Corolini, undoubtedly a pseudonym for Edmund Curll, the London printer and bookseller. But surprisingly, the observations do not exhibit Swift in a harsh factional light. As a matter of fact, in his introduction to the _Keys_, which are entitled _Lemuel Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. Compendiously Methodized, For Publick Benefit: With Observations and Explanatory Notes Throughout_ (1726), Curll flatters Swift as possessing "the true Vein of Humour and polite Conversation" (I, 4). Regarding the _Travels_, he observes, "The Town are infinitely more eager after them than they were after _Robinson Crusoe_" (I, 5).