It is easy to expand such a text, and many have done it. In the mean time, before these terrible events had occurred, while Vanessa’s letters were still disturbing his peace, and death had as yet touched none of his surroundings, he had accomplished the greatest literary work of his life, that by which every child knows Swift’s name--the travels of the famous Gulliver. The children have made their selection with an unerring judgment which is above criticism, and have taken Lilliput and Brobdingnag into their hearts, rejecting all the rest. That Swift had a meaning, bitter and sharp, even in the most innocent part of that immortal fable, and meant to strike a blow at politicians and generals, and the human race, with its puny wars, and glories, and endless vanities and foolishness, is evident enough; and it was for this that the people of his time seized upon the book with breathless interest, and old Duchess Sarah in her old age chuckled and forgave the dean. But the vast majority of his readers have not so much as known that he meant anything except the most amusing and witty fancy, the keenest comic delineation of impossible circumstances. That delightful Irish bishop, if ever he was, who declared that “the book was full of improbable lies, and for his part he hardly believed a word of it,” is the only critic we want. “‘Gulliver’s Travels’ is almost the most delightful children’s book ever written,” says Mr. Leslie Stephen, no small authority. It had no doubt been talked over and read to the ladies, who, it would incidentally appear, had not liked the “Tale of a Tub.” But Swift was at home when he wrote “Gulliver,” and had no need of a journal to communicate his proceedings.