The papers written by Swift during the years 1720 to 1734 are now little studied by the people or their representatives; nevertheless, if carefully examined, they will be found useful in throwing light upon the unsolved problem. They deal with everything connected with the country: with banks, currency, agriculture, fisheries, grazing, beggars, planting, bog-reclaiming and road-making; and all in a style peculiarly his own, a style seldom equalled and never surpassed. His pictures of the state of the country present curious parallels to what we find to-day. There are, of course, references to grievances which have long ceased to exist; such as the penal laws, and the restriction on trade, but there are many long-standing evils which are not much better now than they were in Swift's day. The rack-renting, absentee landlords are more numerous in 1887 than they were in 1730, while the improvements effected by the tenants were as much a dead loss of capital in the time of Swift, as in the days of Gladstone. The secret of Swift's forcible utterances is that he infused himself into everything he wrote; and his writings, in consequence, exhibit, not merely his intellectual power, but also his moral nature, his principles, his prejudices, even his temper. Swift possessed the most masculine intellect of his age, and was the most earnest thinker of his times. He wrote like a man of the world, and a gentleman; scorning the conceits of rhetorical flourish, and never stooping to _ad misericordiam_ appeals for sympathy.