The money was not really so much depreciated as Swift represented, but
the merchants of Dublin followed the advice of the simple draper and
refused to accept it any longer in trade. The government authorities
made a great fuss and arrested many of the repudiators, but the grand
juries refused to indict them, and on the contrary threatened to indict
merchants who accepted the shameful money. The printer of the pamphlet
was arrested, but never punished. The authorship became an open secret,
but the authorities dared not arrest the dean, whose popularity was so
great and who exercised such an extraordinary influence over the common
people that they accepted whatever he said as inspired and paid him the
greatest respect possible. His influence is illustrated by a story that
is related about a crowd which blocked the street around St. Patrick's
Cathedral one night to watch for an eclipse of the moon, and obstructed
traffic, but promptly dispersed when he sent one of his servants to tell
them that the eclipse had been postponed by his orders. He wrote
"Gulliver's Travels" about this period of his life in the deanery of St.
Patrick's, which was a part of what is now the barracks of the Dublin
police force. The present deanery, a modern building near by, contains
portraits of Swift and other of the fifty-seven clergymen who have
served as deans of St. Patrick's.
About the same time he wrote another masterpiece of satire upon the
useless and impractical measures of charity for the poor adopted by the
government. It was entitled:
A MODEST PROPOSAL
FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF
POOR PEOPLE IN IRELAND
FROM BEING A BURDEN TO
THEIR PARENTS BY
FATTENING AND EATING THEM.
He wrote several bitter satires on ecclesiastical matters, which would
have caused his separation from the deanery under ordinary
circumstances, but the archbishop as well as the civil authorities was
afraid of his caustic pen. In discussing the bishops of the Church of
Ireland at one time he declared that they were all impostors. He
asserted that the government always sent English clergymen of character
and piety to Ireland, but they were always murdered on their way by the
highwaymen of Hounslow Heath and other brigands, who put on their robes,
traveled to Dublin, presented their credentials, and were installed in
their places over the several dioceses of Ireland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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