The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 1, December, 1850Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 1, December, 1850
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
it was attempted, but invariably with one effect--the first wound
grazed, the second killed.
The public were in ecstasies. The laughers were all on the side of the
satirist, and how vast a portion of the community these are, needs not
be said. But it was not in the _Examiner_ alone that Swift offered up
his victims at the shrine of universal mirth. He could write verses for
the rough heart of a nation to chuckle over and delight in.
Personalities to-day fly wide of the mark; then they went right home.
The habits, the foibles, the moral and physical imperfections of
humanity, were all fair game, provided the shaft were tipped with gall
as well as venom. Short poems, longer pamphlets--whatever could help the
Government and cover their foes with ridicule and scorn, Swift poured
upon the town with an industry and skill that set eulogy at defiance.
And because they did defy praise, Jonathan Swift never asked, and was
ever too grand to accept it.
But he claimed much more. His disordered yet exquisite intellect
acknowledged no superiority. He asked no thanks for his labor, he
disdained pecuniary reward for his matchless and incalculable
services--he did not care for fame, but he imperiously demanded to be
treated by the greatest as an equal. Mr. Harley offered him money, and
he quarreled with the Minister for his boldness. "If we let these great
Ministers," he said, "pretend too much, _there will be no governing
them_." The same Minister desired to make Swift his chaplain. One
mistake was as great as the other. "My Lord Oxford, by a second hand,
proposed my being his chaplain, which I, by a second hand, refused. I
will be no man's chaplain alive." The assumption of the man was more
than regal. At a later period of his life he drew up a list of his
friends, ranking them respectively under the heads "Ungrateful,"
"Grateful," "Indifferent," and "Doubtful." Pope appears among the
grateful. Queen Caroline among the ungrateful. The audacity of these
distinctions is very edifying. What autocrat is here for whose mere
countenance the whole world is to bow down and be "grateful!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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