The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 09: Contributions to The Tatler, The Examiner, The Spectator, and The IntelligencerSwift, Jonathan
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The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 09: Contributions to The Tatler, The Examiner, The Spectator, and The Intelligencer
Swift, Jonathan
English essays -- 18th century; English prose literature -- 18th century
[Footnote 2: Horace, "Satires," II. i. 41-2.
"Safe it lies
Within the sheath, till villains round me rise."--P. FRANCIS.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 3: See No. 40, _ante_, and note, p. 259. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 4: In "A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions ... Athens
and Rome," 1701 (vol. i., pp. 227-270, of present edition). See also
Swift's reference to this pamphlet in his "Memoirs Relating to that
Change," etc. (vol. v., p. 379). [T.S.]]
[Footnote 5: "The Medley," under Maynwaring, with occasional help from
Addison and Steele, seems to have been published for the sole purpose
of replying to the "Examiner." No. 40 (July 2nd, 1711) begins: "The
'Examiner' is grown so insipid and contemptible that my acquaintance
are offended at my troubling myself about him." No. 45 (the final number,
August 6th, 1711) expresses the writer's "deep concern" for the loss of
his "dear friend 'The Examiner,' who has at once left the world and me,
quite unprovided for so great a blow." When the "Examiner" was revived by
W. Oldisworth in December, 1711, it was soon followed by a reappearance
of "The Medley." It started afresh with Numb. I. on March 3rd, 1712
(_i.e._ 1711/2), and continued until August 4th, 1712, the date of the
publication of Numb. XLV. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 6: See No. 16, _ante_, and note p. 85. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 7: The two paragraphs appeared in No. 32 of "The Medley," and
the writer introduces them by a reference to "praise and censure, which I
choose out of all the rest, because it only concerns the 'Examiner' to be
well instructed in them, he having no other business but to flatter the
new m[inistry], and abuse the old." The first paragraph runs:
"In the first place, whenever any body would praise another, all he can
say will have no weight or effect, if it be not true or probable. If
therefore, for example, my friend should take it into his head to commend
a man, _for having been an instrument of great good to a nation_, when in
truth that very person had brought that same nation under great
difficulties, to say no more; such ill-chosen flattery would be of no use
or moment, nor add the least credit to the person so commended. Or if he
should take that occasion to revive any false and groundless calumny upon
other men, or another party of men; such an instance of _impotent but
inveterate malice_, would make him still appear more vile and
contemptible. The reason of all which is, that what he said was neither
just, proper, nor real, and therefore must needs want the force of true
eloquence, which consists in nothing else but in well representing things
as they really are. I advise therefore my friend, before he praises any
more of his heroes, to learn the common rules of writing; and
particularly to read over and over a certain chapter in Aristotle's first
book of Rhetoric, where are given very proper and necessary directions,
_for praising a man who has done nothing that he ought to be praised
for_."
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