Jonathan Swift

Swift, Jonathan 1667-1754. Swift was the grandson of a Royalist vicar of Yorkshire, whose three sons sought their fortune in Ireland after the Restoration settlement. One of the sons, Jonathan, married Abigail Erick (or Herrick), daughter of a Leicestershire family, and obtained a legal post in Dublin. He died before his expected child was born; this was Jonathan Swift who, though born in Dublin, educated at Kilkenny School, and a graduate of Trinity College, could declare at one stage of his life: 'I am not of this vile country, I am an Englishman.' But the 'vile country' was to become his passionate concern.

From his birth, on 30 November 1667, Swift's nurse doted on the baby boy and, being obliged to return to her home in Whitehaven, in Cumberland, on family matters, took her charge with her rather than have him out of her sight. She proved the best of foster mothers and when young Jonathan returned to Dublin at the age of three he was able to read. But soon after that his mother returned to her family in Leicestershire, leaving him in the care of his uncle Godwin. So his start in life was not exactly auspicious; he was a virtual orphan from his fourth year. His uncle sent him to Kilkenny, the best school in Ireland (Congreve was a fellow pupil), and at 14 Swift entered Trinity College as a pensioner. He was guilty of bad behaviour there and was only awarded his degree speciale gratia; he felt as complete a contempt for the teaching at Trinity as Milton had felt for that at Cambridge 50 years before.

Swift said later that his uncle 'gave him the education of a dog' but Godwin himself was in straitened circumstances and probably did his best. But Swift wanted Oxford, not Dublin, and complained of 'the ill-treatment of his nearest relations'. In 1689, when James II landed in Ireland and the country was plunged into turmoil, Swift left for England to stay with his mother's family in Leicestershire. He had been preparing for his MA at Dublin but had only his bachelor's degree when he arrived in England. He obtained employment in the house of Sir William Temple at Moor Park, near Farnham, Surrey. Temple's father had been head of the Irish Bar and had been kind and helpful to the Swifts.

Swift became secretary to Sir William Temple and probably hoped that the connection would help him along in the world. Temple did send Swift to William III on one occasion but nothing came of it; he also sent him to Ireland with a letter of recommendation to the Secretary of State. Nothing came of that either, and Temple invited Swift back to Moor Park. He returned there in 1691, visiting his mother on the way and stopping at Oxford to visit friends. He took his MA from Hart Hall, to give himself the qualification to enter the Church - it was not what he really wanted but he knew it was a way to independence if he could find no other.

The peace and order of Moor Park, as well as Temple's wide connections, proved beneficial to Swift, who practised the art of poetry during his leisure. He began to write Pindaric odes in the manner of Abraham Cowley; one of them was published in the Athenian Mercury and, according to Samuel Johnson, provoked John Dryden's remark: 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.' (Dryden and Swift were related.) Swift, meanwhile, had been given the tutoring of a fellow dependent at Moor Park. This was the eight-year-old daughter of Lady Giffard's companion; Lady Giffard was Temple's sister. Esther Johnson, 'Stella', was to prove one of the lasting attachments of Jonathan Swift's life. But meanwhile he took the step that promised some kind of advancement - something which did not seem to be forthcoming through his association with Temple. Swift was ordained in 1694 and Temple helped him obtain the prebend of Kilroot, near Belfast. Swift was back in Ireland again; he was 27 years old and he had had to appeal to Temple for a testimonial, since so much time had elapsed since he took his degree. However, he obtained a licence for nonresidence at Kilroot and was back at Moor Park two years later, after an abortive attempt to arrange a marriage with a lady named Jane Waring.

Swift was on a happier footing at Moor Park now, since he had independent, if rather slender, means. He put Temple's papers in order and wrote The Battle of the Books in 1697, when Temple became involved in the 'Phalaris' controversy.

Sir William died in 1699 and Swift was without a patron. He returned to Ireland, to Dublin this time (he had resigned the living of Kilroot) as chaplain to Lord Berkeley, the new Lord justice of Ireland. He had failed utterly to obtain a living in England and Temple's influence died so completely with his death that there has been speculation as to just how much effort he had put into helping Swift. Whatever the truth, Swift honoured Temple's memory without reserve for the rest of his life. He obtained the living of Laracor and Stella joined him in Dublin with her chaperone, Miss Rebecca Dingley. Stella had been left a little property in Ireland in Temple's will.

In 1704 Swift published The Battle of the Books in the same volume as A Tale of a Tub. The former gave him an excellent opportunity to attack pedantry and the latter was a satire on the religious contentions of the time, with some digressions into other matters but with particular force in its attacks on fanaticism. Swift spared no one and the book was to be held against him later, when he hoped desperately for a preferment that would enable him to escape from Ireland. Other works, a few years later, were pamphlets on religious questions, including the An Argument against abolishing Christianity and Letter concerning the Sacramental Test. Swift's brilliant irony was simply too much for the establishment - the author was not the man to lean down from his intellectual heights and the establishment, uncomfortable, would not admit him. Meanwhile he was a regular visitor to England and his publication of the memoirs of Sir William Temple gave him a place in the literary scene. He became friends with Addison, Steele, Pope, and Congreve; Addison and Steele, particularly, admired and liked him. He was disillusioned with Whig policies and his pamphlets demonstrate his conviction that the party was ill-disposed toward the Church; he could not tolerate its association with Dissenters who, to him, were of the stamp of the fanatics who had brought England into a Civil War. The Tories, now bending their energies in an effort to conclude the war with France, were to benefit from two fine peace pamphlets from Swift (1711); but his preferment did not come about. His orthodoxy was doubtful and Queen Anne was hostile to him; many highly placed and influential friends, who welcomed the brilliant man as their guest, somehow failed - or simply did not try hard enough - to secure him advancement. And that was what Swift wanted above all; it must have tormented him to see the steady rise of dull, if perhaps acceptable, men. A diversion occurred during this period when he successfully confounded the pretensions of John Partridge, a cobbler who claimed to be an astrologer. Under the pseudonym 'Isaac Bickerstaff', Swift published a parody of Partridge's almanac in which he predicted the astrologer's death. Steele adopted the name of Bickerstaff when he founded The Tatler in 1709.

In 1713 Swift, who had taken his DD in 1701, became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. It was the highest position to which he was ever to rise and it established him in Ireland for the rest of his life. Within the confining circumstances of a minority church - the Protestants in Ireland were between the Catholic majority in the country as a whole and the Presbyterian leanings strong in the north - Swift rendered excellent service. He was mourned at his passing by Protestants and Catholics alike; his powerful pen had proved to be a great force working on their behalf.

About 1710 Swift began his Journal to Stella, the series of letters to Esther Johnson and Rebecca Dingley that tells us so much about his life and his feelings. There was another woman in his life by now, another Esther, oddly enough. This was Esther Vanhomrigh ('Vanessa'), who fell in love with him; he did not return such feelings but Vanessa, only 20 years old to Swift's 43, followed him to Ireland when her parents died. Swift's feelings towards her are depicted in his poem, Cadenus and Vanessa, written about 1713. He also published various political pamphlets during the years 1713 and 1714 in support of the Tory ministry but the death of Queen Anne and the ascendancy of the Whigs came in 1714; he retired to Dublin, briefly returning at the invitation of Pope and becoming involved in the activities of the Scriblerus Club with Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, and the others. But he was soon back in Dublin; the Whig policies were unfair to Ireland - and Swift was opposed to injustice and unfair dealing of any kind.

His most notable efforts on behalf of Ireland were Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures (1720) and the famous Drapier's Letters (1724), which frustrated the hopes of making an easy fortune through debased 'small money' for Ireland called 'Wood's ha'pence'. About 1720 Swift began work on another book, which was to become one of the most famous in English literature.

In 1723 Esther Vanhomrigh seems to have provoked a crisis in her relations with Swift. His honourable behaviour and continued solicitude for her well-being, and his genuine esteem of her, were simply not enough for the woman who was in love with him. One theory advanced by Swift's biographers is that he and Stella had contracted a secret marriage, a matter of securing their independence from other encroachments, though they were never 'married' in the physical sense. Vanessa learned of this and wrote to Stella, who sent the letter to Swift. The breach caused by Vanessa's behaviour was final for Swift - and possibly fatal for Vanessa. She died in June 1723 and never mentioned Swift in her will, which she made the month before her death.

Swift went to London in 1726. He visited his friends Pope and John Gay but his chief purpose was to deliver a letter of remonstrance on Irish affairs to Walpole, the Prime Minister. Swift and Walpole disliked each other at once and Swift's efforts achieved nothing. Stella died in January 1728 and Swift, while still continuing to work, was beginning to succumb to the condition that had plagued him from his 23rd year. This has now been diagnosed by modern medicine and is called M6ni&re's disease, a disturbance of the inner ear that causes vertigo and nausea. There was no treatment for it in Swift's lifetime and his fortitude must have been extraordinary. Gulliver's Travels, probably the most misread classic of English literature, was published in 1726, The Grand Question Debated in 1729, and Verses on his own Death in 1731. He continued to correspond with his friends in London and was venerated by the people of Dublin. He spent a third of his income on charities and saved what he could to found St. Patrick's Hospital, a charitable institution that was opened in 1757.

Swift was to depart from the world, in a sense, before he died. He suffered from a brain turnout and no mental constitution, however strong, could go on fighting his combined disabilities. He lapsed into dementia in 1742 and never recovered; three years later he was dead. A hush fell over Dublin at his passing.

So much of Swift's work deals with religious and political affairs that it is often left out of the history of literature, belonging more properly to the field of history. But some of it demands mention: A Short View of the State of Ireland (1728) is both powerful and touching but, as so often is the case of the country that defied all English efforts to make it a colony, it fell upon deaf ears. Swift did not relax his efforts, however, and his A Modest Proposal (1729) is both a remorseless parody and a terrible indictment.

Swift's poetry, in addition to his account of his friendship with Esther Vanhomrigh, consisted of annual pieces to the other Esther (Stella) on her birthday; they are charming verses of considerable grace. Baucis and Philemon (1709) is Swift's verse retelling of the ancient legend; On Poetry: A Rhapsody (1733) was regarded by the author as his best satire.

Jonathan Swift had a chip on his shoulder - the fact has to be faced - and it stayed there all his life. The conclusion that he became a churchman because he could find nothing better to do for a living is inescapable and explains to some extent the ferocity of his attacks on organized religion. Yet the personal integrity of this cantankerous man proved stronger than his resentment, as his record of service proves. His prose is superb, as clear as crystal and exquisitely graceful; his intellect was formidable, his gift for satire unrivalled, and his vitality astonishing. If he had been born to privilege and in a position to choose his career he might have become that rarest of men in politics, a great statesman and reformer. But he would, one cannot help feeling, have left some mark on the world even if he had started life as an orphan beggar.

The definitive edition of Swift's prose works is the one by Herbert Davis, which commenced in 1939 and has so far reached 14 volumes. Herbert Davis's edition of The Drapier's Letters was published in 1935. The best text of Gulliver's Travels, that published by Faulkner of Dublin in 1735, is included in John Hayward's Nonesuch Press edition of Selected Prose and Verse (1934). The Poems of Jonathan Swift, edited by Harold Williams (three volumes; second edition, 1958), is definitive and The Correspondence, from the same editor, is available in five volumes (1963). Harold Williams is also the editor of the best edition of The Journal to Stella (1948). The Poetical Works, edited by Herbert Davis (1967), is a single volume in the Oxford Standard Authors series and editions of Gulliver's Travels can be found in Oxford Paperbacks, Everyman's Library, and the Penguin English Library. A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books, with other prose pieces, are available in a modern edition by A. C. Guthkelch and D. Nicol Smith (1958).