We may quote one or two of his "Thoughts on various subjects:'

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another."

"When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad side."

"The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."

"The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.'

"All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this year part of next year's revenue.

"Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know."

"A very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time."

"Matrimony has many children; Repentance, Discord, Poverty, Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, Loathing," &c.

In his letter to a Young Clergyman, he gives the following advice:

"I should likewise have been glad if you had applied yourself a little more to the study of the English language than I fear you have done; the neglect whereof is one of the most general defects among the scholars of this kingdom, who seem not to have the least conception of a style, but run on in a flat kind of phraseology, often mingled with barbarous terms and expressions peculiar to the nation. Proper words in proper places

make the true definition of a style."

ELEMENTS OF STYLE.

Vocabulary.-Swift's mastery of the language for purposes of ridicule is universally allowed to be unsurpassed. His range is indeed somewhat too wide for ordinary tastes; in the

process of debasing and defiling," he sometimes condescends to use the language of the brothel. The propensity to shock decorum cost him the favour of Queen Anne and a bishopric.

His diction is praised for its grammatical purity. We have just seen that he was particular about not using barbarous terms. "He studied purity; and though perhaps all his strictures" [his syntax] "are not exact, yet it is not often that solecisms can be found; and whoever depends on his authority, may generally conclude himself safe."

Sentences and Paragraphs.-In point of syntax, our author is so much more correct than any writer before Johnson that he sometimes gets the credit of establishing modern grammar. Doubtless he profited greatly by his residence with the finically-studious Temple. If his syntax is more uniformly correct than Temple's,

he certainly owes to Temple the habit of being particular in this matter. We can distinctly trace his master's influence in the finished compacting of his sentences.

It is matter of praise that no other peculiarity calls for special remark. He is neither strikingly periodic, nor strikingly loose, nor strikingly pointed. His education under Temple taught him the period and point; his natural love of simplicity kept him from pushing these forms to an extreme. The consequence is, that the reader's attention is not specially drawn to any one form, which is so far the perfection of sentence style. Farther, with his natural clearness, he is fairly attentive to the placing of words, and to the unity of his sentences.

From Temple also he learned to study method, both in the general arrangement of a discourse and in the disposition of paragraphs. Almost vehemently anxious to be followed and understood, he is explicit in referring us to what has been said, what is to come, and what is the connection of one thing with another.

One of his paragraph arts deserves to be exemplified. He often, but not obtrusively often, reserves a telling point for the end. This art is seen in the three following paragraphs from his letter of advice to a Young Lady on her marriage:

"I must likewise warn you strictly against the least degree of fondness to your husband before any witness whatsoever, even before your nearest relations, or the very maids of your chamber. This proceeding is so exceeding odious and disgustful to all who have either good breeding or good sense, that they assign two very unamiable reasons for it; the one is gross hypocrisy, and the other has too bad a name to mention. If there is any difference to be made, your husband is the lowest person in company either at home or abroad, and every gentleman present has a better claim to all marks of civility and distinction from you. Conceal your esteem and love in your own breast, and reserve your kind looks and language for private hours; which are so many in the four-and-twenty, that they will afford time to employ a passion as exalted as any that was ever described in a French

romance.

Upon this head I should likewise advise you to differ in practice from those ladies who affect abundance of uneasiness while their husbands are abroad; start with every knock at the door, and ring the bell incessantly for the servants to let in their master; will not eat a bit of dinner or supper if the husband happens to stay out; and receive him at his return with such a medley of chiding and kindness, and catechising him where he has been, that a shrew from Billingsgate would be a more easy and eligible companion. "Of the same leaven are those wives who, when their husbands are gone a journey, must have a letter every post, upon pain of fits and hysterics; and a day must be fixed for their return home, without the least allowance for business, or sickness, or accidents, or weather; upon which I can only say that in my observation those ladies who are apt to make the greatest chatter on such occasions, would liberally have paid a messenger for bringing them news that their husbands had broken their necks on the road."

Figures of Speech-Similitudes.—No general statement can be

made regarding our author's use of figures of similarity. Some of his writings are very plain, and some of them are very figurative. Setting aside 'Gulliver's Travels,' which affects the blunt diction of a seafaring captain, and not forgetting that the work as a whole is one sustained similitude, we may say that when he writes seriously his language is simple, unadorned, and designed above everything to convey his meaning directly; and that when he writes in a spirit of ridicule he gives free play to his fancy. Even this needs modification. His gravest didactic is enlivened by strong and apt similes and metaphors. Nothing could be more absurd than the idea that he never uses metaphors. It is said to be a boast of his own; if so, he must have meant by metaphorseuphemisms for "nasty ideas." In that quarter he always calls a spade a spade.

One thing is very remarkable and characteristic in his similitudes; they never elevate a subject, except in irony. On the other hand, they frequently debase, and that to no ordinary depth. His allusions are often extremely gross.

A quotation or two will illustrate the character of his similitudes. The first is on the worship of Clothes, which Carlyle acknowledges as a "dim anticipation" of his Philosophy :

"The worshippers of this deity had also a system of their belief, which seemed to turn upon the following fundamentals. They held the universe to be a large suit of clothes, which invests everything: that the earth is invested by the air; the air is invested by the stars, and the stars are invested by the primum mobile. Look upon this globe of earth, you will find it to be a very complete and fashionable dress. What is that which some call land, but a fine coat faced with green? or the sea, but a waistcoat of water tabby? Proceed to the particular works of the creation, you will find how curious a journeyman Nature has been to trim up the vegetable beaux; observe how sparkish a periwig adorns the head of a beech, and what a fine doublet of satin is worn by the birch. To conclude from all, what is man himself but a microcoat, or rather a complete suit of clothes with all its trimmings? As to his body there can be no dispute; but examine even the requirements of his mind, you will find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact dress: to instance no more; is not religion a cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover,' &c.

"The most accomplished way of using books at present is twofold: either, first, to serve them as some men do lords, learn their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance; or, secondly, which is indeed the choicer, the profounder, and politer method, to get a thorough insight into the index, by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail. For to enter the palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms; therefore men of much haste and little ceremony

1 Dr Johnson places the Tale of a Tub' by itself for "copiousness of images and vivacity of diction;" but others of his ironical pieces are of the same character. See the "Letter to a Young Poet."

are content to get in by the back-door. For the arts are all in a flying march, and therefore more easily subdued by attacking them in the rear. Thus physicians discover the state of the whole body, by consulting only what comes from behind. Thus men catch knowledge by throwing their wit on the posteriors of a book, as boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails. Thus human life is best understood by the wise man's rule of always regarding the end."

"To my certain knowledge, some of our greatest wits in your poetical way have not as much real learning as would cover sixpence in the bottom of a basin; nor do I think the worse of them; for, to speak my private opinion, I am for every man's working upon his own materials, and produc ing only what he can find within himself, which is commonly a better stock than the owner knows it to be. I think flowers of wit ought to spring, as those in a garden do, from their own root and stem, without foreign assist ance. I would have a man's wit rather like a fountain, that feeds itself invisibly, than a river, that is supplied by several streams from abroad.

"Or if it be necessary, as the case is with some barren wits, to take in the thoughts of others in order to draw forth their own, as dry pumps will not play till water is thrown into them; in that necessity, I would recommend some of the approved standard authors of antiquity for your perusal as a poet and a wit, because maggots being what you look for, as monkeys do for vermin in their keepers' heads, you will find they abound in good old authors, as in rich old cheese, not in the new; and for that reason you must have the classics, especially the worm-eaten of them, often in your hands."

Allegory. The Tale of a Tub' and 'Gulliver's Travels' are the two most finished allegories in our language. Perhaps greater constructive skill is shown in the Tale than in the Travels. The Dean is said to have exclaimed in his old age, "What a genius I had when I wrote that book!" In the Travels he has no fixed order to observe, and can introduce his satirical allusions when and where he pleases; but in the Tale he undertakes to allegorise a history. A father dies leaving three sons, Peter, Martin, and Jack (Popery, Episcopalianism, and Presbyterianism, represented by the apostle Peter, Martin Luther, and Jack Calvin). He has no great property to bequeath, so he bequeaths them each a coat (a system of worship), with a body of directions how to preserve it. This will of his represents the Bible. The three sons soon fall into the ways of the world, and overlay their coats with all the fashionable trimmings at first evading the will by ingenious interpretations, but finally locking it up and never referring to it. By-and-by Martin and Jack have thoughts of reforming; steal a copy of the will; and are kicked out of doors by Peter. They then reform in earnest, Martin cautiously, Jack impetuously: Martin picking off the adventitious gold-lace, silver fringes, flame-coloured lining, &c., carefully, so as not to injure the garment; Jack tearing off these ornaments with such violence as to leave his coat in tatters. Jack quarrels with Martin for his want of zeal, separates from him in a rage, runs mad, and sets up all kinds of strange doctrine. [The

bias of the allegory, it may be remarked, is strongly in favour of the English Church.]

One of the most ingenious, and at the same time one of the coarsest, chapters is the account of Jack's doctrine of Æolism (from Eolus, the god of wind). It is a satire on the Puritan belief in the special inspiration of preachers by the Holy Ghost. The beginning is an example of his ingenuity in bringing scattered particulars under a common idea:—

'The learned Æolists maintain the original cause of all things to be wind, from which principle this whole universe was at first produced, and into which it must at last be resolved; that the same breath which had kindled and blew up the flame of nature, should one day blow it out. This is what the adepti understand by their anima mundi; that is to say, the spirit, or breath, or wind of the world; for, examine the whole system by the particulars of nature, and you will find it not to be disputed. For whether you please to call the forma informans of man by the name of spiritus, animus, afflatus, or anima; what are all these but several appellations for wind, which is the ruling element in every compound, and into which they all resolve upon their corruption? Farther, what is life itself but, as it is commonly called, the breath of our nostrils? whence it is very justly observed by naturalists, that wind still continues of great emolument in certain mysteries not to be named," &c.

The following seems intended for an allegorical description of General Assemblies among the Presbyterians :

"At certain seasons of the year you might behold the priests among them in vast numbers, with their mouths gaping wide against a storm. At other times were to be seen several hundreds linked together in a circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his neighbour's breech, by which they blew up each other to the size of a tun; and for that reason, with great propriety of speech, did usually call their bodies their vessels. When, by these and the like performances, they were grown sufficiently replete, they would immediately depart, and disembogue, for the public good, a plentiful share of their acquirements into their disciples' chaps."

Irony. Of this art Swift is a consummate master. The best known specimens of his skill are 'An Argument to prove that the abolishing of Christianity in England may, as things now stand, be attended with some inconveniences, and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed thereby;' and 'A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.' As compared with Defoe's irony, the wit of these pieces is more subtle and surprising. The opening of the "Argument" is inimitably happy; he affects to be in a minority, and apologises for venturing to oppose the general opinion:

"I am very sensible what a weakness and presumption it is to reason against the general humour and disposition of the world. I remember it was, with great justice and due regard to the freedom both of the public and