Journeys Through Bookland, Volume 5 | Page 3

of mind, together with other
causes, finally broke his health, destroyed his mind and left him but the
sad wreck of a brilliant manhood, and an old age of helpless imbecility.
Such a life has little that is attractive for anyone, but it does show us
that even a brilliant intellect cannot save a man who persistently
neglects to guard his character, and that fame does not always bring

happiness.
But Swift was by no means all bad, and his great services to Ireland are
still deservedly recognized by that devoted people. He really laid the
foundation for their prosperity and may be said to have created
constitutional liberty for them.
It is, however, as a wit and a writer that Swift is now chiefly famous.
Many are the stories told of his readiness in repartee, his bright sallies
in conversation, and of his skill in quick and caustic rhyming. It is said
that one day, when traveling in the south of Ireland, he stopped to give
his horse water at a brook which crossed the road; a gentleman of the
neighborhood halted for the same purpose, and saluted him, a courtesy
which was politely returned. They parted, but the gentleman, struck by
the dean's figure, sent his servant to inquire who the man was. The
messenger rode up to the dean and said, "Please, sir, master would be
obliged if you would tell him who you are."
"Willingly," replied the dean. "Tell your master I am the person that
bowed to him when we were giving our horses water at the brook
yonder."
[Illustration: JONATHAN SWIFT 1667-1745]
Swift's interests lay rather with the common people than with the Irish
aristocracy, who, he thought, were arrant "grafters." Of one in
particular he said,
"So great was his bounty-- He erected a bridge--at the expense of the
county."
The last thing Swift wrote was an epigram. It was in almost the final
lucid interval between periods of insanity that he was riding in the park
with his physician. As they drove along, Swift saw, for the first time, a
building that had recently been put up.
"What is that?" he inquired.

"That," said the physician, "is the new magazine in which are stored
arms and powder for the defence of the city."
"Oh!" said the dean, pulling out his notebook. "Let me take an item of
that; this is worth remarking: 'My tablets!' as Hamlet says, 'my tablets!
Memory put down that.'" Then he scribbled the following lines, the last
he ever penned:
"Behold a proof of Irish sense! Here Irish wit is seen! When nothing's
left that's worth defence, We build a magazine."
With the exception of _Gulliver's Travels_, very little that Dean Swift
wrote is now read by anyone but students.

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
INTRODUCTION
Gulliver's Travels was published in 1726 and without any allusion to
the real author, though many knew that the work must have come from
the pen of Dean Swift. Though the dean was habitually secretive in
what he did, he had some reason for not wishing to say in public that he
had written so bitter a satire on the government and on mankind.
The work was immediately popular, not only in the British Isles but on
the Continent as well. No such form of political satire had ever
appeared, and everyone was excited over its possibilities. Not all parts
of the work were considered equally good; some parts were thought to
be failures, and the Fourth Voyage was as a whole deservedly
unpopular. The Voyages to Lilliput and to Brobdingnag were
considered the best, and to them is to be attributed the greater part of
the author's fame. Their popularity continues with the years.
Lemuel Gulliver is represented as a British sailor who had been
educated as a doctor but whose wandering instincts led him back to the
sea. On his return from his voyages he writes the account of his
adventures; and the manner in which this account is written is so

masterly that we almost believe the things he tells.
In describing the manners, customs, and governments of the several
countries, he shows in his inimitable way the weakness of his king,
prince, nobles, government and mankind in general.
While the scholar and the man of affairs may still be interested in the
political significance of what is said and in a study of the keen
knowledge of human nature shown by the writer, yet it is principally as
a story that the work is now popular. Everybody enjoys reading about
the wonderful people who existed only in the imagination of the great
dean of Saint Patrick's.
In this volume are printed some of the most enjoyable parts of the first
and second voyages. About the only changes from the original text are
in