The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII | Page 5

in next for Swift's
attention. In characteristic fashion he seized the occasion of the arrest
and execution of one of their leaders to publish a pretended "Last
Speech and Dying Confession," in which he threatened exposure and
arrest to the remainder of the gang if they did not make themselves
scarce. The threat had its effect, and the city found itself considerably
safer as a consequence.
How Swift pounded out his "rage and resentment" against English
misgovernment, may be further read in the "Story of the Injured Lady,"
and in the "Answer" to that story. The Injured Lady is Ireland, who tells
her lover, England, of her attractions, and upbraids him on his conduct
towards her. In the "Answer" Swift tells the Lady what she ought to do,
and hardly minces matters. Let her show the right spirit, he says to her,
and she will find there are many gentlemen who will support her and
champion her cause.
Then came the plain, pathetic, and truthful recital of the "Short View of
the State of Ireland"--a pamphlet of but a few pages and yet terribly
effective. As an historical document it takes rank with the experiences
of the clergymen, Skelton and Jackson, as well as the more
dispassionate writings of contemporary historians. It is frequently cited
by Lecky in his "History of Ireland."
What Swift had so far left undone, either from political reasons or from
motives of personal restraint, he completed in what may, without
exaggeration, be called his satirical masterpiece--the "Modest Proposal

for Preventing the Children of Poor People from being a Burthen to
their Parents." Nothing comparable to this piece of writing is to be
found in any literature; while the mere fact that it came into being must
stand as one of the deadliest indictments against England's misrule.
Governments and rulers have been satirized time and again, but no
similar condition of things has existed with a Swift living at the time, to
observe and comment on them. The tract itself must be read with a
knowledge of the Irish conditions then prevailing; its temper is so calm
and restrained that a reader unacquainted with the conditions might be
misled and think that the author of "Gulliver's Travels" was indulging
himself in one of his grim jokes. That it was not a joke its readers at the
time well knew, and many of them also knew how great was the
indignation which raged in Swift's heart to stir him to so unprecedented
an expression of contempt. He had, as he himself said, raged and
stormed only to find himself stupefied. In the "Modest Proposal" he
changed his tune and
... with raillery to nettle, Set your thoughts upon their mettle.
Swift has been censured for the cold-blooded cynicism of this piece of
writing, but these censurers have entirely misunderstood both his
motive and his meaning. We wonder how any one could take seriously
a proposal for breeding children for food purposes, and our wonder
grows in reflecting on an inability to see through the thin veil of satire
which barely hid an impeachment of a ruling nation by the mere
statement of the proposal itself. That a Frenchman should so
misunderstand it (as a Frenchman did) may not surprise us, but that any
Englishman should so take it argues an utter absence of humour and a
total ignorance of Irish conditions at the time the tract was written. But
history has justified Swift, and it is to his writings, rather than to the
many works written by more commonplace observers, that we now turn
for the true story of Ireland's wrongs, and the real sources of her
continued attitude of hostility towards England's government of her.
It has been well noted by one of Swift's biographers, that for a thousand
readers which the "Modest Proposal" has found, there is perhaps only
one who is acquainted with Swift's "Answer to the Craftsman." It may

be that the title is misleading or uninviting; but there is no question that
this tract may well stand by the side of the "Modest Proposal," both for
force of argument and pungency of satire. In its way and within the
limits of its more restricted argument it is one of the ablest pieces of
writing Swift has given us on behalf of Irish liberty.
The title of Irish patriot which Swift obtained was not sought for by
him. It was given him mainly for the part he played, and for the success
he achieved in the Wood's patent agitation. He was acclaimed the
champion of the people, because he had stopped the foolish
manoeuvres of the Walpole Administration. So to label him, however,
would be to do him an injustice. In truth, he would have championed
the cause of liberty and justice in any country