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

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 As an historical document it takes rank with the experiences of the clergymen, Skelton and Jackson, as well as the more dispassionate writings of contemporary historians.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 in which he lived, had he found liberty and justice wanting there. The matter of the copper coinage patent was but a peg for him to hang arguments which applied almost everywhere. It was not to the particular arguments but to the spirit which gave them life that we must look for the true value of Swift's work. And that spirit--honest, brave, strong for the right--is even more abundantly displayed in the writings we have just considered. They witness to his championship of