Chapter 1

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THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

A LETTER FROM A Clergyman to his Friend, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE TRAVELS OF Captain _LEMUEL GULLIVER_.

(Anonymous)

(1726)

_Introduction by_ MARTIN KALLICH

PUBLICATION NUMBER 143 WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 1970

GENERAL EDITORS

William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

David S. Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_

ADVISORY EDITORS

Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_ James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_ Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_ Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_ Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_ Earl Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_ Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_ Lawrence Clark Powell, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_ James Sutherland, _University College, London_ H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_ Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Roberta Medford, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

INTRODUCTION

We have a Book lately publish'd here which hath of late taken up the whole conversation of the town. Tis said to be writ by Swift. It is called, The travells of Lemuell Gulliver in two Volumes. It hath had a very great sale. People differ vastly in their opinions of it, for some think it hath a great deal of wit, but others say, it hath none at all.

John Gay to James Dormer (22 November 1726)

As Gay's letter suggests, details concerning the contemporary reception of _Gulliver's Travels_ exhibit two sides of Jonathan Swift's character--the pleasant (that is, merry, witty, amusing) and the unpleasant (that is, sarcastic, envious, disaffected). A person with a powerful ego and astringent sense of humor, Swift must have been a delightful friend, if somewhat difficult, but also a dangerous enemy. _A Letter from a Clergyman_ (1726), here reproduced in a facsimile of its first and only edition, is a reaction typical of those who regard Swift and the sharp edge of his satire with great suspicion and revulsion. It displays the dangerously Satanic aspect of Swift--that side of his character which for some people represented the whole man since the allegedly blasphemous satire in _A Tale of a Tub_, published and misunderstood early in his career, critically affected, even by his own admission, his employment in the Church. It is this evil character of the author, the priest with an indecorous and politically suspect humor, that offended some contemporary readers. To them, the engraved frontispiece of Jonathan Smedley's scurrilous _Gulliveriana_ (1728) is the proper image of the author of the _Travels_. It portrays Swift in a priest's vestments that barely conceal a cloven hoof.

In the following pages, we shall define the historical context of the clergyman's _Letter_ and illuminate the nature of the literary warfare in which Swift was an energetic if not particularly cheerful antagonist when _Gulliver's Travels_ was published late in 1726.

In another letter, Gay remarked to Swift (17 November 1726) that "The Politicians to a man agree, that it [the _Travels_] is free from particular reflections"; nevertheless some "people of greater perspicuity" would "search for particular applications in every leaf." He also predicted that "we shall have keys publish'd to give light into Gulliver's design." His prediction was correct, for it was not long before four _Keys_, the earliest commentary in pamphlet form on the _Travels_, were published by a Signor Corolini, undoubtedly a pseudonym for Edmund Curll, the London printer and bookseller. But surprisingly, the observations do not exhibit Swift in a harsh factional light. As a matter of fact, in his introduction to the _Keys_, which are entitled _Lemuel Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. Compendiously Methodized, For Publick Benefit: With Observations and Explanatory Notes Throughout_ (1726), Curll flatters Swift as possessing "the true Vein of Humour and polite Conversation" (I, 4). Regarding the _Travels_, he observes, "The Town are infinitely more eager after them than they were after _Robinson Crusoe_" (I, 5).

In general, the _Keys_ are pleasantly written, including no nasty innuendoes critical of Swift's high-church sectarian zeal or his high-flying Tory political sympathies. They may be considered a frankly commercial venture meant to exploit the popularity of the _Travels_. Curll merely summarizes the narratives, occasionally providing substantial extracts or sprinkling explanatory comments on some allusions that attract him. Some of the annotations are ridiculous, or curious, like the equations of Blefuscu with Scotland, of the storm Gulliver passes through before reaching Brobdingnag with "the _South-Sea_ and _Mississippi_ Confusion," and of the giants with inflated South Sea stock (II, 4). Some remarks, however, appear convincing, such as his belief that "the _trifling Transactions_ of the present _English Royal Society_" on insects and fossils are "finely rallied" (II, 11-12). Curll also notes about the third voyage that "besides the political Allegory, Mr. _Gulliver_ has many shrewd Remarks upon Men and Books, Sects, Parties, and Opinions" (III, 10-11). Concerning the fourth, he equates the good Portuguese Captain Don Pedro with the Dean's "good Friend the Earl of _P[eterboroug]h_" (IV, 26). The Roman Catholic Peterborough, we recall, fought in Spain and was also Pope's good friend.

Other more suggestive comments on Swift's political meaning may be cited. For example, the "_ancient Temple_" in which Gulliver is housed in Lilliput, a structure "_polluted ... by an unnatural Murder_," he identifies as "the _Banquetting-House_ at _White-Hall_, before which Structure, King CHARLES I was Beheaded" (I, 7-8). This allusion to "the _Royal-Martyr_" (III, 32) may be considered a modest clue to Swift's Toryism, and it is associated with the Jacobitism of which his Whiggish enemies accused him. Yet an unusual reading of the Struldbruggs in the third voyage (particularly the controls imposed on the senile creatures in order to prevent their engrossing the civil power) as an attack on the religious dissenters demonstrates that Curll and Swift agreed on the issue of an established church. The clergy who wished to separate state from church, or as Curll describes the situation,

that implacable Spirit and Rancour ... [of] those _English_ Ecclesiasticks, who have asserted the _Independency_ of the _Church_ upon the _State_ ... ought to the latest Posterity in _England_, to be called _Struldbruggs_. For it will be found ... that, _whenever they assume the_ Civil Power, _their want_ of Abilities _to_ manage, _must end in the_ Ruin _of the_ Publick. (III, 32)

Indeed, among the most interesting of Currl's annotations are those which suggest that a religious reading of the _Travels_ was by no means unappreciated by Swift's contemporaries. Thus, again, besides his unusual politico-religious comment on the Struldbruggs, Curll is fairly sharp in his annotation of the passage on religious differences in Chapter V of the fourth voyage, concerning "_Transubstantiation_ as believed by the _Papists_," "Cathedral-worship," kissing the Crucifix, vestments,--and resulting furious religious wars (IV, 12-13). All in all, however, the _Keys_ are singularly shallow and agreeably bland. Curll simply agrees with Gulliver-Swift, and reinforces the meaning by practically repeating the text, as he does at this point when deploring inessential differences in ritual as needless causes of cruel conflict. Although Curll was aware of the presence of politics and religion in Swift's allegories, his annotations do not reflect unfavorably on Swift's character.

But it was not long before an attack on Swift was mounted. It began with _A Letter from a Clergyman to His Friend, With an Account of the Travels of Capt. Lemuel Gulliver: And a Character of the Author. To Which is Added, The True Reasons Why a Certain Doctor Was Made a Dean_ (1726)--the first substantial attack on Swift resulting from the publication of his most celebrated work. The identity of the author is unknown. Steele, Swift's implacable political enemy, had retired to the country at this time and was soon to die. Because of the numerous references to Swift's treacherous disloyalty to Steele's friendship, we could speculate on a connection between the anonymous author and Steele and infer that it was a friendly relationship.

The long and breathless title underlines the malicious content of this polemical pamphlet, a pungent libel on Swift's character that includes cutting observations on Swift's chief fiction as well. Obviously, the author's intent is to vilify Swift in retaliation for attacks on the writer's friends. Inspired by the publication of the _Travels_, he presents a crudely defamatory "Character of the Author." He claims an acquaintance with Swift "in publick and private Life" (p. 4) but offers no evidence to substantiate this claim. Drawing from common knowledge, he simply cites the well-known negative evidence of _A Tale of a Tub_, in which Swift, he indignantly asserts like Swift's former enemy William Wotton, "levelled his Jests at Almighty God; banter'd and ridiculed Religion," thereby offending Queen Anne and blocking his own church preferment (p. 19). Except for "some gross Words, and lewd Descriptions, and had the Inventor's Intention been innocent" (p. 6 [note the suspicion of Swift's political and religious bias]), the author is mildly pleased with the first three voyages. But he finds intolerable the satire on human nature in the last, here echoing Addison's criticism of the demoralizing effect of a satire on mankind (_Spectator 249_, 5 December 1711).

However, Swift's "Intention" in the first three voyages is, he angrily declares, tinctured by his poisonous malice and envy, the result of twelve years of exile. He is positive of the identity of the vicious person behind the mask of the imaginary memoirist:

Here, Sir, you may see a reverend Divine, a dignify'd Member of the Church unbosoming himself, unloading his Breast, discovering the true Temper of his Soul, drawing his own Picture to the Life; here's no Disguise, none could have done it so well as himself.... (p. 8)

He detects envy in what he believes is the incendiary narrator of the _Travels_, and insists that by siding with the enemies of the nation, meaning France, Swift was "endeavouring to ruin the _British_ Constitution, set aside the _Hanover_ Succession, and bring in a [tyrannical] Popish Pretender," and, of course, "destroy our Church Establishment" (pp. 14, 8-9). Thereupon, he furiously threatens Swift with punishment for his pernicious attack on the government, that is, the present political administration. Clearly motivated by politico-religious fears, this Whig militantly defends not only the Protestant succession but also the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole--which the numerous allusions to the "_Great Man_" and "the greatest Man this Nation ever produced" (p. 15) confirm. Swift's mean character of Flimnap, the Lilliputian Prime Minister, stung badly: "With what Indignation must every one that has had the Honour to be admitted to this _Great Man_, review the Doctor's charging him with being morose" (p. 15). He counters Swift's insulting reduction of the Great Man to a petty little man with an egregiously fulsome panegyric that magnifies the virtues of Sir Robert's public and private character, and concludes with abuse of Swift's character as an Irish dean disaffected from the government--hence deserving of permanent exile in Ireland.[1]

The author of the fiery _Letter_ focuses on Swift's impiety--pointing to his wickedness, the sneering tone of his sacrilegious satire, his indiscreet joking about religion, all of which Swift's enemies were quick to emphasize as the outstanding features of _A Tale of a Tub_, as well as portions of the _Travels_. For example, even Gay, in the letter to Swift quoted above (17 November 1726) also noted that those "who frequent the Church, say his [Gulliver's] design is impious, and that it is an insult on Providence, by depreciating the works of the Creator,"--a line of attack soon to be pursued by Edward Young, James Beattie, and others who were not in the least charmed by Swift's satire. But Swift's friends were not idle; for it was precisely this bitter onslaught on Swift's religion in the _Letter_ that brought another writer to the defense in the ironically entitled _Gulliver Decypher'd: or Remarks on a Late Book, Intitled, Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, Vindicating the Reverend Dean on Whom it is Maliciously Father'd, With Some Conjectures Concerning the Real Author_ (1726).[2]

This writer, probably John Arbuthnot, may be considered one of the earliest defenders of the religious orthodoxy of the _Travels_. He extracts passages from Swift's work, such as the Lilliputian quarrel over breaking eggs, the satire on corrupt bishops, and the affirmation of the principle of limited toleration for religious dissent in Brobdingnag as evidences of his belief, presented ironically, that "the Reverend Dean" could not possibly have fathered the work because the author of the _Travels_ did not have religious ideals in mind. One of the passages that this defender cites demonstrates that only a person like the religious dean could have made this observation about the concern for religious instruction by the Lilliputians before their fall from original perfection:

... we cannot think, but that the courteous Reader is fully satisfied, that the Reverend D---- we are vindicating, cannot possibly be the Author of this part of the Book that is maliciously ascrib'd to him; which is so very trifling, that it is not to be imagined that a _serious_ D----n, who has Religion, and the good of Souls so _much_ at heart, could act so contrary to the Dignity of his Character merely to gratify a little Party Malice, or to oblige a Set of People who are never likely to have it in their Power to serve him or any of their Adherents. Doubtless he, _good Man_, employs his Time to more sacred Purposes than in writing Satyrs and Libels upon his Superiors, or in composing _Grub-street_ Pamphlets to divert the Vulgar of all Denominations.[3]

Consider also his defense of Swift's exposure of the corrupt bishops, the "holy Persons" in the House of Lords (_Travels_, II, vi). Believing that Swift's pungent satire on the church hierarchy is good and true, he makes the dean himself the target of a playful bit of raillery, a type of irony for which Swift and Arbuthnot were both notorious:

Being _slavish prostitute Chaplains_ is certainly a good step _towards becoming an Holy Lord_; but it does not always succeed, as _some Folks_ very well know by Experience; for the same Degree of Iniquity that can raise one Man to an _Archbishoprick_, cannot lift another above a _Deanery_.[4]

Such commentary suggests that at least one very early reader of the _Travels_ sensed the possibility of Swift's use of certain portions of his narrative to vent disappointment at his failure to receive the church preferment he thought he deserved and to carry on his personal vendetta against obstructive bishops like the "crazy Prelate" Sharpe, Archbishop of York, one of the detestable and "dull Divines" pilloried in the autobiographical poem "The Author Upon Himself" (1714).

Concerning Swift's religious uniformitarianism, the author of _Gulliver Decypher'd_ defends Swift's understandable bias for the established Anglican Church as a vested interest, which in the _Travels_ is expressed through the giant king's strictures against civil liberty for religious dissenters (II, vi). He recommends this passage as a proper explanation of the principle restricting the civil liberty of potentially subversive dissidents, adding, furthermore, that "the Sectaries" themselves were "averse to all the Modes" of religion and opposed religious diversity.[5]

All these remarks figured prominently in what may be considered the earliest debate on the religious meaning of the _Travels_. Certainly, some contemporary readers of Swift's major work were not insensitive to its religious significance, as even the commentary on the religious instruction of the upper classes--a relatively minor part of the satire which twentieth-century readers would easily overlook, as well as the more serious observations on the Endian dispute between Catholics and Protestants over the Eucharist demonstrate. Yet like all the early critics of the _Travels_, this author has nothing to say about this episode of central importance in the narrative about Lilliput, the reason probably being that its meaning was taken for granted by the Protestants of Swift's England. Thus the author of _Gulliver Decypher'd_ merely says the obvious: "The Reflections that will accrue to every Reader, upon this Conference [with Reldresal], is [_sic_] so obvious, that we shall not so much as hint at them."[6] Thus it is also not strange for the antagonistic clergyman to say nothing in his _Letter_ about the heart of the Lilliputian narrative--the profound allegory on the religious wars over the Eucharist and the serious issues raised by Swift. No doubt, however, he probably read Swift's interpretation of Gulliver's role in this conflict as a Tory version of history, and resented it accordingly. That is, like the Whigs of the day, he would object to an easy peace for Catholic France and would conclude that the Treaty of Utrecht concluding the War of the Spanish Succession, was not sufficiently punitive.

Among the works that capitalized on the popularity of the _Travels_ were the imitative _Memoirs of Lilliput_ (1727) and _A Voyage to Cacklogallinia_ (1727). The author of the _Memoirs_ emphasizes the evil character of the Lilliputians, particularly their lecherous clergy, and concludes with an account of the sufferings of Big-Endian exiles and extensive observations on the dangers of political factionalism. But he is most attracted by prurient sexual adventures. A vulgar work obviously meant to appeal to a neurotic taste for sexuality, it includes no attack on Swift as it explores at length some topics to which Gulliver in his memoirs only tangentially alludes. The second abortive effort, an animal satire of exotic talking fowl, also resembles Swift's satire as it touches on several similar topics--the hypocrisy of the people, the scepticism of their nobility, the love of luxury of the higher clergy--but again because it includes no comment on Swift's personal or public character, it is not relevant to a discussion of the angry _Letter from a Clergyman_. We can therefore pass quickly from these two works to perhaps the best, in the sense of the most stinging and most comprehensive, assault on Swift at the time of the publication of his _Travels_, that entitled _Gulliveriana_ (1728), by the Irish Dean of Clogher, Jonathan Smedley.

"That rascall Smedley," about whom Swift once wrote in vexation (to Archdeacon Walls, 19 December 1716), is the very same hack who carried on the subsidized _Baker's News; or the Whitehall Journal_ (1722-23) on behalf of Sir Robert Walpole's government. He is also immortalized in Pope's _Dunciad_ (1728) as "a person dipp'd in scandal, and deeply immers'd in dirty work" (_Dunciad_ A, II, 279ff; B, II, 291ff). His _Gulliveriana_ (including the satires on Pope, the _Alexandriana_), a scurrilous anthology of abuse in the form of jingles, ballads, parodies in prose, and other satirical essays, was inspired by the recent publication of the Pope-Swift _Miscellany_. In his preface Smedley indicts Swift for an almost endless series of misdemeanors--for shifting his allegiance from the Whigs to the Tories; for restricting his verse to the burlesque style and its groveling doggerel manner; for failing in eloquence and oratory, theology and mathematics; and for being a pedant, poetaster, hack-politician, jockey, gardener, punster, and skilful swearer. In short Smedley insists that Swift is accomplished in the art of sinking according to the prescription which he and Pope wrote in the _Peri Bathos_, the first part of the _Miscellany_ that aroused Smedley's ire. Swift is, to sum up, "_ludicrous, dull, and profane_; and ... an Instance of _that Decay of Delicacy and Refinement_ which he mentions" (p. xxvii). As for the recently published _Gulliver's Travels_, Smedley shows it no mercy:

An abominable Piece! by being _quite out of Life_! The _Fable_ is entirely ridiculous; the _Moral_ but ludicrous; the _Satire_ trite and worn out, and the _Instructions_ much better perform'd by many other Pens. I call on his _Lilliputian Art of Government_, and _Education of Children_ for Proof. (p. xix)

It comes as no surprise to see that Smedley's Whiggish bias encourages him to detect "hints" in the _Travels_ of Swift's "Zeal for High Church and Toryism" (p. 280), so that obviously the work is "_Trifling_" and "_Nothing_."

The pious Dean has done what in him lies to render _Religion_, _Reason_, and _common_ Sense ridiculous, and to set up in their stead, _Buffoonry_, _Grimace_, and _Impertinence_, and, like _Harlequin_, carries it off all with a _Grin_. (p. 267)[7]

Among Smedley's clever parodies of Swift's writings are those of _A Tale of a Tub_, _Against Abolishing Christianity_, and _Gulliver's Travels_. The comprehensiveness of abuse is demonstrated in the nasty Gulliverian allegory, in which Swift is accused of being an ignorant, hypocritical, atheistical Irishman, high-flying Tory, and Jacobite Papist. Even Swift's sex life--his relationship with Stella and Vanessa--is made ugly (pp. 1-10). Indeed, Smedley believes that it is his duty to keep his readers well-informed about Swift's "odd" conduct; thus with evident relish he advises the poet to

Tell us what _Swift_ is now a doing: Or whineing Politicks or Wooing; With Sentence grave, or Mirth uncommon, Pois'ning the Clergy, and the Women. (p. 41)

Among the ballads, one will see the infamous "Verses, fix'd on the Cathedral Door, the Day of Dean Gulliver's Installment," which begins with the following delectable quatrain:

Today, this Temple gets a _Dean_, Of Parts and Fame, uncommon; Us'd, both to Pray, and to Prophane, To serve both _God_ and _Mammon_.

Then the poem proceeds with the usual diatribe of Swift's desertion of the Whigs, his atheism, high-church sympathies, and sacrilegious humor (pp. 77-79).