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Unit 28: Swift: Thoughts on Various Subjects...

• Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly. Notes
• Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know
their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the
owner knows not of.
• Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the
same posture with creeping.
• Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
• Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age…
• I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
• No wise man ever wished to be younger.
• The Bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
• Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.
• When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are
all in confederacy against him.
• The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to
keep his word.
On the Style of Jonathan Swift
In [Swift’s] works, he has given very different specimens both of sentiment and expression. His
“Tale of a Tub” has little resemblance to his other pieces. It exhibits a vehemence and rapidity of
mind, a copiousness of images, and vivacity of diction, such as he afterwards never possessed, or
never exerted. It is of a mode so distinct and peculiar, that it must be considered by itself; what is
true of that, is not true of any thing else which he has written.
In his other works is found an equable tenor of easy language, which rather trickles than flows.
His delight was in simplicity. That he has in his works no metaphor, as has been said, is not true;
but his few metaphors seem to be received rather by necessity than choice. He studied purity; and
though perhaps all his strictures are not exact, yet it is not often that solecisms can be found; and
whoever depends on his authority may generally conclude himself safe. His sentences are never
too much dilated or contracted; and it will not be easy to find any embarrassment in the complication
of his clauses, any inconsequence in his connections, or abruptness in his transitions.
His style was well suited to his thoughts, which are never subtilised by nice disquisitions, decorated
by sparkling conceits, elevated by ambitious sentences, or variegated by far-sought learning. He
pays no court to the passions; he excites neither surprise nor admiration; he always understands
himself, and his readers always understand him: the peruser of Swift wants little previous
knowledge; it will be sufficient that he is acquainted with common words and common things; he
is neither required to mount elevations nor to explore profundities; his passage is always on a
level, along solid ground, without asperities, without obstruction.
This easy and safe conveyance of meaning it was Swift’s desire to attain, and for having attained he
deserves praise, though perhaps not the highest praise. For purposes merely didactic, when something
is to be told that was not known before, it is the best mode, but against that inattention by which
known truths are suffered to lie neglected it makes no provision; it instructs, but does not persuade.
Self-Assessment
1. Fill in the blanks:
(i) Swift was born in ............... .
(ii) Stella was the nickname of Swift’s ............... .
(iii) Swift left Temple in ............... .

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