correspondence, is the impression of a character which there is no mistaking. And it is not among philosophers, poets, and men of letters that we are to look for its analogy, but among those who have made and unmade nations-among men like Cæsar and men like Napoleon. What figure in that eighteenth century of time is not dwarfed beside this Momus-Prometheus? He was in temper all that Pindar symbolises in Typhon, and all that revolts Plato in the inharmonious and unmusical soul. And so, while his writings bear the impress of powers such as have rarely been conceded to man, they reflect and return with repulsive fidelity the ugliness and discord of the Titanism which inspired them. With out reverence and without reticence, he gloried in the licence which to the Greeks constituted the last offence against good taste and good sense, and out of the indulgence in which they have coined a synonym of shamelessness-the indiscriminate expression of what ought and what ought not to be said.-COLLINS, JOHN CHURTON, 1893, Jonathan Swift, pp. 255, 266, 267. There are few figures in history, and still fewer in literature, which have occupied so great a place in the world's attention, or which retain so strong a hold upon its interests, as that of Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's.-OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W., 1893, The Author of "Gulliver," The Century, vol. 24, p. 401. It may well be doubted whether in absolute command over language, any English prose author has ever equalled Swift. His style defies description or classification. It lends itself less than any, to imitation or to parody. It varies according to every mood. Its lucid simplicity is so perfect that its phrases once read, seemed to be only the natural utterances of careless thought, produced effort and without art. Its very neglect of rule, and its frequent defiance of grammatical regularity, help to give to it force and directness. But such a style refuses to transmit the secret of its power, and must needs remain unique and solitary in its kind.-CRAIK, HENRY, 1894, English Prose, Introduction, vol. III, p. 6. He was a misanthrope, with deep, though very limited affections, a man frugal to eccentricity, with a benevolence at once active and extensive. His powerful intellect compels our admiration, if not our sympathy. His irony, his genius for satire and humour, his argumentative skill, his language, which is never wanting in strength, and is as clear as the most pellucid of mountain streams-these gifts are of so rare an order, that Swift's place in the literary history of his age must be always one of high eminence. Doubtless, as a master of style, he has been sometimes overpraised. If we regard the writer's end, it must be admitted that his language is admirably fitted for that end. What more then, it may be asked, can be needed? The reply is, that in composition, as in other things, there are different orders of excellence. The kind, although perfect, may be a low kind, and Swift's style wants the "sweetness and light," to quote a phrase of his own, which distinguish our greatest prose writers. It lacks also the elevation which inspires, and the persuasiveness that convinces while it charms. With infinitely more vigour than Addison, Swift, apart from his Letters, has none of Addison's attractiveness. No style, perhaps, is better fitted to exhibit scorn and contempt; but its author cannot express, because he does not possess, the sense of beauty.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 174. No fouler pen than Swift's has soiled our literature. our literature. His language is horrible from first to last. He is full of odious images, of base and abominable allusions. It would be a labour of Hercules to cleanse his pages. His love-letters are defaced by his incurable coarseness. This habit of his is so inveterate that it seems a miracle he kept his sermons free from his blackguard phrases. It is a question not of morality, but of decency, whether it is becoming to sit in the same room with the works of this divine. How the good Sir Walter ever managed to see him through the press is amazing. are, we know, those in whose nature there is too much of the milk of human kindness to enable them to enjoy Swift when he shows his teeth; but however this may be, we confess, if we are to read at all, we must prefer Swift's "Beasts' Confession" to all the sixty-five fables of Gay put together.-BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE, 1894, Essays about Men, Women and Books, pp. 2, 118. There Swift's irony, unsurpassable as it is, is cruel to excess, and has little that is Irish about it. O'DONOGHUE, D. J., 1894, ed., The Humour of Ireland, Introduction, p. xvii. The unity of Swift's paragraphs is usually all that could be desired. Now and then, however, a paragraph will be so long as to obliterate, apparently, any sign of topic. These rare paragraphs are almost inexplicable when compared with his usual sections. Professor Cesare Lombroso would, I fear, find the eccentricity of madness in them, as he did in the inversions of the Dean's conversation. Swift's command of proportion by paragraph punctuation is small. It is noticeable that the proportion of very short sentences (sentences under 15 words) is not large-6.3 per cent. in the "Tale of a Tub," 6.4 per cent. in "Gulliver." The average of the sentence is constant, in works separated even by 28 years: the three books mentioned show a variation of less than a whole word in sentence average, though the paragraph-averages of different books differ enormously. The superb coherence and emphasis of Swift's style are due largely to the straightforward, logical order of the thought, and the skilful placing of important words at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Swift is the first author to show in the paragraph much of what Wendell calls Mass. His sentences often fall at the close like taps of a steam-hammer, and sometimes the taps seem concentrated in one great blow at the end of the paragraph.-LEWIS, EDWIN HERBERT, 1894, The History of the English Paragraph, p. 109. Swift lacked diplomacy. When matters did not seem to progress he grew wrathful, seized his pen and stabbed with it. But as he wrote, the ludicrousness of the whole situation came over him and instead of cursing plain curses, he held his adversary up to ridicule. And this ridicule is so active, the scorn so mixed with wit, the shafts so finely feathered with truth, that it is the admiration of mankind. Vitriol mixed with ink is volatile. Then what? We just run Swift through a coarse sieve to take out the lumps of seventeen century refuse and then we give him to children to make them laugh. Surely no better use can be made of pessimists.-HUBBARD, ELBERT, 1895, Little Journeys, p. 147. It is, indeed, a long and not a very easy inquiry to determine the exact sources of the peculiar charmed sway which he exercises over the best minds; but they may be generally indicated as the combination in him of the wildest and most playful comedy with the sternest tragedy; of a grasp and comprehension of human folly, weakness, baseness, madness, which man has ever excelled; of an unobtrusive but astonishingly perfect prose style suitable alike for argument, for narrative, for exposition, for invective, for light conversation and talk, and of a most strangely blended character.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1896, Social England, ed. Traill, vol. v, p. 79. no Was the keenest of political partisans, for his fierce and earnest personality made everything he did impassioned. But he was far more than a partisan. He was the most original prose writer of his time the man of genius among many men of talent.-BROOKE, STOPFORD A., 1896, English Literature, p. 188. While it is undeniable that Swift's humour is generally devoid of any touch of sympathy, there is no author of whom it can be more confidently said that he never obtrudes his art. He could easily sustain his style for any time at the same pitch, he could always closely accommodate his manner to his matter, and he could convey his ideas clearly and forcibly without distracting the reader's attention to the excellence of their vehicle of expression. Yet, great as were his powers of shrewd penetration into character, Swift wanted the lighter graces necessary to the essayist. He loved to wage war on man rather than to instruct him, and used wit not to "enliven morality" but to increase the venom of his sting. The Laputans were attended by flappers who awaked them from their day-dreams by gently striking them with a bladder. As contrasted with Swift's method, the methods of Steele and Addison are equally gentle, and yet, as an instrument of social and literary reform the laugh of Steele or the raillery of Addison was far more potent than the loaded bludgeon of Swift.-LOBBAN, J. H., 1896, English Essays, Introduction, p. xxxv. Swift was a bundle of paradoxes-a great churchman who has left not a trace on our ecclesiastical system, an ardent politician who was never more than a fly on the wheel. He is immortal on the one side on which he believes his genius ephemeral ; he survives solely, but splendidly, as a man of letters. Swift is the typical instance of the powerlessness of pure intellect to secure any but intellectual triumphs. But even the victories of his brain were tainted; his genius left a taste of brass on his own palate. With no apprenticeship in style, no relation of discipleship to any previous French or English writer, but steeped in the Latin classics, he produced, at the age of thirty, two of the most extraordinary masterpieces of humour and satire which were ever written, the “Tale of a Tub" and the "Battle of the Books." -GOSSE, EDMUND, 1897, A Short History of Modern English Literature, pp. 220, 221. Swift is perhaps the one supreme example of the pamphleteer, and his pamphlets satisfy the characteristic requirements of the form, as the earlier tracts of a time when prose moved less easily could not do.-RHYS, ERNEST, 1897, Literary Pamphlets, Introduction, vol. I, p. x. In spite of his failure to realise many of the Christian virtues, Swift's churchmanship amounted to a genuine passion, without being, as his biographer tells us, "either intolerant or tantivy." His Argument against the abolishing of Christianity brings us face to face with the Deistic movement, which, though it died out before the middle of the century, yet had a curiously lasting effect upon religion in England by virtue of the utilitarian spirit which it helped to engender among the leading Christian apologists, of which spirit Swift's humorous Argument might almost seem to be a deliberate parody.— DEARMER, PERCY, 1898, ed., Religious Pamphlets, Introduction, p. 37. Swift, indeed, cannot be imitated. It would be as hopeful to imitate Pindar. His humour is profound; but it is savage, unholy, and unclean. His style is clear, racy, and powerful; but it offers no points for the aspiring essayist. Its perfection is, if not uninteresting, at least uninstructive.-PAUL, HERBERT, 1899, The Great Tractarian, The Nineteenth Century, vol. 45, p. 456. Here is a temper cynical, bitter, often almost revolting; yet here again is a most astonishing power in the man to utter himself, and so a style which, with worldwide differences from Addison's, is equally admirable. It is a naked, brawny, almost brutally frank English; but it is Jonathan Swift speaking right on. The ultimate rank of Swift's writings must be measured principally by the permanent value of his truth and the permanent power of his emotion; but his style could hardly be better.-WINCHESTER, C. T., 1899, Some Principles of Literary Criticism, p. 197. William Broome 1689-1745. William Broome had been educated at Eaton as a foundation scholar, and at Cambridge by the subscription of friends, and was Vicar of Sturston in Suffolk. He had a turn for verse, and, with repute as a Greek scholar, had begun his literary life by taking part in a prose translation of the "Iliad." Introduced to Pope at Sir John Cotton's, in Cambridgeshire, Broome pleased the poet, and was employed in selecting extracts for notes to the "Iliad." Upon the "Odyssey" Broome was a chief helper. He translated eight books, the second, sixth, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-third, and compiled all the notes. Broome published a volume of "Miscellaneous Poems" in 1727, married a rich widow, and became LL. D. at the beginning of the reign of George II. He had several good preferments, and died in 1745.-MORLEY, HENRY, 1879 A Manual of English Literature, ed. Tyler, p. 540. PERSONAL A clergyman who held several livings and married a rich widow. Unfortunately his independence did not restrain him from writing poetry, for which want of means would have been the only sufficient excuse.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1880, Alexander Pope (English Men of Letters), p. 77. GENERAL The Parrots are they that repeat another's words, in such a hoarse odd voice, as makes them seem their own. POPE, ALEXANDER, 1727, Treatise on the Bathos, ch. vi. Of Broome, though it cannot be said that he was a great poet, it would be unjust to deny that he was an excellent versifier; his lines are smooth and smooth and sonorous, and his diction is select and elegant.-JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779-81, Broome, Lives of the English Poets. Broome was a smooth versifier, without a spark of originality. His style was founded upon Pope's so closely that some of what he thought were his original pieces are mere centos of Pope. He was therefore able, like Fenton, but even to a greater extent, to reproduce the style of Pope with marvellous exactitude in translating the "Odyssey." . . . His His early rudeness of manner gave way to a style of almost obsequious suavity, and his letters, though ingenious and graceful, do not give an impression of sincerity. Of his own poems not one has remained in the memory of the most industrious reader, and he owes the survival of his name entirely to his collaboration with Pope.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. VI, p. 442. He possessed no spark of genius, but was an admirable imitator of other men's style. COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN, 1889, The Life of Alexander Pope, Works, eds. Elwin and Courthope, vol. v, p. 197. Thomas Southerne 1660-1746. Thomas Southerne, or Southern, b. at Oxmanton, co. of Dublin, 1660; was admitted a student at Trinity College, Dublin, 1676; entered the Middle Temple, London, 1678, but cultivated dramatic literature in preference to law, and became a popular writer of plays; served a short time in the army, where he attained the rank of captain, and after his retirement continued his literary pursuits,-which were successful both in point of profit (by one play he cleared £700) and as an introduction to the best company (Dryden, Pope, Gray, &c.) of his day. He is said to have died "the oldest and the richest of his dramatic brethren. This would make him neither a Methuselah nor a Croesus. He died May 26, 1746, in his 86th year. A collection of his plays was published Lon., 1713, 2 vols. 12mo; again, 1721, 2 vols. 12mo; and a better one, under the following title, "Plays written by Thomas Southern, Esq., now first collected, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author," 1774, 3 vols. 12mo.-ALLIBONE, S. AUSTIN, 1870, A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, vol. II, p. 2181. PERSONAL An Author of whom I can give no further Account, than that he has two Plays in print.-LANGBAINE, GERARD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 489. We have old Mr. Southern, at a Gentleman's house a little way off, who often comes to see us; he is now seventy-seven years old, and has almost wholly lost his memory; but is as agreeable as an old man can be, at least, I persuade myself so when I look at him, and think of Isabella and Oroonoko.-GRAY, THOMAS, 1737, Letter to Horace Walpole, Letters, vol. I, p.8. Resign'd to live, prepar'd to die, With not one sin, but poetry, This day Tom's fair account has run (Without a blot) to eighty-one. Kind Boyle, before his poet, lays A table, with a cloth of bays; Mr. Southern died on the 26th of May, in the year 1746, in the 86th year of his age; the latter part of which he spent in a peaceful serenity, having by He his commission as a soldier, and the profits of his dramatic works, acquired a handsome fortune; and being an exact œconomist, he improved what fortune he gained, to the best advantage: enjoyed the longest life of all our poets, and died the richest of them, a very few excepted. CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 330. I remember him a grave and reserved old gentleman. He lived near Covent Garden, and used to frequent the evening prayers there [at St. Paul's Church], always neat and decently dressed, commonly in black, with his silver sword and silver locks; but latterly he seemed to reside in Westminster.-OLDYS, WILLIAM, c1761, MS. Notes to Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatick Poets. One of those dramatic writers who, without much genius, succeeded in obtaining a considerable name, and justly, by dint of genuine feeling for common nature. He began in Dryden's time, who knew and respected his talents, was known and respected by Pope, and lived to enjoy a similar regard from Gray.-HUNT, LEIGH, 1848, The Town, p. 329. He was a perfect gentleman; he did not lounge away his days or nights in coffee-houses or taverns, but after labor cultivated friendship in home circles, where virtue and modest mirth sat at the hearth. . . He kept the even tenor of his way, owing no man anything; never allowing his nights to be the marrer of his mornings; and at six-and-eighty carrying a bright eye, a steady hand, a clear head, and a warm heart wherewith to calmly meet and make surrender of all to the Inevitable Angel.-DORAN, JOHN, 1863, Annals of the English Stage, vol. I. GENERAL In this ["Oroonoko"] piece Mr. Southern has touched the tender passions with so much skill, that it will perhaps be injurious to his memory to say of him, that he is second to Otway. Besides the tender and delicate strokes of passion, there are many shining and manly sentiments in "Oroonoko;" and one of the greatest genius's of the present age, has often observed, that in the most celebrated play of Shakespear, so many striking thoughts, and such a glow of animated poetry cannot be furnished. This play is so often acted, and admired, that any illustration of its beauties here, would be entirely superfluous.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. v, p. 330. The repulsive qualities of some of those characters, joined to the little which has been allotted for the heroine to perform, have been obstacles to the attraction of this ["Oroonoko"] drama, and it is seldom acted. Yet, some years past, Mr. Pope, in his very first appearance upon any stage, encountered, and triumphantly overcame, all impediments to the favourable reception of "Oroonoko;" and made the play so impressive, by his talents in the representation of that character, that for many nights it drew to the theatre a crowded audience. . If any defect can be attributed to Southern in the tragic fable, either of this play or of "Isabella," it is, that in the one, his first male character wants importance, and in the other, his principal female. Still, in both plays, he makes his tale, a tale of wo, though only a single personage becomes the object of deep concern.INCHBALD, MRS. ELIZABETH, 1806-9, The British Theatre. Southern's "Fatal Discovery," latterly represented under the name of "Isabella," is almost as familiar to the lovers of our theatre as "Venice Preserved" itself; and for the same reason,-that, whenever an actress of great tragic powers arises, the part of Isabella is as fitted to exhibit them as that of Belvidera. The choice and conduct of the story are, however, Southern's chief merits; for there is little vigor in the language, though it is natural, and free from the usual faults of his age. A similar character may be given to his other tragedy, "Oroonoko;" in which Southern deserves the praise of having, first of any English writer, denounced the traffic in slaves, and the cruelties of their West-Indian bondage. The moral feeling is high in this tragedy, and it has sometimes been acted with a certain success; but the execution is not that of a superior dramatist. HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iv, chap. vi, par. 46. There is not a little of nature and pathos in Southerne.-SPALDING, WILLIAM, 1852-82, A History of English Literature, p. 298. |