which could not be satisfied by work alone. With this lighter side of Swift's nature are to be connected the works by which he is chiefly known, his satires-The Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels.

"The Partridge Predictions"; Swift's Literary Method. Once, indeed, this love of a practical joke was directly responsible for some of Swift's most characteristic writing. A certain Partridge was in the habit of issuing an almanac, with predictions of events to fall out in the next year. This impostor Swift exposed in a set of "Predictions for the year 1708," one of which was the death of Partridge himself, who, according to the prophecy, should "infallibly die upon the 29th of March, about eleven at night, of a raging fever." This pamphlet was published over the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. On the 30th of March, Swift published a letter supposed to be written by a revenue officer to a certain nobleman, giving an account of Partridge's last days and death. He also wrote "An Elegy of Mr. Partridge." Of course, Partridge hastened in triumph to assure the world that he was not dead; but Swift promptly came back with "A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff," in which, after rebuking Partridge for his impudence, he proved by various logical demonstrations that Partridge certainly died "within half an hour of the time foretold."

This skit is broadly characteristic of the whole spirit and method of Swift's work, in that it exposes a sham or an evil by setting up a more monstrous imposition against it, and defends the latter with ironical seriousness; the whole being permeated so thoroughly by contemptuous fooling that one hesitates to say whether it may or may not have been written with a certain amount of reforming zeal. In Swift's works generally there is this double aspect of carnestness and play. In the "Modest Proposal, for Preventing the Children of the Poor in Ireland from being Burdensome," the terrible suffering of the Irish is revealed in the mocking suggestion that the poor should devote themselves to rearing children to be killed and eaten. The Tale of a Tub represents the three leading sects of Christians in the story of three stupid brethren, Peter, Martin, and John, and their quarrels as

to how they shall wear the coats left them by their father. Gulliver's Travels is, in form, a romance of marvellous adventures, yet it is full of satire against all mankind.

"Gulliver's Travels."-Gulliver is shipwrecked first at Lilliput, where the inhabitants are six inches high-except their emperor, "taller by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders." Here the satire consists in showing human motives at work on a small scale, and in suggesting, by the likeness of the Lilliputians to ourselves, the littleness of human affairs. The arts by which the officers of the government keep their places, such as cutting capers on a tight-rope for the entertainment of the emperor, remind us of the quality of statesmanship both in Swift's day and in our own; the dispute over the question at which end an egg should properly be broken, that plunged Lilliput into civil war, is a comment on the triviality of party divisions in the greater world. Gulliver's next voyage, to Brobdingnag, brings him to a people as large in comparison with man as the Lilliputians are small. Once more his adventures are a tale of wonder, behind which lurks Swift's contempt for humanity. Gulliver tells the giant beings by whom he is surrounded, and in comparison with whom he is a mere manikin, of the world from which he has come. Among other things, he tells of the invention of gunpowder, and the use of instruments of warfare. "The king was struck with horror at the description I had given of those terrible engines. He was amazed how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I (these were his expressions) could entertain such inhuman ideas." Finally, after a third voyage to Laputa and other curious places, Gulliver makes his fourth journey, to the land of the Houyhnhnms, where horses are the rulers and masters, and where the human animal is in a state of servitude and degradation. Here again Gulliver relates to his incredulous hosts the follies and cruelties of men. But the fiercest satire

is in the picture of the Yahoo, the human beast, in which the worst of man is once for all told.

Swift as a Moralist. It is interesting to compare the sketches of imaginary kingdoms in Gulliver's Travels with

the picture of society in Utopia. While More constructs an ideal commonwealth, and commits himself heartily to its exposition and defence, Swift occupies himself entirely with railing at the follies and frailties of humanity. Even the Houyhnhnms, who are as intelligent as the Utopians, and conduct their lives as reasonably, lead an existence so devoid of charm that we wonder whether, in picturing it, Swift was not satirizing the ideals of men, as keenly as in the Yahoos he scores the realities. In other words, we miss entirely the enthusiastic confidence in the future of mankind which marked the early Renaissance. Swift's criticism is wholly destructive. He sees the evils and follies of men, but he has no hope that they will outgrow them. Indeed, in his wavering between jest and earnest, it seems as if he never felt quite sure that the world was worth his zeal, as if he were always a trifle ashamed to declare himself a reformer. Yet it would be useless to deny that in Swift's ironical playfulness there is something awakening. The fact that we are never quite sure of his aim keeps us on the watch lest he take us by surprise; his clever artifice calls for an answering alertness in his readers. And even in Swift's downright pessimism there is a certain wholesome stimulus, perhaps because it is a change from the conventional light in which we are taught to look at the world. Even his coarseness contains something of vigorous challenge that forces us to prove everything, and to call things by their true names.

III. JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719), AND SIR RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729)

The Early Periodicals. The practical tendency of eighteenth century literature, its direct concern with existing affairs, is shown by the development of the various forms of the periodical, from the newspaper to the magazine. The first English newspaper was Butter's Weekly Newes from Italy and Germanie, which appeared in 1622. Later the periodical form was used for political purposes. Swift conducted a paper in the Tory interest known as the Examiner, and the Whigs replied with the Whig Examiner. The lighter

side of journalism which lies between news and politics was not adequately represented, until, in 1709, there appeared a periodical of which the object was to "observe upon the pleasurable as well as the busy part of mankind." This was The Tatler, founded by Richard Steele, who was soon joined in the enterprise by his friend, Joseph Addison.

"The Tatler."-The Taller appeared three times a week. Each number consisted of several letters dated from the different coffee-houses of London; those from the Saint James being devoted to foreign and domestic affairs, those from Will's, to poetry and the drama, those from White's to "gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment." There were also papers dated "From my own apartment," which dealt with miscellaneous topics, personal or social. It was in these last that the authors carried out most fully the object which they set before themselves, "to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behavior." Although The Tatler appealed to the public without distinction of party, it was colored by Steele's Whig views. Accordingly, when the authors wished to avoid politics altogether, they abandoned The Tatler, replacing it by The Spectator (1711), in which Addison took the chief part.

Addison's Life. Joseph Addison was born in 1672, at Milston. He was educated at the Charterhouse School, London, where his friendship with Richard Steele began, and at Christ Church College, Oxford. At Oxford he first attracted notice by a Latin poem on the Treaty of Ryswick, receiving for it a pension of three hundred pounds a year, which enabled him to travel abroad. After his return, the Whigs needed a poet to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim, and the commission fell to Addison. His poem, "The Campaign," gained for its author various honors and preferments. He was made Under Secretary of State, Member of Parliament, editor of various Whig journals, and later Secretary for Ireland. Indeed, Addison's career affords the best example of the high rewards which the service of party offered in the