History of English Humour, Vol. 2

by A. G. K. L'Estrange

"Another advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity is the clear gain of one day in seven, which is now entirely lost, and consequently the kingdom one seventh less in trade, business, and pleasure; besides the loss to the public of so many stately structures, now in the hands of the clergy, which might be converted into play-houses, market-houses, exchanges, common dormitories, and other public edifices. I hope I shall be forgiven a hard word, if I call this a perfect cavil. I readily own there has been an old custom, time out of mind, for people to assemble in the churches every Sunday, and that shops are still frequently shut, in order, as it is conceived, to preserve the ancient practice, but how they can be a hindrance to business or pleasure it is hard to imagine. What if the men of pleasure are forced one day in the week to game at home instead of in the chocolate houses? Are not the taverns and coffee-houses open? Is not that the chief day for traders to sum up the accounts of the week, and for lawyers to prepare their briefs.... But I would fain know how it can be contended that the churches are misapplied? Where more care to appear in the foremost box with greater advantage of dress. Where more meetings for business, where more bargains are driven, and where so many conveniences and enticements to sleep?"

"I am very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and pleasure are apt to murmur, and be choked at the sight of so many draggle-tailed parsons, who happen to fall in their way and offend their eyes; but at the same time, these wise reformers do not consider what an advantage and felicity it is for great wits to be always provided with objects of scorn and contempt, in order to exercise and improve their talents, and divert their spleen from falling on each other, or on themselves; especially, when all this may be done without the least imaginable danger to their persons."

"And to add another argument of a parallel nature—if Christianity were once abolished, how could the free-thinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning be able to find another subject so calculated in all points, whereon to display their abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived of, from those whose genius, by continual practice, has been wholly turned upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would, therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themselves upon any other subject! We are daily complaining of the great decline of Wit among us, and would we take away the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have left? Who would ever have suspected Asgil for a wit, and Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible supply of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with materials? What other subject through all Art and Nature could have produced Tindal for a profound author, and furnished him with readers? It is the wise choice of the subject, which alone adorns and distinguishes the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been employed on the side of religion, they would have sunk into silence and oblivion."

Pope claims to have shadowed forth such a work as Gulliver's Travels in the Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus; but Swift, no doubt, took the idea from Lucian's "True History." He was also indebted to Philostratus, who speaks of an army of pigmies attacking Hercules. Something may also have been gathered from Defoe's minuteness of detail; and he made use of all these with a master-hand to improve and increase the fertile resources of his own mind. Swift produced the work, by which he will always survive, and be young. In the voyage to Lilliput he depreciates the court and ministers of George I., by comparing them to something insignificantly small: in the voyage to Brobdingnag by likening them to something grand and noble. But the immortality of the work owes nothing to such considerations but everything to humour and fancy, especially to the general satire upon human vanity. "The Emperor of Lilliput is taller by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his Court, which alone is enough to strike awe into beholders."

In the Honyhuhums, the human race is compared to the Yahoos, and placed in a loathsome and ridiculous light. They are represented as most irrational creatures, frequently engaged in wars or acrimonious disputes as to whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh, whether it be better to kiss a post or throw it into the fire, and what is the best colour of a coat!—referring to religious disputes between Catholics and Protestants. He says, that among the Yahoos, "It is a very justifiable cause of war to invade the country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves." With regard to internal matters, "there is a society of men among us, bred up from youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. In this society all the rest of the people are slaves."

Swift's humour, as has been already intimated, by no means confined itself to being a mere vehicle of instruction. It luxuriated in a hundred forms, and on every passing subject. He wrote verses for great women, and for those who sold oysters and herrings, as well as apples and oranges. The flying leaves, so common at that time, contained a great variety of squibs and parodies written by him. Here, for instance is a travesty of Ambrose Philips' address to Miss Carteret—

"Happiest of the spaniel race
Painter, with thy colours grace,
Draw his forehead large and high,
Draw his blue and humid eye,
Draw his neck, so smooth and round,
Little neck, with ribbons bound,
And the spreading even back,
Soft and sleek, and glossy black,
And the tail that gently twines
Like the tendrils of the vines,
And the silky twisted hair
Shadowing thick the velvet ear,
Velvet ears, which hanging low
O'er the veiny temples flow ..."

He could scarcely stay at an inn without scratching something humorous on the window pane. At the Four Crosses in the Wading Street Road, Warwickshire, he wrote—

"Fool to put up four crosses at your door
Put up your wife—she's crosser than all four."

On another, he deprecated this scribbling on windows, which, it seems, was becoming too general—