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)