An amusing piece which appeared also at this time from Swift's pen, is of literary interest. Under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff he predicted the death, upon a certain day, of Partridge, a notorious astrologer and almanac maker. When the day arrived his decease was announced, and he was afterwards decently buried by Swift, despite a loud protest from the poor man that he was not only alive, but well and hearty. The town took up the joke, all the wits joined in it, and Steele, who started the Tatler in the following year (1709), found it of advantage to assume the name of Bickerstaff, which these squibs had made so popular. Swift loved practical jokes, and sometimes yielded to a license that bordered on buffoonery. He was now in London, charged with a mission from the Irish Church, and hoping for Church preferment himself. With the latter object in view he published the Sentiments of a Church of England Man (1708). Two years later, vexed at heart at being unable to gain for the Irish clergy privileges enjoyed by their English brethren, and foiled, too, in his ambition, Swift forsook the Whig party, which he had never loved, and going over to the Tories, fought their battle for some years with so masterly a pen, as to become a great power in the country.
Some time before his return to London in 1710, a weekly Tory paper had been started by Bolingbroke and Prior called The Examiner, and in opposition to it, upon September 14th in that year, Addison produced the Whig Examiner which lived a brief life of five numbers and died on the 8th of October. Three weeks later, on the 2nd November, after thirteen numbers of the Examiner had been published, Swift took up the pen, and from that date to June 14th, 1711, every paper was from his hand. Never before had a political journal exercised such power. In his change of party Swift was sincere in purpose, but unscrupulous in his methods of pursuing it, and to gain his ends told lies with a vigour that has rarely been surpassed. He is never delicate in his treatment of opponents, and when finer weapons would be useless, strikes with a sledge hammer. That such a writer, a master of every method most effective in controversy, should have been valued by the statesmen of the day is not surprising. When he forsook the Whig camp there was no opponent to pit against him, for neither Addison with his delicate humour, nor Steele with his brightness and versatility, could grapple with an enemy like this.
Swift's arrogance in these days of his power was that of a despot. He was doing great things for ministers, and took care that they should know it. He was proud of his self-assertion, proud of being rude. Great men, and great ladies too, who wished for his acquaintance, had to make the first advances. He caused Lady Burlington to burst into tears by rudely ordering her to sing. 'She should sing or he would make her.' 'I was at court and church to-day,' he tells Stella, 'I generally am acquainted with about thirty in the drawing-room, and am so proud I make all the lords come up to me.' On one occasion he sent the Lord Treasurer into the House of Commons to call out the principal Secretary of State in order to say that he would not dine with him if he intended to dine late. He relates, too, how he warned St. John not to appear cold to him, for he would not be treated like a school-boy, and if he heard or saw anything to his disadvantage to let him know in plain words, and not to put him in pain by the change of his behaviour, for it was what he would hardly bear from a crowned head. 'If we let these great ministers pretend too much,' he says, 'there will be no governing them.' And in a letter to Pope he makes the following confession: 'All my endeavours from a boy to distinguish myself were only for want of a great title and fortune that I might be treated like a lord ... whether right or wrong it is no great matter; and so the reputation of great learning does the work of a blue ribbon, and of a coach and six horses.'
It would be out of place in this volume to dwell on Swift's feats as a political writer; for us the most interesting fact connected with the years 1710-14 is that during that eventful period of Swift's life, in which he was hobnobbing with Ministers of State and doing them infinite service by his pen, he was writing at odd moments his inimitable Journal to Stella, and gaining the love which ended so tragically, of Hester Vanhomrigh. This strange chapter in Swift's life is closely bound up with his literary history, and must therefore be briefly noticed.
At Moor Park Swift, who was more than twenty years her senior, had seen Esther Johnson growing up into womanhood. He had been to her as a master, a position he always liked to assume towards women.[45] When he settled in Ireland it was arranged that Esther and her companion, Mrs. Dingley, should also live there. Her preceptor, in his regard for propriety, appears never to have seen Esther apart from the useful Dingley, and his letters are apparently addressed to both of them, but Esther knew, as we know, that all the tenderness and affectionate humour they contain was meant for her alone. Swift never writes as a lover, but the kind of love he gave to 'Stella' sufficed to bind her to him for life. If there were moments when she wished to escape from his power, the wish was hopeless. Having once submitted to his fascination, she was held by it to the end. Hester Vanhomrigh, who was about ten years younger than Stella, felt the same spell, and having a far less restrained nature than Miss Johnson, gave free expression to the passion which devoured her. Between his two admirers, for such they were, Swift had a difficult course to steer. To Stella he was linked by strong ties of companionship, and to her, according to some authorities, he was secretly married. Whether this were the case or not she had the larger claims upon him, and if one of the twain had to be sacrificed, Vanessa must be the victim.
In Cadenus and Vanessa (1713) a poem which every student of Swift will read, the author strove to achieve an impossibility. His aim was to ignore the lover and to assume the character of a master to an intelligent and favourite pupil, or of a father to a daughter. His dignity and age, he says, forbade the thought of warmer feelings.
'But friendship in its greatest height,
A constant rational delight,
On Virtue's basis fixed to last
When love's allurements long are past,
Which gently warms but cannot burn,
He gladly offers in return;
His want of passion will redeem
With gratitude, respect, esteem;
With that devotion we bestow
When goddesses appear below.'
And this was Swift's method of dealing with a woman who confessed the 'inexpressible passion' she had for him, and that his 'dear image' was always before her eyes. 'Sometimes,' she wrote, 'you strike me with that prodigious awe, I tremble with fear; at other times a charming compassion shines through your countenance which moves my soul.' Swift had acted far more than indiscreetly in encouraging a friendship with Vanessa, and when she followed him to Dublin, in the neighbourhood of which she had some property, he knew not how to escape from the snare his own folly had laid. To Stella he had given 'friendship and esteem,' but, as he is careful to add, 'ne'er admitted love a guest;' the same cold gift was offered to Vanessa, but in vain. According to a report, the authority of which is doubtful, Miss Vanhomrigh wrote to Stella, in 1723, asking if she was Swift's wife. She replied that she was, and sent the letter she had received to Swift. In a towering passion he rode to Vanessa's house, threw the letter on the table, and left again without saying a word. The blow was fatal, and Vanessa died soon afterwards, revoking her will in Swift's favour and leaving to him the legacy of remorse. Having told in outline this episode in Swift's story, I return to the Journal to Stella, which dates from September 2nd, 1710, to June 6th, 1713.
Little did Swift imagine that the chit-chat he was writing every day for Esther Johnson's sake would be read and enjoyed by thousands who care little or nothing for the party questions upon which the strenuous efforts of his intellect were expended. The early years of the eighteenth century contain nothing more delightful than this Journal. Its gossip, its nonsense, its freshness and ease of style, the tenderness concealed, or half-revealed, in its 'little language,' and the illustrations it supplies incidentally of the manners of the court and town, these are some of the charms that make us turn again and again to its pages with ever-increasing pleasure. We enjoy Swift's egotism and trivialities, as we enjoy the egotism of Pepys or Montaigne, and can imagine the eagerness with which the Letters were read by the lovely woman whose destiny it was to receive everything from Swift save the love which has its consummation in marriage. The style of the Journal is not that of an author composing, but of a companion talking; and it is all the more interesting since it reveals Swift's character under a pleasanter aspect than any of his formal writings. We see in it what a warm heart he had for the friends whom he had once learnt to love, and with what zeal he exerted himself in assisting brother-authors, while receiving little beyond empty praise from ministers himself.
In the winter of 1713-14 Swift joined the Scriblerus Club, an association of such wits as Pope, Parnell, Arbuthnot, and Gay, and it was about this time that his friendship with Pope began. The members proposed writing a satire between them, and when Swift was exiled to Dublin as Dean of St. Patrick's, he pursued indirectly the suggestion of the Scriblerus wits by writing Gulliver's Travels (1726), a book that has made his name known throughout Europe, and in all the lands where English literature is read. Although Swift did not hesitate to make use of hints and descriptions which he had met with in the course of his reading, this is one of the most original works of fiction ever written, and one of the wittiest. Yet like almost everything that Swift wrote, it is deformed by grossness of expression, and in the latter portion by a malignant contempt for human nature which betrays a diseased imagination. The stories of the Lilliputians and Brobdingnags, purified from coarse allusions, are the delight of children; but the description of the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos excites disgust and indignation. He said that his object in writing the satire was to vex the world, and he has succeeded.