ty in expressing
indebtedness to his helpers, but it is certain that his position as a
popular poet gave Scott the assistance of many people who would not have
been enlisted in the work by an ordinary editor. But Scott had the
difficult task of deciding whether the unauthenticated pieces were to be
assigned to Swift. The bibliography of Swift is still so uncertain that
it is impossible to say how many of the small pamphlets in verse and
prose added in this edition are really his work.[189] Scott had good
reason for his additions in most cases, though sometimes, as he was
aware, the Dean had merely revised the work of other people. The editor
was occasionally over-credulous in attributing pieces to Swift, but he
was perhaps oftener too generous in giving room to things which he knew
had very little claim to be considered Swift's work. When he was in
doubt he chose to err on the safe side, according to the principles set
forth in the following note on the _Letter from Dr. Tripe to Nestor
Ironside_: "The piece contains a satirical description of Steele's
person, and should the editor be mistaken in conjecturing that Swift
contributed to compose it, may nevertheless, at this distance of time,
merit preservation as a literary curiosity."[190] The ample space
afforded by the nineteen volumes of the book gives room to Arbuthnot's
_History of John Bull_--because it was "usually published in Swift's
works,"--to the verses addressed to the Dean and those written in memory
of him, as well as to the prose and verse miscellanies of Pope and
Swift, and the miscellanies and _jeux d'esprit_ of Swift and Sheridan.
Swift's correspondence fills the last four and a half volumes.

The biography, which occupies the first volume, is admirable in tone,
but the facts Scott gives are less to be relied upon than the inferences
and conclusions he derives from them. He corresponded with persons who
were in a position to know about Swift from his friends and
acquaintances, and probably he trusted too much to these "original
sources." We find, as perhaps the most noteworthy instance, that the
marriage to Stella is stated as an ascertained fact, on authority that
is not now considered convincing. Later biographers of Swift,--Sir Henry
Craik, Leslie Stephen, Mr. Churton Collins,--have borne witness to the
human interest of Scott's biography, and its preeminence, in spite of
inaccuracies, among all the Lives of Swift that have been written. But
Mr. Chur