ton Collins thinks Scott did not present a really clear view of
Swift's mysterious character, and Craik says he took only the
conventional attitude towards Swift's politics, misanthropy, and
religion. The charge indicates Scott's weakness, and perhaps also much
of his strength, as a biographer and critic, for he had no prejudice
against the conventional as such, and was never anxious to exhibit
special "insight" of any kind. Yet I think his portrayal of Swift has
seemed to most readers a clear presentation of a real and comprehensible
character.[191]

Scott's remark when he undertook the work, that Swift was of his early
favorites,[192] seems surprising when one remembers how his genial
nature recoiled from misanthropy and cynicism; but his treatment of the
Dean was so sympathetic that Jeffrey thought him decidedly too lenient,
and was moved to express righteous indignation in the pages of the
_Edinburgh Review_.[193] The rebuke was unnecessary, for Scott did not
omit to record Swift's failings and to express wholesomely vigorous
opinions concerning them, though he felt that they ought to be looked
upon as evidences of disease rather than of guilt. He felt also, with
perhaps some excess of charity but surely not such as could be in the
least harmful, that "if the Dean's principles were misanthropical, his
practice was benevolent. Few have written so much with so little view
either to fame or to profit, or to aught but benefit to the
public."[194] Jeffrey's condemnation of Scott's point of view was
mingled with just praise. He said of the biography: "It is quite fair
and moderate in politics; and perhaps rather too indulgent and tender
towards individuals of all descriptions,--more full, at least, of
kindness and veneration for genius and social virtue, than of
indignation at baseness and profligacy. Altogether it is not much like
the production of a mere man of letters, or a fastidious speculator in
sentiment and morality; but exhibits throughout, and in a very pleasing
form, the good sense and large toleration of a man of the world."

The very practical motives that inspired most of Swift's pamphlets would
naturally attract Scott. Probably it was the remembrance of the
_Drapier's Letters_ that suggested to him a similar form of protest
against proposed changes in the Scottish currency; certainly the
_Letters of Malachi Malagrowther_ had an effect comparable to that of
Swift's more consummately ingenious appeal. Anothe