hit-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 indignatio