ly defends not only the
Protestant succession but also the ministry of Sir Robert
Walpole--which the numerous allusions to the "_Great Man_" and "the
greatest Man this Nation ever produced" (p. 15) confirm. Swift's mean
character of Flimnap, the Lilliputian Prime Minister, stung badly:
"With what Indignation must every one that has had the Honour to be
admitted to this _Great Man_, review the Doctor's charging him with
being morose" (p. 15). He counters Swift's insulting reduction of the
Great Man to a petty little man with an egregiously fulsome panegyric
that magnifies the virtues of Sir Robert's public and private
character, and concludes with abuse of Swift's character as an Irish
dean disaffected from the government--hence deserving of permanent
exile in Ireland.[1]

The author of the fiery _Letter_ focuses on Swift's impiety--pointing
to his wickedness, the sneering tone of his sacrilegious satire, his
indiscreet joking about religion, all of which Swift's enemies were
quick to emphasize as the outstanding features of _A Tale of a Tub_,
as well as portions of the _Travels_. For example, even Gay, in the
letter to Swift quoted above (17 November 1726) also noted that those
"who frequent the Church, say his [Gulliver's] design is impious, and
that it is an insult on Providence, by depreciating the works of the
Creator,"--a line of attack soon to be pursued by Edward Young, James
Beattie, and others who were not in the least charmed by Swift's
satire. But Swift's friends were not idle; for it was precisely this
bitter onslaught on Swift's religion in the _Letter_ that brought
another writer to the defense in the ironically entitled _Gulliver
Decypher'd: or Remarks on a Late Book, Intitled, Travels Into Several
Remote Nations of the World, Vindicating the Reverend Dean on Whom it
is Maliciously Father'd, With Some Conjectures Concerning the Real
Author_ (1726).[2]

This writer, probably John Arbuthnot, may be considered one of the
earliest defenders of the religious orthodoxy of the _Travels_. He
extracts passages from Swift's work, such as the Lilliputian quarrel
over breaking eggs, the satire on corrupt bishops, and the affirmation
of the principle of limited toleration for religious dissent in
Brobdingnag as evidences of his belief, presented ironically, that
"the Reverend Dean" could not possibly have fathered the work because
the author of the _Travels_ did not have religious ideals in mind. One
of the passage