n the interpretation of conduct to which all
men have a right, and which he needs most who most widely transcends the
ordinary standards or most resolutely breaks with traditionary rules.
That so virile a character as Swift should have been attractive to women
is not wonderful, but we think Mr. Forster has gone far towards proving
that he was capable of winning the deep and lasting affection of men
also. Perhaps it may not always be safe to trust implicitly the fine
phrases of his correspondents; for there can be no doubt that Swift
inspired fear as well as love. Revengefulness is the great and hateful
blot on his character; his brooding temper turned slights into injuries,
gave substance to mere suspicion, and once in the morbid mood he was
utterly reckless of the means of vengeance. His most playful scratch had
poison in it. His eye was equally terrible for the weak point of friend
and foe. But giving this all the value it may deserve, the weight of the
evidence is in favor of his amiability. The testimony of a man so
sweet-natured and fair-minded as Dr. Delany ought to be conclusive, and
we do not wonder that Mr. Forster should lay great stress upon it. The
depreciatory conclusions of Dr. Johnson are doubtless entitled to
consideration; but his evidence is all from hearsay, and there were
properties in Swift that aroused in him so hearty a moral repulsion as
to disenable him for an unprejudiced opinion. Admirable as the
rough-and-ready conclusions of his robust understanding often are, he
was better fitted to reckon the quantity of a man's mind than the
quality of it--the real test of its value; and there is something almost
comically pathetic in the good faith with which he applies his
beer-measure to juices that could fairly plead their privilege to be
gauged by the wine standard. Mr. Forster's partiality qualifies him for
a fairer judgment of Swift than any which Johnson was capable of
forming, or, indeed, would have given himself the trouble to form.

But this partiality in a biographer, though to be allowed and even
commended as a quickener of insight, should not be strong enough to warp
his mind from its judicial level. While we think that Mr. Forster is
mainly right in his estimate of Swift's character, and altogether so in
insisting on trying him by documentary rather than hearsay evidence, it
is equally true that he is sometimes betrayed into overestimates, and
into positive statement, where favorable inferen