r, he never made the pitiful mistake of his
shallow friend Gay that life was a jest. To his nobler temper it was
always profoundly tragic, and the salt of his sarcasm was more often, we
suspect, than with most humorists distilled out of tears. The lesson is
worth remembering that _his_ apples of Sodom, like those of lesser men,
were plucked from boughs of his own grafting.

But there are palliations for him, even if the world were not too ready
to forgive a man everything if he will only be a genius. Sir Robert
Walpole used to say "that it was fortunate so few men could be prime
ministers, as it was best that few should thoroughly know the shocking
wickedness of mankind." Swift, from his peculiar relation to two
successive ministries, was in a position to know all that they knew, and
perhaps, as a recognized place-broker, even more than they knew, of the
selfish servility of men. He had seen the men who figure so imposingly
in the stage-processions of history too nearly. He knew the real Jacks
and Toms as they were over a pot of ale after the scenic illusion was
done with. He saw the destinies of a kingdom controlled by men far less
able than himself; the highest of arts, that of politics, degraded to a
trade in places, and the noblest opportunity, that of office, abused for
purposes of private gain. His disenchantment began early, probably in
his intimacy with Sir William Temple, in whom (though he says that all
that was good and great died with him) he must have seen the weak side
of solemn priggery and the pretension that made a mystery of statecraft.
In his twenty-second year he writes:

Off fly the vizards and discover all:
How plain I see through the deceit!
How shallow and how gross the cheat!
* * * * *
On what poor engines move
The thoughts of monarchs and designs of states!
What petty motives rule their fates!

I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools! go, go, you're bit!

Mr. Forster's own style (simpler now than when he was under the
immediate influence of Dickens, if more slipshod than when repressed by
Landor) is not in essentials better or worse than usual. It is not
always clear nor always idiomatic. On page 120 he tells us that "Scott
did not care to enquire if it was likely that stories of the kind
referred to should have contributed to form a character, or if it were
not likelier still that they had grown and settled round a c