haracter
already famous as well as formed." Not to speak of the confusion of
moods and tenses, the phrase "to form a character" has been so long
appropriated to another meaning than that which it has here, that the
sense of the passage vacillates unpleasantly. He tells us that Swift was
"under engagement to Will Frankland to christen _the baby his wife is
near bringing to bed_." Parthenogenesis is a simple matter to this. And
why _Will_ Frankland, _Joe_ Beaumont, and the like? We cannot claim so
much intimacy with them as Swift, and the eighteenth century might be
allowed to stand a little on its dignity. If Mr. Forster had been
quoting the journal to Stella, there would be nothing to say except that
Swift took liberties with his friends in writing to her which he would
not have ventured on before strangers. In the same odd jargon, which the
English journals are fond of calling American, Mr. Forster says that
"Tom [Leigh] was not _popular_ with Swift." Mr. Forster is not only no
model for contemporary English, but (what is more serious) sometimes
mistakes the meaning of words in Swift's day, as when he explains that
"strongly engaged" meant "interceded with or pressed." It meant much
more than that, as could easily be shown from the writings of Swift
himself.

All the earlier biographers of Swift Mr. Forster brushes contemptuously
aside, though we do not find much that is important in his own biography
which industry may not hit upon somewhere or other in the confused
narrative of Sheridan, for whom and for his sources of information he
shows a somewhat unjust contempt. He goes so far as sometimes to
discredit anecdotes so thoroughly characteristic of Swift that he cannot
resist copying them himself. He labors at needless length the question
of Swift's standing in college, and seems to prove that it was not
contemptible, though there can be no doubt that the contrary opinion was
founded on Swift's own assertion, often repeated. We say he seems to
prove it, for we are by no means satisfied which of the two Swifts on
the college list, of which a facsimile is given, is the future Dean. Mr.
Forster assumes that the names are ranked in the order of seniority, but
they are more likely to have been arranged alphabetically, in which case
Jonathan would have preceded Thomas, and at best there is little to
choose between three _mediocriters_ and one _male_, one _bene_, and one
_negligenter_. The document, whatever we may think of