Bicentenary of Jonathan Swift 1667–1745 (1945)

Abstract

The common touch is one of the most obvious things about Swift. He had a full and practical knowledge of the ordinary world. He knew how to cut a hedge, drain a ditch, manage a bog, sail a boat-and swim if anything went wrong. He could make and do all sorts of things, and he detested the lack of plain sense which makes many people so incapable-the pedantry, pretence and folly of the bungler. The job of literature, to him, was something straightforward and no mystery; it was just putting proper words in proper places. Good manners he holds to mean no more than being at our ease and putting others at theirs; the formalities are needless and useless, except in so far as reason dictates them. He loved to teach such a lesson practically. When a lady, awed by the occasion of having the Dean to dinner, made a great preliminary fuss about the inadequacy of her table, he took her at her word: ‘Nay, ma’am, since you have made no better preparation, I’ll e’en go home and eat a herring.’ Swift could be as downright in common sense as Johnson. When Sheridan, who had learnedly annotated Persius, left an obscure word unexplained, Swift’s remark was: ‘Where you are ignorant, you should confess you are ignorant.’But he certainly knew more about everyday things than Johnson, who was acute, but whose senses were dull; Swift would never have defined the pastern of a horse incorrectly.