ABSTRACT
A disturbing appeal of Swift’s work is his refusal to stratify virtue. He rarely associates poverty with high moral character, except as it eliminates some temptations to evil. He rarely associates greatness with goodness except when he compliments patrons or heroes on their lineage. The wide range of Swift’s friendships, from a Duke of Ormonde to the curate at Laracor, taught him how little a man’s piety or good will depends on his money or his name. Of course, youthful anglophilia sometimes disarmed Swift; and A Tale of a Tub shows how early he framed an ideal figure combining high social class, moral integrity, and intellectual distinction. But at home in Ireland, he was too close to the gentry and the aristocracy to be misled. If he liked some of them, it was not because he revered their status.
