ABSTRACT
In the artistic world, though churchman knew his own genius, he had few ambitions or vanities. He let some of his work lie unpublished for years; he published almost all of it anonymously; he was paid for almost none of it; and though determined that his writings should accomplish their immediate purpose, he cared little about their ultimate fate. In character Marcel Proust had little in common with Alexander Pope, but in temperament he had a great deal. But Proust lived in an age when that temperament received thoughtful handling, and was saved by other men's courtesy from excesses and malformations. To treat of Jonathan Swift is to grapple with a personality not only singular and great, but profoundly mystifying. He has been harshly attacked and fanatically defended; no man's history has been more closely scrutinized, and no man's reputation more at the mercy of conjecture. For several years Swift was kotowed to by the men who were ruling England.
