Jonathan Swift Biography

Jonathan Swift 1667 - 1745
From birth Swift was dependent upon an uncle for his education as his father had died before his birth and his mother had deserted him. He was sent to Kilkenny School and then to Trinity College, Dublin, where he managed, despite

his rebellious behavior, to obtain a degree. In 1689 he became secretary to Sir William Temple at Moor Park, Surrey, where he formed his lifelong attachment to Esther Johnson, the "Stella" of his famous journal. Swift returned to Ireland, where he was ordained a Church of Ireland (Anglican) priest. Unable to make a success in Ireland, Swift returned to England the following year, remaining with Temple until his death in 1699. During this time he wrote "The Battle of the Books", where he defended Temple’s assertion that the ancients were superior to the moderns in literature and learning, and "A Tale of a Tub", a satire on religious excesses. These works were not published until 1704. Again disappointment with his advancement sent him back to Ireland, where he was given the living of Laracor.

He became friendly with Addison and Steele and active in Whig politics during his visits to London. He lost sympathy with the Whigs, when that party showed its unfriendliness to the Anglican Church. In 1708 he began a number of pamphlets on ecclesiastical issues with his very strange "Argument against Abolishing Christianity". He became a member of the Tories in 1710, edited the Tory Examiner for a year, and wrote several political pamphlets, most notably "The Conduct of the Allies" (1711), "Remarks on the Barrier Treaty" (1712), and "The Public Spirit of the Whigs" (1714), in reply to Steele’s Crisis.

Later Life and Works

In 1713 Swift joined Pope, Arbuthnot, Gay, and others in the formation of the celebrated Scriblerus Club. Around this time Swift became involved with another woman, Esther Vanhomrigh, the "Vanessa" of his poem Cadenus and Vanessa. The intensity of his relationship with her, as with Stella, is questionable, but Vanessa died a few weeks after his final break with her in 1723. Swift became a national hero in Ireland with his "Drapier Letters" (1724) and his satirical pamphlet "A Modest Proposal" (1729), which propounds that the children of the poor be sold as food for the tables of the rich.

Swift’s satirical masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels appeared in 1726. Written in four parts, it describes the travels of Lemuel Gulliver to Lilliput, a land inhabited by tiny people whose minuscule size renders all their pompous activities absurd; to Brobdingnag, a land populated by giants who are amused when Gulliver tells them about the glories of England; to Laputa and its neighbour Lagado, inhabited by quack philosophers and scientists; and to the land of the Houhynhnms, where horses behave with reason and men, called Yahoos, behave as animals. Ironically, this ruthless satire of human follies subsequently was turned into an abridged story for children. In his senior years Swift was paralyzed and afflicted with a brain disorder, and by 1742 he was declared unsound of mind. He was buried in St. Patrick’s, Dublin, beside his beloved Stella.

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Quotes

Better belly burst than good liquor be lost.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

The most positive men are the most credulous.

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.

He showed me his bill of fare to tempt me to dine with him; said I, I value not your bill of fare, give me your bill of company.

The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.

I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little, odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.

We are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same.

I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves.

Come, agree, the law's costly.

Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.

A footman may swear; but he cannot swear like a lord. He can swear as often: but can he swear with equal delicacy, propriety, and judgment?

May you live all the days of your life.

Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

Once kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.

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