f Gulliver wrote for one purpose, and we
use his work for another. He wished for office, he got contempt; he tried
to subdue his enemies, they subdued him; he worked for the present, and
he won immortality.

Said Heinrich Heine, prone on his bed in Paris: "The wittiest sarcasms of
mortals are only an attempt at jesting when compared with those of the
great Author of the Universe--the Aristophanes of Heaven!"

Wise men over and over have wasted good ink and paper in bewailing
Swift's malice and coarseness. But without these very elements which the
wise men bemoan, Swift would be for us a cipher. Yet love is life and
hate is death, so how can spite benefit? The answer is that, in certain
forms of germination, frost is as necessary as sunshine: so some men have
qualities that lie dormant until the coldness of hate bursts the coarse
husk of indifference.

But while hate may animate, only love inspires. Swift might have stood at
the head of the Church of England; but even so, he would be only a unit
in a long list of names, and as it is, there is only one Swift. Mr.
Talmage averred that not ten men in America knew the name of the
Archbishop of Canterbury until his son wrote a certain book entitled
"Dodo." In putting out this volume, young Benson not only gave us the
strongest possible argument favoring the celibacy of the clergy, but at
the same time, if Talmage's statement is correct, he made known his
father's name.

In all Swift's work, save "The Journal to Stella," the animating motive
seems to have been to confound his enemies; and according to the
well-known line in that hymn sung wherever the Union Jack flies, we must
believe this to be a perfectly justifiable ambition. But occasionally on
his pages we find gentle words of wisdom that were meant evidently for
love's eyes alone. There is much that is pure boyish frolic, and again
and again there are clever strokes directed at folly. He has shot certain
superstitions through with doubt, and in his manner of dealing with error
he has proved to us a thing it were well not to forget: that pleasantry
is more efficacious than vehemence.

Let me name one incident by way of proof--the well-known one of
Partridge, the almanac-maker. This worthy cobbler was an astrologer of
no mean repute. He foretold events with much discretion. The ignorant
bought his almanacs, and many believed in them as a Bible--in fact,
astrology was enjoying a "boom."

Swift came to London and foun