or action. Early in the period Addison
advocated "something like an Academy that by the best Authorities and
Rules ... shall settle all Controversies between Grammar and Idiom"
(_The Spectator_, No. 135). He was followed by Swift, who in turn was
followed by such diverse persons as Orator Henlay, the Earl of Orrery,
and the Earl of Chesterfield. Curiously, Johnson's appears to be the
only weighty voice in opposition: "the edicts of an English Academy," he
insisted, "would probably be read by many, only that they might be sure
to disobey them."

But if the two tracts reprinted here may be viewed in this context, they
may also be seen from another vantage--as part of the interminable
wrangling in the period between Whigs and Tories, even over a matter so
apparently non-political as the founding of an Academy. Since it was
Swift's "petty treatise on the English Language"--the epithet is
Johnson's--which provoked these two replies, we must look briefly at
his handiwork. Swift was undoubtedly guilty of pride of authorship with
respect to his _Proposal_, which appeared on May 17, 1712, in the form
of a _Letter to the Earl of Oxford_. He had touched on the problem
earlier in the _Tatler_ (No. 230), but this is a more considered effort.
In June, 1711, he first broached to Harley the idea of "a society or
academy for correcting and settling our language," and with Harley's
approval he began to compose the _Letter_. Yet it was eight months
before the document reached Harley and another two months, during which
it circulated among friends, before Swift retrieved it for the printer.
Thus, and this fact has significance, the _Proposal_ had its inception
and its first consideration in the Tory circles attached to the Harley
ministry. A few days before its publication Swift wrote to Stella:
"I suffer my name to be put at the End of it, wch I nevr did before in
my Life."

Now this willingness to publish under his own name also has a special
significance. It is not merely, as is often assumed, that he cherished
the project, though very likely that played a part. He was motivated,
I am convinced, by a desire to flaunt the _Proposal_ as a party
document. It is true that he wrote to Stella two weeks after its
publication that "there are 2 Answers come out to it already, tho tis no
Politicks, but a harmless Proposall about the Improvement of the Engl.
Tongue." "I believe," he added, "If I writt an Essay upon Straw some
fool would answer i