le and infer that it was a friendly relationship.

The long and breathless title underlines the malicious content of this
polemical pamphlet, a pungent libel on Swift's character that includes
cutting observations on Swift's chief fiction as well. Obviously, the
author's intent is to vilify Swift in retaliation for attacks on the
writer's friends. Inspired by the publication of the _Travels_, he
presents a crudely defamatory "Character of the Author." He claims an
acquaintance with Swift "in publick and private Life" (p. 4) but
offers no evidence to substantiate this claim. Drawing from common
knowledge, he simply cites the well-known negative evidence of _A Tale
of a Tub_, in which Swift, he indignantly asserts like Swift's former
enemy William Wotton, "levelled his Jests at Almighty God; banter'd
and ridiculed Religion," thereby offending Queen Anne and blocking his
own church preferment (p. 19). Except for "some gross Words, and lewd
Descriptions, and had the Inventor's Intention been innocent" (p. 6
[note the suspicion of Swift's political and religious bias]), the
author is mildly pleased with the first three voyages. But he finds
intolerable the satire on human nature in the last, here echoing
Addison's criticism of the demoralizing effect of a satire on mankind
(_Spectator 249_, 5 December 1711).

However, Swift's "Intention" in the first three voyages is, he angrily
declares, tinctured by his poisonous malice and envy, the result of
twelve years of exile. He is positive of the identity of the vicious
person behind the mask of the imaginary memoirist:

Here, Sir, you may see a reverend Divine, a dignify'd Member of
the Church unbosoming himself, unloading his Breast, discovering
the true Temper of his Soul, drawing his own Picture to the Life;
here's no Disguise, none could have done it so well as
himself.... (p. 8)

He detects envy in what he believes is the incendiary narrator of the
_Travels_, and insists that by siding with the enemies of the nation,
meaning France, Swift was "endeavouring to ruin the _British_
Constitution, set aside the _Hanover_ Succession, and bring in a
[tyrannical] Popish Pretender," and, of course, "destroy our Church
Establishment" (pp. 14, 8-9). Thereupon, he furiously threatens Swift
with punishment for his pernicious attack on the government, that is,
the present political administration. Clearly motivated by
politico-religious fears, this Whig militant