of the town. Tis said to be writ by Swift.
It is called, The travells of Lemuell Gulliver in two Volumes. It
hath had a very great sale. People differ vastly in their
opinions of it, for some think it hath a great deal of wit, but
others say, it hath none at all.

John Gay to James Dormer (22 November 1726)

As Gay's letter suggests, details concerning the contemporary
reception of _Gulliver's Travels_ exhibit two sides of Jonathan
Swift's character--the pleasant (that is, merry, witty, amusing) and
the unpleasant (that is, sarcastic, envious, disaffected). A person
with a powerful ego and astringent sense of humor, Swift must have
been a delightful friend, if somewhat difficult, but also a dangerous
enemy. _A Letter from a Clergyman_ (1726), here reproduced in a
facsimile of its first and only edition, is a reaction typical of
those who regard Swift and the sharp edge of his satire with great
suspicion and revulsion. It displays the dangerously Satanic aspect of
Swift--that side of his character which for some people represented
the whole man since the allegedly blasphemous satire in _A Tale of a
Tub_, published and misunderstood early in his career, critically
affected, even by his own admission, his employment in the Church. It
is this evil character of the author, the priest with an indecorous
and politically suspect humor, that offended some contemporary
readers. To them, the engraved frontispiece of Jonathan Smedley's
scurrilous _Gulliveriana_ (1728) is the proper image of the author of
the _Travels_. It portrays Swift in a priest's vestments that barely
conceal a cloven hoof.

In the following pages, we shall define the historical context of the
clergyman's _Letter_ and illuminate the nature of the literary warfare
in which Swift was an energetic if not particularly cheerful
antagonist when _Gulliver's Travels_ was published late in 1726.

In another letter, Gay remarked to Swift (17 November 1726) that "The
Politicians to a man agree, that it [the _Travels_] is free from
particular reflections"; nevertheless some "people of greater
perspicuity" would "search for particular applications in every
leaf." He also predicted that "we shall have keys publish'd to give
light into Gulliver's design." His prediction was correct, for it was
not long before four _Keys_, the earliest commentary in pamphlet form
on the _Travels_, were published by a Signor Corolini, undoubtedly a
pseudonym for Edm