Page:Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.djvu/18

x ''disordered, her independence scoffed at, and her government a hotbed of intrigue : and what roused him most of all, was the slavish and abject submission with which all this was suffered, and the despicable tyranny which the landlords wielded over their tenants, with whom they might at least have had the sympathy of suffering under a common yoke. His indignation first found voice in a pamphlet on the Use of Irish Manufactures: and it presently seized on a still more available topic, presented by a scandalous job in connexionconnection [sic] with the copper coinage of Ireland. This gave rise to the famous'' Drapier Letters. Swift did not measure his words : he hesitated at no exaggeration : he left his victims with no shred of defencedefense [sic] or excuse : out of their subterfuges he wrested new and more damnatory charges: he rang the changes on this one topic through every note of fierce denunciation and contemptuous sarcasm : and for the first time he roused, in all its fury, the envenomed bitterness of a wrath that embraced at once the racial antipathy of ages and the political jealousy of the English colonists against their brethren across the sea.

''But this fight, however fierce and exciting, could not employ the whole force of Swift's genius. In his comparative loneliness and isolation, other objects engaged him. His chief attack must be on human nature and the human race, against which he waged an undying war : and ill-health, melancholy, discontent, long absence from friends, all combined to embitter the hatred with which he regarded it. Even the more tender feelings of Swift added fuel to this intensity of hate. Despising the "animal called man," Swift yet clung, with warm affection, to individuals: and this very affection, in every instance, was now deepening his gloom. Amongst his Irish friends, he could count the astute and witty Delany : but Delany was an object of suspicion to the Whig intriguers. The gentle unworldliness and ready humour of Sheridan formed a resting-place for Swift's troubled spirit, and soothed him, we are told, as Davids harp soothed Saul : but Sheridan was pursued by faction,''