Page:Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.djvu/19

Rh ''and Swift affects to defend even his scholarship from a suspicion of Tory proclivities. Had he found only a few more Arbuthnots, he would, he tells us, have burned his travels: but Arbuthnot was wearing into old age while Swift was banished from the literary circle in which he formerly took delight. And last of all, the one devotion of his life—the one ray of a woman's tenderness that shone upon it—was not only clouded by the mystery that had gathered round his relation to Esther Johnson, and by the abiding misery which its complications caused, but worse still, the shadow of illness and the fear of her impending death were darkening his life with gloom. It was in such surroundings, and amid such feelings, that the Travels of Gulliver were composed ; and their publication, in 1726, followed immediately upon Swifts last visit to London, and preceded by a few months the death of Stella.''

The book bears upon it in every line the vivid impress of Swift's deepest feeling, and is instinct with his saeva indignatio : ''and this lessens the interest for the general reader of the literary question as to the special circumstances of its genesis. These are, indeed, somewhat obscure. In earlier days, Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay had formed plans for a series of sketches illustrating the whims and vagaries of pedantic folly, which were to be strung together under the name of'' Martinus Scriblerus. This gave rise to the assumption by the little coterie of the name of the "Scriblerus Club." Arbuthnot alone was capable of dealing with the scientific side of the picture : and he did execute some of the designs in the Memoirs of Scriblerus. Gulliver ''seems to have been conceived as a part of the scheme, and was talked of and discussed on that footing by the friends. Its general plan was long known amongst them, and it was doubtless read in part by them before its publication. But, save in the Laputa, it is difficult to see how the Travels conform in any way to the scheme as originally conceived.''

Another question, which has been much discussed, is that of the amount of suggestion which Swift may have had from other