EINLEITUNG ZU SWIFT.

I. BIBLIOGRAPHIE.

1. Aufsätze und Werke über Swift.

Sieben Jahre nach Swifts Tode erschienen: Letters by Orrery. Orrery gehörte nicht zu Swifts Freunden, und ausserdem hat er Swift nur in seinem Verfall gesehen, sodass, zwar keine absichtliche Herabsetzung, aber doch auch keine objective Beurteilung zu erwarten war. Zwei Jahre später erschienen: Delany's Observations on Orrery. Delany war der vertraute Genosse Swifts; er lobt ihn daher zu sehr, erzählt aber so viel von ihm, dass man im allgemeinen durch diese Bemerkungen doch ein richtiges Bild erhält.

Ein Jahr später erschien der Essay von Deane Swift, der nur wegen einiger Einzelheiten wichtig ist. Mrs. Pilkington und der Compilator der Swiftiana sind nicht glaubwürdig. Das Memoir von Hawkesworth (1755) und Swifts Leben von Johnson (1781) bringen wenig Neues. Das Memoir von Thomas Sheridan (1784) ist berühmter, als es verdient.

Selbständige Forschung beginnt erst mit dem Essay on the College Days of Swift (1808) by Dr. Barrett.

Dann fasst Scott*) alles Vorhergehende zusammen; er erhielt mächtige Unterstützungen von allen Seiten; aber sein Werk hat dieselben Mängel wie seine Biographie Drydens; es ist kritiklos, weil er zu beschäftigt war:

We doubt very much whether any reader, after closing Scott's Memoir, would have any clear impression of Swift's character. Indeed, to speak plainly, we doubt whether Scott had himself taken the trouble to form any clear conception of that character. But his most serious defect is his careless credulity (Quarterly Review, Jan. u. April 1882, S. 380).

*) Auf Scott fusst auch noch Gosche in seinem interessanten Aufsatz über Swift im Jahrbuch für Litteraturgeschichte.

Es folgt 1819 Monck Mason: History and Antiquities of St. Patrick's Cathedral; die Hälfte dieses Quartbandes ist Swifts Biographie gewidmet. So abstossend die Darstellung wirkt, so wichtig ist der Inhalt für jeden Forscher. Mason ist ein genauer Kenner Swifts.

Dann erhielten wir nach langem Zwischenraum Forsters *) berühmten Torso: The Life of Jonathan Swift by John Forster, Volume the First, London 1875. Forster äussert sich in der Vorrede seines Werkes folgendermassen:

"Few men who have been talked about so much, are known so little. His writings and his life are connected so closely, that to judge of either fairly with an imperfect knowledge of the other is not possible; and only thus can be excused what Jeffrey hardly said, and many have too readily believed that he was an apostate in politics, infidel or indifferent in religion, a defamer of humanity, the slanderer of statesmen who had served him, and destroyer of the women who loved him. Belief in this or any part of it may be pardonable where the life is known insufficiently and the writings not at all; but to a competent acquaintance with either or both, it is monstrous as well as incredible."

Johnson did him no kind of justice because of too little liking for him; and Scott, with much hearty liking as well as a generous admiration, had too much other work to do."

Forsters Werk leidet indessen an zwei Mängeln: Erstens lässt sich der Verfasser durch die Begeisterung für seinen Helden verleiten, alles aufzunehmen, was Swift mit jedem gewöhnlichen Menschen gemein hat; daher ist die Darstellung zu breit. Zweitens ist er zu polemisch gegen seine Vorgänger. Des Werkes grosser Vorzug ist aber die kritische Behandlung des Gegenstandes.

In würdiger Weise ist Forsters Werk fortgesetzt worden von Craik in seinem Werke: 'The Life of Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin', by Henry Craik, London 1882. Dieser spricht sich in der Preface S. XI folgendermassen aus:

"It was the object of the late Mr. Forster to apply a clearer light and a more sympathetic criticism to the intricacies of Swift's career. His unstinted enthusiasm may, at times, have impaired his judgment in regard to Swift, but even its exaggeration was no bad quality in a biographer. Death arrested his task; but not before Mr. Forster had accomplished enough to lay any fresh biographer under a heavy debt. Not only did he gather much new material, but he entered so minutely into the earlier part of Swift's career, as to leave but few points undiscussend, we might even say, undecided."

Ueber Craiks Buch **) äussert sich die Quarterly Review (Band 156, S. 1 f.) folgendermassen:

This work is in many respects greatly superior to any preceding Biography. It is more accurate, more critical, and much fuller than

*) Das Buch befindet sich z. B. auf der Bibliothek zu Weimar.

**) Es findet sich z. B. auf den Bibliotheken zu Weimar und Leipzig (Universitätsbibliothek).

the Memoir by Scott. It is written with more spirit, and it is executed with greater skill than the Memoir by Monck Mason. It is, moreover, enriched with material to which neither Scott nor Monck Mason had access, and which is altogether new; such, for example, would be the diary kept by Swift at Holyhead, printed by Mr. Craik in his Appendix; such would be the correspondence between Swift and Archdeacon Walls, furnished by Mr. Murray; and such would be the Orrery papers, furnished by the Earl of Cork. Of Mr. Craik's industry and accuracy we cannot speak too highly. It is abundantly evident from every chapter in his work that he has left no source of information unexplored, from the local gossip of places where traditions of Swift still linger, to the archives of private families and public institutions. Where Mr. Craik seems to us to fail is in precision and grasp. His narrative too often degenerates into mere compilation. It lacks perspective and it lacks symmetry. We cannot but think too though we are extremely unwilling to find faults in a work for which every student of Swift will assuredly be most sincerely thankful that its value would have been greatly enhanced had Mr. Craik been a little less inattentive to the graces of style. That Mr. Craik has not succeeded in throwing any new light on the various problems which perplex Swift's biography is to be regretted, but cannot, in fairness, be imputed as a fault to him. The portion of his work which will be perused with most interest by those who are familiar with former biographies, will probably be that in which he discusses Swift's relations with Walpole, with Primate Boulter, and with the Irish Church.

Dass meine Darstellung Swifts sich auf Craik gründet, ist nach dem Gesagten selbstverständlich; aus meinen Anmerkungen geht hervor, dass ich auch der liebenswürdigen brieflichen Auskunft Craiks noch Manches verdanke. Durch Craiks Buch ist das Büchlein in Morley's English Men of Letters von Leslie Stephen (1882) überholt; auch ist Stephen durchaus nicht objektiv.*) Vergl. Quarterly Review (a. a. O. S. 2):

The pleasure with which we have read Mr. Leslie Stephen's monograph has been not unmingled with dissappointment. Like everything he writes, it is incisive, forcible, and eminently interesting. But it is plain that the Dean is no favourite with him. He is too sensible and too well informed to be guilty either of misrepresentation or of errors in statement, and yet, without misrepresentation or misstatement, he contrives to do Swift signal injustice. We will illustrate what we mean. The period in Swift's career during which he appears to least advantage would certainly be the period intervening between his ordination and the accession of George I., in other words, the period during which he was seeking preferment. On the other hand, the

* Edward Dowden in seiner Besprechung von Stephens Buch in der Academy (30. Sept. 1882) behauptet hingegen, Stephen werde im ganzen Swift durchaus gerecht.

period which does him most honour would be that during which he was labouring in the cause of Ireland. Of the first of these periods Mr. Stephen gives us a minute and elaborate history: of the second, his account is so meagre and so perfunctory, that a reader who knew nothing more of Swift's career in Ireland than what he derived from Mr. Stephen's narrative, would assuredly have very much to learn. It was said of Mallet, that if he undertook the life of Marlborough, he would probably forget that his hero was a general: it may be said of Mr. Stephen, that, if he has not exactly forgotten that Swift was a patriot and a philanthropist, he has done his best to conceal it.

Im Jahr 1882 ist auch noch eine dritte Schrift über Swift erschienen: Dean Swift's Disease, by Dr. Bucknill. 'Brain'. London, January 1882. Hierüber sagt die Quarterly Review (a. a. O. S. 2 f.):

We have read nothing that has been written on that perplexed and much-discussed question which appears to us so satisfactory. In the first place, Dr. Bucknill comes forward with no mere hypothesis. The history of Swift's disease is, he says, sufficiently full and explicit to enable him, even at this distance of time, to form with confidence a diagnosis; and that diagnosis, together with the grounds on which it is based, he has in the paper to which we have referred given to the world.

Jeffrey in seinem Artikel über Swift in der Edinburgh Review, September 1816, hat geradezu ein politisches Pamphlet geschrieben, in welchem er den Satiriker der Tories verächtlich zu machen suchte. Thackerays Vorlesung muss als die unglücklichste von allen bezeichnet werden, und man darf sich über den Unsinn nicht wundern, den die meisten litteraturgeschichtlichen Handbücher über Swift zu Tage fördern, wenn selbst ein Mann wie Thackeray ihm so wenig gerecht wird.

Die Quarterly Review äussert folgendes (Bd. 153, S. 385):

Of Thackeray's lively and eloquent lecture we shall only remark, that it abounds, as Mr. Hannay*) pointed out long ago, in erroneous statements, and in utterly unwarrantable conclusions. It is shallow, it is flighty, it is unjust.

Noch viel stärker drückt sich John G. Dow in der Academy, Jan. 17. 1885, aus:

Since Thackeray played the Calvinistic divine in a lecture which Mr. Lane-Poole **) distinguishes by an infinitely too charitable an epithet when he calls it "slight", and held up before assemblies looking up with foolish faces of wonder that horned monster of his labelled "Swift", the name has been to the general, if not anathema, maranatha, at least a byword and a haking of the head. It is one of Minerva's caprices that the writer who endeavours to give a true portrait of Swift should be condemned to appear as the defender of

*) James Hannay, 'Studies on Thackeray', London 1870.

**) Swift's Prose Writings Selected by Stanley Lane-Poole (Parchment Library Series, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.).