The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1 by Jonathan Swift
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page 12 of 517 (02%)
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Did he believe in God.
Look down, St. Patrick, look, we pray, On thine own church and steeple; Convert thy Dean on this great day, Or else God help the people. And now, whene'er his Deanship dies, Upon his stone be graven, A man of God here buried lies, Who never thought of heaven. It was by these lines that Smedley earned for himself a niche in "The Dunciad." For Swift's retaliation, see the poems relating to Smedley at the end of the first volume, and in volume ii, at p. 124, note. This bitterness of spirit reached its height in "Gulliver's Travels," surely the severest of all satires upon humanity, and writ, as he tells us, not to divert, but to vex the world; and ultimately, in the fierce attack upon the Irish Parliament in the poem entitled "The Legion Club," dictated by his hatred of tyranny and oppression, and his consequent passion for exhibiting human nature in its most degraded aspect. But, notwithstanding his misanthropical feelings towards mankind in general, and his "scorn of fools by fools mistook for pride," there never existed a warmer or sincerer friend to those whom he loved--witness the regard in which he was held by Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, and Congreve, and his readiness to assist those who needed his help, without thought of party or politics. Although, in some of his poems, Swift rather severely exposed the follies and frailties of the fair sex, as in "The Furniture of a Woman's Mind," and "The Journal of a Modern Lady," he loved the companionship of beautiful and accomplished women, |
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