Of Swift, Mr. Schlosser selects for notice three works--the 'Drapier's
Letters,' 'Gulliver's Travels,' and the 'Tale of a Tub.' With respect to
the first, as it is a necessity of Mr. S. to be forever wrong in his
substratum of facts, he adopts the old erroneous account of Wood's
contract as to the copper coinage, and of the imaginary wrong which it
inflicted on Ireland. Of all Swift's villainies for the sake of
popularity, and still more for the sake of wielding this popularity
vindictively, none is so scandalous as this. In any new life of Swift the
case must be stated _de novo_. Even Sir Walter Scott is not impartial; and
for the same reason as now forces me to blink it, viz., the difficulty of
presenting the details in a readable shape. 'Gulliver's Travels' Schlosser
strangely considers 'spun out to an intolerable extent.' Many evil things
might be said of Gulliver; but not this. The captain is anything but
tedious. And, indeed, it becomes a question of mere mensuration, that can
be settled in a moment. A year or two since I had in my hands a pocket
edition, comprehending all the four parts of the worthy skipper's
adventures within a single volume of 420 pages. Some part of the space was
also wasted on notes, often very idle. Now the 1st part contains _two_
separate voyages (Lilliput and Blefuscu), the 2d, _one_, the 3d, _five_,
and the 4th, _one_; so that, in all, this active navigator, who has
enriched geography, I hope, with something of a higher quality than your
old muffs that thought much of doubling Cape Horn, here gives us _nine_
great discoveries, far more surprising than the pretended discoveries of
Sinbad (which are known to be fabulous), averaging _quam proxime_, forty-
seven small 16mo pages each. Oh you unconscionable German, built round in
your own country with circumvallations of impregnable 4tos, oftentimes
dark and dull as Avernus--that you will have the face to describe dear
excellent Captain Lemuel Gulliver of Redriff, and subsequently of Newark,
that 'darling of children and men,' as tedious. It is exactly because he