is _not_ tedious, because he does not shoot into German foliosity, that
Schlosser finds him '_intolerable_.' I have justly transferred to
Gulliver's use the words originally applied by the poet to the robin-
redbreast, for it is remarkable that _Gulliver_ and the _Arabian Nights_
are amongst the few books where children and men find themselves meeting
and jostling each other. This was the case from its first publication,
just one hundred and twenty years since. 'It was received,' says Dr.
Johnson, 'with such avidity, that the price of the first edition was
raised before the second could be made--it was read by the high and the
low, the learned and the illiterate. Criticism was lost in wonder. Now, on
the contrary, Schlosser wonders not at all, but simply criticises; which
we could bear, if the criticism were even ingenious. Whereas, he utterly
misunderstands Swift, and is a malicious calumniator of the captain who,
luckily, roaming in Sherwood, and thinking, often with a sigh, of his
little nurse, [3] Glumdalclitch, would trouble himself slightly about what
Heidelberg might say in the next century. There is but one example on our
earth of a novel received with such indiscriminate applause as 'Gulliver;'
and _that_ was 'Don Quixote.' Many have been welcomed joyfully by a class
--these two by a people. Now, could that have happened had it been
characterized by dulness? Of all faults, it could least have had _that_.
As to the 'Tale of a Tub,' Schlosser is in such Cimmerian vapors that no
system of bellows could blow open a shaft or tube through which he might
gain a glimpse of the English truth and daylight. It is useless talking to
such a man on such a subject. I consign him to the attentions of some
patriotic Irishman.

Schlosser, however, is right in a graver reflection which he makes upon
the prevailing philosophy of Swift, viz., that 'all his views were
directed towards what was _immediately_ beneficial, which is the
characteristic of savages.' This is undeniable. The meanness of Swift's