beyond a doubt, that Swift was in that state of constitutional irreligion,
irreligion from a vulgar temperament, which imputes to everybody else its
own plebeian feelings. People differed, he fancied, not by more and less
religion, but by more and less dissimulations. And, therefore, it seemed
to him scandalous that a princess, who must, of course, in her heart
regard (in common with himself) all mysteries as solemn masques and
mummeries, should pretend in a case of downright serious business, to pump
up, out of dry conventional hoaxes, any solid objection to a man of his
shining merit. '_The Trinity_,' for instance, _that_ he viewed as the
password, which the knowing ones gave in answer to the challenge of the
sentinel; but, as soon as it had obtained admission for the party within
the gates of the camp, it was rightly dismissed to oblivion or to
laughter. No case so much illustrates Swift's essential irreligion; since,
if he had shared in ordinary human feelings on such subjects, not only he
could not have been surprised at his own exclusion from the bench of
bishops, _after_ such ribaldries, but originally he would have abstained
from them as inevitable bars to clerical promotion, even upon principles
of public decorum.

As to the _style_ of Swift, Mr. Schlosser shows himself without
sensibility in his objections, as the often hackneyed English reader shows
himself without philosophic knowledge of style in his applause. Schlosser
thinks the style of Gulliver 'somewhat dull.' This shows Schlosser's
presumption in speaking upon a point where he wanted, 1st, original
delicacy of tact; and, 2dly, familiar knowledge of English. Gulliver's
style is _purposely_ touched slightly with that dulness of
circumstantiality which besets the excellent, but 'somewhat dull' race of
men--old sea captains. Yet it wears only an aerial tint of dulness; the
felicity of this coloring in Swift's management is, that it never goes the
length of wearying, but only of giving a comic air of downright Wapping