WAS SWIFT A CHRISTIAN?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 478, 20 August 1948, Page 18

WAS SWIFT A CHRISTIAN?

SWIFT: A Study by Bernard Acworth, Eyre and Spattiswoode. OVERS of Swift may be grateful to Captain Acworth, who is known as an author of iconoclastic natural history theories, for several reasons. Other biographers share his admiration for Swift’s genius; no other thinks as highly of his character. The life of Swift is as full of debatable points as that of Dante; infinite ingenuity has been spent on guess-work and conjecture; Captain Acworth is content, where nothing can be known for certain, to take the most charitable view. He seems to have in| mind a very wide public of readers: all French and Latin words are translated and historical references explained. Most remarkable is his power of self-efface-ment: in at least: half of his pages he allows Swift to speak for himself; in fact a book of selections, like that of: Purves for instance, with a running commentary; and the selections are chosen with excellent judgment, illustrating every aspect of Swift’s personality and every’ phase of his strange career. In his preface, Captain Acworth tells us that the question with which he pro-

poses especially to concern himself is whether Swift can rightly be deemed a Christian, and in particular’ the sort of Christian a clergyman ought to be. Reference is made throughout to this leitmotif, but the answer is reserved for the final chapter. In this respect it would seem that Captain Acworth has sources of information of his own. He quotes Hazlitt as saying "Swift takes a view of human hature such as might be taken by a Higher Being" and adds in brackets "or as the present writer would prefer to put it, is taken," the italics being his own; and he can inform us that "his perfectly tranquil end is an assurance to one at least that Swift, an outcast in this world, is one of the great ones in the next." The assurance expressed in these words rests on the idea, apparently suggested by the Book of Job, that the terrible years of Swift’s madness constitute a period of repentance for the arrogance and self-right-eousness of his years of political activity. _ It may be so. Cardinal de Retz, better known perhaps to readers of Dumas as the * Coadjutor, when his ambitious intrigues ended in failure and disappointment, spent the rest of his life in pious ministrations; indeed, according to Sainte-Beuve, became in very truth and reality a saint. Swift’s sufferings may verhaps have been his means of reconciliation with God. i In spite of Captain Acworth’s thorough | knowledge of the whole of Swift’s writings and his intense admiration of Swift’s English, he does not imitate his style. When Swift wields the pen (to speak with Captain Acworth) he does not write sentences such as: "The Tale of a Tub is a monument to his literary genius over the grave of his altruistic desire for the good office of a bishop" or "Though anonymous, and never directly claimed as his own work, Swift was at once recognised as the author." Had he done so, recognition might have been. delayed. ‘ Misprints and errors are commendably few. The ones I noticed were "Carteret" repeatedly misspelt, and Addison’s wife misnamed. at

G.W.

Z.