Rev. Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was educated at Kilkenny (1674-82) and Trinity College Dublin (1682-88). He entered the service of Sir William Temple before being ordained in 1694. After Temple's death Swift returned to Ireland in 1699, where he was given a prebend at St. Patrick's and other clerical livings. During frequent visits to London, Swift was an associate of Addison and Steele before going over to the Tories in 1710; he was made dean of St. Patrick's in 1713 but hopes of preferment to a bishopric died with Queen Anne. Swift's later political pamphlets in defense of Ireland made him a national hero.

TEXT RECORDS:

1704The Battle of the Books.
1711A Town Eclogue.
1729 ca.A Pastoral Dialogue.

PUBLICATIONS:

A discourse of the contests and dissentions between the nobles and the commons in Athens and Rome. 1701.
Letters written by Sir W. Temple [ed. Swift]. 3 vols, 1700, 1703.
A tale of a tub. 1704.
Predictions for the year 1708. 1708.
The accomplishment of the first of Mr Bickerstaff's predictions. 1708.
An elegy on Mr. Partridge, the almanack-maker. 1708.
A vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff. 1709.
A famous prediction of Merlin. 1709.
A project for the advancement of religion and reformation of manners. 1709.
A letter from a Member of the House of Commons in Ireland. 1709.
Baucis and Philemon, imitated from Ovid. 1709.
A meditation upon a broomstick. 1710.
The examiner [contributor]. 1710-12.
The conduct of the allies, and of the late ministry. 1711.
A fable of the widow and her cat. 1711.
The fable of Midas. 1711.
A new journey to Paris. 1711.
Some advice humbly offer'd. 1712.
Some remarks on the Barrier treaty. 1712.
A proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining the English tongue. 1712.
Mr. Collins Discourse of free-thinking. 1713.
Part of the seventh epistle of the first book of Horace imitated. 1713.
The first ode of the second book of Horace paraphras'd. 1714.
The public spirit of the Whigs. 1714.
A proposal for the universal use of Irish manufacture. 1720.
The works of Sir William Temple, ed. Swift. 2 vols, 1720.
The bubble: a poem. 1721.
A letter to the shop-keepers, tradesmen, farmers and common-people of Ireland, concerning the brass half-pence coined by Mr Woods. 1724.
The birth of manly virtue, from Callimachus. 1725.
Fraud detected, or the Hibernian patriot. 1725.
Cadenus and Vanessa: a poem. 1726.
Travels into several remote nations of the world, in four parts, by Lemuel Gulliver. 1726.
A short view of the present state of Ireland. 1728.
The intelligencer, ed Swift. 1728.
A modest proposal. 1729.
A panegyric on the Reverend Dean Swift. 1729.
An epistle to his Excellency John Lord Carteret. 1730.
Horace, book i ode xiv, paraphrased. 1730.
An examination of certain abuses, corruptions, and enormities in the city of Dublin. 1732.
The lady's dressing room. 1732.
An elegy on Dicky and Dolly. 1732.
The life and genuine character of Doctor Swift, written by himself. 1733.
On poetry: a rhapsody. 1733.
An epistle to a lady who desired the author to make verses on her. 1734.
A beautiful young nymph going to bed. 1734.
The works. 4 vols, 1745.
An imitation of the sixth satire of the second book of Horace. 1738.
The beasts confession to the priest. 1738.
A complete collection of genteel and ingenious conversation. 1738.
Verses on the death of Dr Swift, written by himself. 1739.
Some free thoughts upon the present state of affairs written in the year 1714. 1741.
Three sermons. 1744.
Directions to servants in general. 1745.
The last will and testament of Jonathan Swift DD. 1746.
Brotherly love: a sermon. 1754.
The history of the four last years of the Queen. 1758.
Works, ed. Sir Walter Scott. 19 vols, 1824.
Poetical works, ed. Herbert Davis. 3 vols, 1937.
Prose works, ed. Herbert Davis. 14 vols, 1939-68.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

Irish
Anglican

Kilkenny Grammar School
Trinity College Dublin
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Divinity
Doctor of Divinity

clergyman
Dean of St. Patrick
secretary
editor
poet
essayist
novelist
historian

Athenian Mercury
The Tatler
The Examiner
Gentleman's Magazine

Joseph Addison
James Arbuckle
John Arbuthnot
Bp. Francis Atterbury
George Berkeley
Viscount Bolingbroke
Rev. Thomas Carte
William Congreve
Mary Delaney
Rev. William Diaper
Rev. Abel Evans
Anne Finch
John Gay
Earl of Halifax
Robert Harley
William King
William King of Oxford
Rev. Thomas Parnell
Ambrose Philips
Rev. Matthew Pilkington
Alexander Pope
Matthew Prior
Nicholas Rowe
John Somers
Thomas Southerne
Sir Richard Steele
Sir William Temple
Thomas Tickell
Rev. Joseph Trapp

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); Biographia Britannica (1747-66) 6:3857-79; "Life of Dr. Jonathan Swift" Universal Magazine 9 (supplement, 1751) 289-97 [portrait]; Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753); John Boyle, fifth earl of Orrery, Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift (1754); "Life of Dr. Swift" London Magazine 24 (January 1755) 24-28 [portrait]; "Short Account of the Life of Swift" British Magazine and Monthly Repository 4 (August 1763) 437-38 [portrait]; Samuel Johnson, Life in Works of the English Poets (1779-81); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); Bell's Poets of Great Britain (1776-82); "Anecdotes of Swift" General Evening Post (6 January 1785); "Character of Jonathan Swift" European Magazine 18 (November 1790) 329-35; Roach's Beauties of the Poets (1794); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); "Character of Dean Swift" European Magazine 47 (March 1805) 217-18; Robert Southey, Specimens of Later English Poets (1807); Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes (1812-15); Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the XVIII Century (1817-58); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica (1819); John Aikin, Select Works of the British Poets (1820); Joseph Spence, in Anecdotes (1820); "Eminent Authors: Swift" Literary Speculum 2 (June 1822) 34-35; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Biographical Magazine 1 (1829) [portrait]; Anna Brownell Jameson, in Loves of the Poets (1829); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Denis Florence M'Carthy, Poets and Dramatists of Ireland (1846); William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (1878); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); J. Bowles Daly, Ireland in the Days of Dean Swift (1887); Austin Dobson, "The Journal to Stella" in Eighteenth-Century Vignettes (1892-96); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); O'Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (1912); H. M. Dargan, "The Nature of Allegory as used by Swift" Studies in Philology 13 (1916) 159-79; A. E. Burlingame, The Battle of the Books in its Historical Setting (1920); Richard F. Jones, Ancients and Moderns: the Background of the Battle of the Books (1920); J. A. Strahan, "Swift, Steele, and Addison" Blackwood's Magazine 208 (1920) 493-510; Alumni Dublinenses (1924); John S. Crone, Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (1928); Percy J. Dobell, A Catalogue of Eighteenth-Century Verse and a Catalogue of Books by and Relating to Dr. Jonathan Swift, 8 vols (1934); Clarence W. Webster, "Two Swift Imitations" Modern Language Notes 51 (1936) 441; H. Teerink, A Bibliography of the Writings of Swift (1937, revised Arthur H. Scouten, 1963); Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Poetry (1939); Dobree, OHEL (1959); Irvin Ehrenpreis, Swift: the Man, his Works, and the Age, 3 vols (1962-83); J. J. Stathis, A Bibliography of Swift Studies 1945-65 (1967); Kathleen Williams, Swift: The Critical Heritage (1970); Andrew Carpenter, Verse ... from Eighteenth-Century Ireland (1998).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Rev. Jonathan Swift:

1.	1690  William Temple to Sir Robert Southwell, 29 May 1690; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 3:197.
2.	1704  William King, in Remarks on A Tale of a Tub, 1704; Swift: The Critical Heritage (1970) 33.
3.	1713  Francis Atterbury to Jonathan Swift, 21 April 1713; Works of Swift, ed. Nichols (1801) 11:258.
4.	1713  Matthew Prior to Jonathan Swift, 15-16 August 1713; Works of Swift, ed. Nichols (1801) 11:277-79.
5.	1713  Alexander Pope to Jonathan Swift, 8 December 1713; Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, ed. John Nichols (1801) 11:300-04.
6.	1716  Richard Blackmore, in "An Essay upon Wit" Essays upon Several Subjects (1716) 1:217.
7.	1719  Anonymous, "To the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patricks in Ireland, and Advocate for the late Jacobite Ministry, from his Bookseller" Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer (5 September 1719) 1487-88.
8.	1722  Matthew Concanen, in "Letter to a Critick" Poems (1722) 52.
9.	1726  John Gay to Jonathan Swift, 17 November 1726; Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, ed. John Nichols (1801) 12:213-16.
10.	1727  Anonymous, "To Dr. Swift: by a Gentleman who imitated his Manner and Stile in writing" Collection of Epigrams (1727) No.C.
11.	1728  Anonymous, "The Devil's Last Game: A Satire" Daily Journal (9 April 1728).
12.	1728  Anonymous, "To the Minor Poets" London Evening Post (15 June 1728).
13.	1728  Anonymous, "A Satire occasion'd by Gulliver's teizing the People of Dublin, with repeated Pamphlets, about Wood's Brass-Farthings" Gulliveriana: or, a Fourth Volume of Miscellanies (1728) 37-39.
14.	1728  Anonymous, "The Fox and Goat. A Tale. To Sir Richard Steele, a little before the Queen died, on the Captain's being denied Preferment" Gulliveriana: or, a Fourth Volume of Miscellanies (1728) 74-76.
15.	1729  Anonymous, "Drapiers Hill" Fog's Weekly Journal (30 August 1729).
16.	1729  Thomas Cooke, in "The Battle of the Poets" Tales, Epistles, Odes, Fables (1729) 117-19.
17.	1730  Freeman, "To Dean S—t" The Daily Journal (2 May 1730).
18.	1732  Jonathan Swift, "Dean Swift at Sir Arthur Acheson's in the North of Ireland" Gentleman's Magazine 2 (April 1732) 717.
19.	1733  Patrick Delany, "Verses left with a Silver Standish on the Dean of St. Patrick's Desk, on his Birth-Day" Weekly Miscellany (20 January 1733).
20.	1733  Anonymous, "On Dean S—t's asserting the Superiority of the Antients over the Moderns" The Bee, or Weekly Pamphlet 1 (17 February 1733) 84-85.
21.	1733  P. B., "An Easy and sure Receipt to cure the Piles; in a Letter to D. Sw—t" Weekly Register (3 February 1733).
22.	1734  Anonymous, "To the Revd. Dr. Swift" Gentleman's Magazine 4 (February 1734) 94.
23.	1734  A. V—gh—n, St. John's College, Cambridge, "To Dr. Swift, on reading his Poem call'd the Lady's Dressing-Room" Gentleman's Magazine 4 (August 1734) 447.
24.	1734  Anonymous, "Ejaculation on Dr. Swift" The Bee, or Weekly Pamphlet 7 (5 October 1734) 246.
25.	1734  Anonymous, "On Reading the Rhapsody on Poetry" Weekly Register (19 January 1734).
26.	1734  John Sican, T. C. D., "A Poem sent to the Rev. Dr. Swift, on his Birth-Day, with Pine's Horace, in Turkey Leather, very finely bound and gilt" Daily Journal (21 December 1734).
27.	1735  Anonymous, "S—t and P—e" Read's Weekly Journal (26 April 1735).
28.	1736  Anonymous, "Verses sent to the Rev. Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D. on the Anniversary of his Birth, Nov. 30, 1736, with one of Wood's Copper Half-pence, inclosed" Gentleman's Magazine 6 (December 1736) 742.
29.	1736  Anonymous, "Sure to Swift: or, A Letter from a Phoenix at Court to a Screech Owl at Twickenham, in Answer to a Thing entitl'd Bounce to Fop" The Hyp-Doctor (11 May 1736).
30.	1737  Alexander Pope, in Epistle to Augustus, 1737; Works, ed. Warton (1796-97) 4:183.
31.	1738  Anonymous, "On the Dean's Charitable Scheme" London Daily Post (6 December 1738).
32.	1738  Anonymous, "Ay and No. A Tale from Dublin, done into Verse" Virginia Gazette (28 April 1738).
33.	1739  Edward Lonergan, "The Dean and the Country Parson. An Imitation of Virgil, Ecl. I" Gentleman's Magazine 9 (March 1739) 157.
34.	1740  Anonymous, "To the Patron of Liberty; on his Birth-Day" London Daily Post (16 December 1740).
35.	1740  Anonymous, "On the Dean's Bonfire" General Evening Post (12 July 1740)
36.	1740  Anonymous, "The Scotsman's Yarning, for the Sight of the Rev. Dean Swift" 1740; American Magazine [Boston] 1 (September 1743) 37.
37.	1741  Anonymous, "An Epigram on Dr. Swift's Dinners" Publick Register (31 January 1741) 68.
38.	1742  John Winstanley, "On Saint Andrew's Day, and the Dean's Birth-Day" Winstanley, Poems written Occasionally (1742) 67.
39.	1745  Anonymous, "To the Author of a Poem, call'd The Furniture of a Woman's Mind" American Magazine [Boston] 2 (August 1745) 363.
40.	1745 ca.  Anonymous, "A Pastoral Elegy on the Death of Jonathan Swift" 1745 ca.; The Ulster Miscellany (1753) 381-86.
41.	1745  C. B—r, "On Dr. Swift's Death" Gentleman's Magazine 15 (December 1745) 661.
42.	1746  Philander [Henry Jones?], "On the Death of Dean Swift" Gentleman's Magazine 16 (January 1746) 37.
43.	1746  Anonymous, "On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Swift, and the Arrival of his Excellency, Philip Earl of Chesterfield, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland" British Magazine 1 (April 1746) 76.
44.	1746  Anonymous, "[An Alarm]" Dublin Journal (7 January 1746).
45.	1750  William Shenstone to Lady Luxborough, 27 June 1750; Letters, ed. Williams (1939) 282.
46.	1752  Nathaniel Weekes, in On the Abuse of Poetry (1752) 12.
47.	1755  Robert Lloyd, in "To — about to Publish a Volume of Miscellanies" 1755; Works (1774) 1:105.
48.	1757  Anonymous, in "The Court of Apollo" The Centinel No. 23 (9 June 1757) 135-36.
49.	1758  G. G., in "To a Young Lady in Scotland" London Magazine 27 (January 1758) 46.
50.	1766  John Cunningham, "Epigraph for Dean Swift's Monument. Executed by Mr. P. Cunningham, Statuary in Dublin" 1764; Poems, chiefly Pastoral (1766) 231.
51.	1770  Anonymous, in "Instructions to a Statuary to erect the Busts of the Irish Poets" Lloyd's Evening Post (21 March 1770) 270.
52.	1772  John Ball, in "Tears of the British Muse" Odes (1772) 26-27.
53.	1773  Samuel Johnson, 1773, Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1786); Life of Johnson, ed. G. B. Hill (1891) 5:49.
54.	1773  Danos, in "Verses on some late English Poets" Scots Magazine 35 (September 1773) 486.
55.	1774  Sylvia, "On Reading Swift's Works, written by a young Lady of Eighteen" 1774; Universal Asylum and Columbian Magazine 5 (September 1790) 185.
56.	1776  James Beattie, in "Essay on Poetry and Music" Essays (1776) 387.
57.	1782  Joseph Warton, in Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1782) 2:54n.
58.	1782  Joseph Warton, Dryden on Swift; Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1782) 2:250n.
59.	1783  Hugh Blair, in Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783) 1:381.
60.	1784  Thomas Sheridan, in Life of Dean Swift (1784); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 3:199-200.
61.	1788  A Young Author in Dublin, in A Satirical Essay (1788) 25-26.
62.	1788  Anonymous, "Epigram on Dean Swift" St. James's Chronicle (7 June 1788).
63.	1789  Anonymous, "On Swift's Journal of a Modern Lady" English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post (22 October 1789).
64.	1796  K., in "Characters of some Writers during the Reign of Queen Anne, compared with the Present" Scots Magazine 58 (January 1796) 20-21.
65.	1796  Thomas Green, 12 September 1796; Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of Literature (1810) 2.
66.	1797  William Godwin, in "Of English Style" The Enquirer (1797) 443.
67.	1799  Catherine Rebecca Manners, in Review of Poetry (1799) 24.
68.	1802  Thomas Dermody, "Lines written on a Blank Leaf of Swift's Works" Poems on Various Subjects (1802) 86.
69.	1806  John Aikin, in Letters to a Young Lady (1806) 64-65.
70.	1807  Robert Southey, in Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) 2:41.
71.	1808  Thomas Clio Rickman, "Sonnet written in the favourite Chair of Dean Swift" Universal Magazine NS 10 (March 1808) 226.
72.	1813  Anonymous, "Lines on seeing Swift's Head over one of the Doors of the Castle Chapel, Dublin" Morning Chronicle (23 August 1813).
73.	1814  Isaac D'Israeli, in Quarrels of Authors (1814) 3:297-99.
74.	1814  Walter Scott, in Memoir of Jonathan Swift (1814); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 3:200.
75.	1816  Leigh Hunt, in The Examiner (7 July 1816) 424.
76.	1818  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Lecture XIV (1818, 1836); Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century (1955) 416.
77.	1818  William Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English Poets (1818; 1909) 147.
78.	1822  Anonymous, in "The Augustan Age in England" The Album 1 (1822) 187-89.
79.	1822  Tobias Oldschool, Gentleman, "Eminent Authors: Swift" Literary Speculum 2 (July 1822) 34-35.
80.	1824  Bryan Waller Procter, in Effigies Poeticae, or, the Portraits of the British Poets (1824) 78-79.
81.	1826  Richard Ryan, in Poetry and Poets: being a Collection of the choicest Anecdotes relative to the Poets of every Age and Nation (1826) 1:204-05.
82.	1829  Anna Brownell Jameson, "Stella and Vanessa" Loves of the Poets (1829; 1857) 431-54.
83.	1846  Denis Florence M'Carthy, in Poets and Dramatists of Ireland (1846) 130-31.
84.	1858  Walter Savage Landor, 1858; Forster, Landor, a Biography (1869) 641.
85.	1860  George Gilfillan, in Specimens with Memoirs of the less-known British Poets (1860) 3:43-47.
86.	1880  John Nichol, in The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880) 3:34-38.
87.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 124.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Rev. Jonathan Swift:

1.	1720  Giles Jacob, in Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets (1720) 208-09.
2.	1753  Anonymous, in Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) 5:73-100.
3.	1808  Samuel Jackson Pratt, in Cabinet of Poetry (1808) 3:395-96.
4.	1812  Alexander Chalmers, in General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17) 29:51-68.
5.	1819  Richard Ryan, in Biographica Hibernica. A Biographical Dictionary of the Worthies of Ireland (1819) 2:578-89.
6.	1820  John Aikin, in Select Works of the British Poets (1820) 389-90.
7.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 1:545-48.
8.	1847  William Howitt, "Dean Swift" Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets (1847) 1:176-210.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1693  William Congreve:   Jonathan Swift, in "To Mr. Congreve" 1693; Swift, Works, ed. Nichols (1801) 18:412.
2.	1699  Sir William Temple:   Jonathan Swift, Journal, 1699; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 2:455.
3.	1704  Nahum Tate:   Jonathan Swift, in Tale of a Tub (1704); Works, ed. Nichols (1801) 55.
4.	1709  Anne Finch:   Jonathan Swift, "Apollo outwitted. To the honourable Mrs. Finch, under her Name of Ardelia" 1709; Swift, Miscellanies. The Last Volume (1728) 143-47.
5.	1711  Ambrose Philips:   Jonathan Swift, in Journal to Stella, 30 June 1711; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 3:273.
6.	1712  Rev. William Diaper:   Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella, 12 March 1712; Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, ed. John Nichols (1801) 15:283.
7.	1713  Rev. Laurence Eusden:   Alexander Pope, "On a Lady who p—st at the Tragedy of Cato; occasion'd by an Epigram on a Lady who wept at it" 1713; Pope, Miscellanies. The Last Volume (1728) 176.
8.	1713  Rev. Thomas Parnell:   Jonathan Swift to Archbishop King, 30 April 1713; Works of Swift, ed. Nichols (1801) 11:259.
9.	1713  Sir Richard Steele:   Jonathan Swift to Joseph Addison, 13 May 1713; Works of Swift, ed. Nichols (1801) 11:260.
10.	1716  John Gay:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 30 August 1716; Works of Pope, ed. Warton (1797) 9:15.
11.	1725  Charles Gildon:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 26 November 1725; in Works of Pope, ed. Warton (1797) 9:63.
12.	1725  Ambrose Philips:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 29 September 1725; Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, ed. John Nichols (1801) 14:40.
13.	1729  William Congreve:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 13 February 1729; Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, ed. John Nichols (1801) 14:87-88.
14.	1729  Rev. Richard Daniel:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 6 March 1729; Works of Pope, ed. Elwin and Courthope (1871-1889) 7:143 &n.
15.	1730  Sir John Mennes:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 2 May 1730; Works of Pope, ed. Elwin and Courthope (1871-1889) 7:195.
16.	1731  Rev. Matthew Pilkington:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 12 June 1731; Works of Pope, ed. Warton (1797) 9:223-24.
17.	1732  Rev. Jonathan Swift:   Jonathan Swift, "Dean Swift at Sir Arthur Acheson's in the North of Ireland" Gentleman's Magazine 2 (April 1732) 717.
18.	1735 ca.  John Hughes:   Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope, 1735 ca.; Works of Pope, ed. Warton (1797) 9:268-69.