guage; alleging in particular, that in many instances it offended against every part of Grammar[1]. — Swift must be allowed to have been a good judge of this matter; to which he was himself very attentive, both in his own writings, and his remarks upon those of his friends: he is one of the most correct, and perhaps the best of our prose writers."
Swift's style has this peculiarity, not to have one metaphor in his works. His images are surprisingly unexpected, and exhibited in their true, genuine, native form: this strikes the greatest; and, being fetched generally from common life, they captivate the lowest of the people."
"Poor Swift, with all his worth, could ne'er, He tells us, hope to rise a peer; So, to supply it, wrote for fame: And well the wit secur'd his aim."
"The writer, who gives us the best idea of what may be called the genteel in style and manner of writing, is, in my opinion, my lord Shaftesbury. Then Mr. Addison and Dr. Swift."
"Swift in poetry deserves a place, somewhere between Butler and Horace. He has the wit of the former, and the graceful negligence which we find in the latter's epistles and satires. Ibid. p. 205.
"You have with you three or four of the best English authors, Dryden, Atterbury, and Swift; read them with the utmost care, and with a particular view to their language."
- ↑ See Swift's Letter to Lord Oxford, vol. v, page 63.
