one of the profanest banters upon the religion of Jesus Christ, as such, that ever yet appeared. ... is of so irreligious a nature, is so crude a Banter upon all that is esteemed as Sacred among all Sects and Religions among Men. For the controversy of the Ancients v. Moderns between Temple and Bentley see Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21) online at http://www.bartleby.com/219/1510.html This Apology being chiefly intended for the satisfaction of future readers, it may be thought unnecessary to take any notice of such treatises as have been written against this ensuing discourse, which are already sunk into waste paper and oblivion, after the usual fate of common answerers to books, which are allowed to have any merit: they are indeed like annuals, that grow about a young tree, and seem to vie with it for a summer but fall and die with the leaves in autumn, and are never heard of any more. When Dr. Eachard wrote his book about the Contempt of the Clergy, numbers of those answerers immediately started up, whose memory if he had not kept alive by his replies, it would now be utterly unknown that he were ever answered at all. There is indeed an exception, when any great genius thinks it worth his while to expose a foolish piece; so we still read Marvell's Answer to Parker 11 with pleasure, though the book it answers be sunk long ago: so the Earl of Orrery's Remarks will be read with delight, when the Dissertation he exposes will neither be sought nor found: 12 but these are no enterprises for common hands, nor to be hoped for above once or twice in an age. Men would be more cautious of losing their time in such an undertaking, if they did but consider, that to answer a book effectually requires more pains and skill, more wit, learning, and judgment, than were employed in the writing of it. And the author assures those gentlemen who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of several years; that he often blotted out much more than he left, and, if his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must have still undergone more severe corrections: and do they think such a building is to be battered with dirt-pellets, however envenomed the mouths may be that discharge them? He has seen the productions but of two answerers, one of which first appeared as from an unknown hand, but has since been avowed by a person, 13 who, upon some occasions, has discovered no ill vein of humour. It is a pity any occasion should put him under a necessity of being so hasty in his productions, which otherwise might often be entertaining. But there were other reasons obvious enough for his miscarriage in this; he wrote against the conviction of his talent, and entered upon one of the wrongest attempts in nature, to turn into ridicule by a week's labour, a work which had cost much time, and met with so much success in ridiculing others: the manner how he has handled his subject I have now forgot, having just looked it over, when it first came out, as others did, merely for the sake of the title. There are three or four other passages which prejudiced or ignorant readers have drawn by great force to hint at ill meanings, as if they glanced at some tenets in religion. In answer to all which, the author solemnly protests, he is entirely innocent; and never had it once in his thoughts, that anything he said, would in the least be capable of such interpretations, which he will engage to deduce full as fairly from the most innocent book in the world. And it will be obvious to every reader, that this was not any part of his scheme or design, the abuses he notes being such as all Church of England men agree in; nor was it proper for his subject to meddle with other points, than such as have been perpetually controverted since the Reformation.

Difference between Athens and England, as to general and particular satire. The Author designs a panegyric on the world, and a modest defence of the rabble.] But although Swift vigorously maintained the fiction of anonymity in relation to A Tale of a Tub, never at any point did he try to suppress the book as a whole; he only tried to obscure his direct connection with it. But despite the fact that he was desperate that no one should ever know that he wrote A Tale of a Tub, he also seems to have been extraordinarily proud of his satire. The one comment that we have on record from Swift about the Tale comes from a letter transcribed for the Earl of Orrery: Swift, Jonathan. A Tale of a Tub and Other Works. Marcus Walsh, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. It is another pattern of this answerer's fair dealing, to give us hints that the author is dead, and yet to lay the suspicion upon somebody, I know not who, in the country; to which can be only returned, that he is absolutely mistaken in all his conjectures; and surely conjectures are, at best, too light a pretence to allow a man to assign a name in public. He condemns a book, and consequently the author, of whom he is utterly ignorant; yet at the same time fixes in print what he thinks a disadvantageous character upon those who never deserved it. A man who receives a buffet in the dark, may be allowed to be vexed; but it is an odd kind of revenge, to go to cuffs in broad day with the first he meets, and lay the last night's injury at his door. And thus much for this discreet, candid, pious, and ingenious answerer. masters. There is also the spelling-school, a very spacious building: the school of looking-glasses: the school of swearing: the school of critics: the school of salivation: the school of hobby-horses: the school of poetry: the school of tops: the school of spleen: the school of gaming: with many others too tedious to recount. No person to be admitted member into any of these schools without an attestation under two sufficient persons' hands, certifying him to be a wit.Elias, A. C., Jr. Swift at Moor Park: Problems in Biography and Criticism. Philadelphia: U. Penn. Press, 1982. ISBN 0-8122-7822-4 This debate about ancient and modern learning is clearly intimately bound up with the interrogation of authority and authorial status that we see in A Tale of a Tub. The Ancients and Moderns debate was in essence about a question of origins, and of textual authority. It was about how far the authority of the classical poets extended. If you took the Ancients argument to its logical conclusion, no truly newgreat literature could ever be produced, because the summit had already been achieved. The best that was left was imitation. And so you could read the tissue of allusions and borrowings that constitutes the Tale as a trope for the indebtedness of modern literature, for its dependence upon earlier texts that render the idea of modern originality meaningless. And in formulating a brilliant work out of a collage of older ones the tale, Swift gestures toward the way in which the ancients can continue to generate new and imaginative literature: the habits of allusion and imitation that were at the centre of the neoclassicism of the Ancients could also be generative.

That your highness may advance in wisdom and virtue, as well as years, and at last outshine all your royal ancestors, shall be the daily prayer of, Rawson, Claude. The Character of Swift's Satire: A Revised Focus. Newark: U. of Delaware Press, 1983. ISBN 0-87413-209-6 Stanley Lane-Poole (ed.), Selections from the prose writings of Jonathan Swift with a preface and notes. (London 1933). For a young Anglican churchman intent on a speedy ascension through the ranks of the church, this was a very damaging charge. Swift's decision to publish the apology in the revised edition of 1710 likely is related to his anxiety about his career at this time, and the Tale's potential to compromise his position. Late 1710, was perhaps the most exciting and promising time in Swift's career; he was being courted by the rising Tory leader Robert Harley to join the Tory cause, and power and importance seemed imminent. Swift was to believe for the rest of his life that his failure to secure the ecclesiastical promotions that he wanted was due to influential (including royal) disapproval of the perceived irreligious tendencies of A Tale of a Tub. Paralleling this obsession with textual modernity comes a corresponding collective cultural amnesia. The moderns are so obsessed with being new, that they have forgotten their past. This is made explicit in section six of A Tale of a Tub:

Ehrenpreis writes "[i]t is correct to read every part of the Tale as an adaptation of one attitude: that wilful rejection of the Established Church, limited monarchy, classical literary standards, and rational judgment is an act of pride, and leads to corruptions in government, religion, and learning." ( Swift and his Contemporaries, 202) Jane M. Snyder, The meaning of 'Musaeo contingens cuncta lepore', Lucretius 1.934, Classical World 66 (1973) 330–334. For a short history of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, see Mark Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed: Britain 1603–1714, New York: Penguin (1996). The author observes, at the end of the book there is a discourse called ‘A Fragment’ 21, which he more wondered to see in print than all the rest; having been a most imperfect sketch, with the addition of a few loose hints,

For one explanation of how the parody works in this way, see, Traugott, " A Tale of a Tub", particularly 109–18. For a detailed look at the relationship between politics and religion during this period, see Clark, Jonathan Charles Douglas; Clark, J. C. D. (16 March 2000). "From Restoration to Reconciliation, 1660–1760". English Society, 1660-1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics During the Ancien Régime. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66627-5. Herbert J. Davis (ed.), Gulliver's Travels. [based on the Faulkner edition, Dublin 1735] (Oxford 1965). The digressions individually frustrate readers who expect a clear purpose. Each digression has its own topic, and each is an essay on its particular sidelight. In his biography of Swift, Ehrenpreis argued that each digression is an impersonation of a different contemporary author. This is the "persona theory," which holds that the Tale is not one parody, but rather a series of parodies, arising out of chamber performance in the Temple household. Prior to Ehrenpreis, some critics had argued that the narrator of the Tale is a character, just as the narrator of a novel would be. Given the evidence of A. C. Elias about the acrimony of Swift's departure from the Temple household, evidence from Swift's Journal to Stella about how uninvolved in the Temple household Swift had been, and the number of repeated observations about himself by the Tale's author, it seems reasonable to propose that the digressions reflect a single type of man, if not a particular character. [12] Horowitz, James (September 2020). " 'Almost Normal', or, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Swift But Were Afraid To Ask". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 43 (3): 281–291. doi: 10.1111/1754-0208.12704. ISSN 1754-0194. S2CID 225457781.Upon publication the public realised both that there was an allegory in the story of the brothers and that there were particular political references in the Digressions. A number of "Keys" appeared soon thereafter, analogous to contemporary services like CliffsNotes or Spark Notes. "Keys" offered the reader a commentary on the Tale and explanations of its references. Edmund Curll rushed out a Key to the work, and William Wotton offered up an "Answer" to the author of the work. François de Callières, Histoire Poetique de la Guerre nouvellement declarée entre les Anciens et les Modernes. 1688. It is amazing to me that this person should have assurance in the face of the sun to go about persuading your highness that our age is almost wholly illiterate, and has hardly produced one writer upon any subject. I know very well, that when your highness shall come to riper years, and have gone through the learning of antiquity, you will be too curious to neglect inquiring into the authors of the very age before you: and to think that this insolent, in the account he is preparing for your view, designs to reduce them to a number so insignificant as I am ashamed to mention; it moves my zeal and my spleen for the honour and interest of our vast flourishing body, as well as of myself, for whom I know by long experience, he has professed, and still continues, a peculiar malice. Between 1688 and 1705, England was politically unstable. The accession of Queen Anne led to a feeling of vulnerability among Establishment figures. Anne was rumoured to be immoderately stupid and was supposedly governed by her friend, Sarah Churchill, wife of the Duke of Marlborough. Although Swift was a Whig for much of this period, he was allied most nearly with the Ancients camp (which is to say Establishment, Church of England, aristocracy, traditional education), and he was politically active in the service of the Church. He claims, both in "The Apology for the &c." and in a reference in Book I of Gulliver's Travels, to have written the Tale to defend the crown from the troubles of the monsters besetting it. These monsters were numerous. At this time, political clubs and societies were proliferating. The print revolution had meant that people were gathering under dozens of banners, and political and religious sentiments previously unspoken were now rallying supporters. As the general dissenting position became the monied position, and as Parliament increasingly held power, historically novel degrees of freedom had brought an historically tenuous equipoise of change and stability. The work appeared anonymously in 1704. It was Swift's habit to publish anonymously throughout his career, partially as a way of protecting his career, and partially his person. [22] As a struggling churchman, Swift needed the support of nobles to gain a living. Additionally, nobles were still responsible for Church affairs in the House of Lords, so his political effectiveness in church affairs depended upon the lords. Swift needed to be at some distance from the sometimes bawdy and scatological work that he wrote.