The Prince of Lilliput

The Prince of Lilliput to Stella

[11 March 1726-27]

In European characters and English thus;

The high and mighty prince EGROEGO born to the most puissant empire of the East, Unto STELLA, the most resplendent glory of the Western hemisphere, sendeth health and happiness.

BRIGHTEST PRINCESS, That invincible heroe, the MAN MOUNTAIN, fortunately arriving at our coasts some years ago, delivered us from ruin by conquering the fleets and armies of our enemies, and gave us hopes of a durable peace and happiness. But now the martial people of Blefuscu, encouraged from his absence, have renewed the war, to revenge upon us the loss and disgrace they suffered by our valiant champion.

The fame of your superexcellent person and virtue, and the huge esteem which that great general has for you, urged us in this our second distress to sue for your favour. In order to which we have sent our able and trusty Nardac KOORNBNILOB requesting, That if our general does yet tread upon the terrestrial globe, you, in compassion for us, would prevail upon him to take another voyage for our deliverance.

And, lest any apprehensions of famine amongst us, should render Nardac MOUNTAIN averse to the undertaking, we signify to you, that we have stored our folds, our coops, our granaries and cellars with plenty of provision for a long supply of the wastes to be made by his capacious stomach.

And furthermore, because as we hear you are not so well as we could wish, we beg you would compleat our happiness by venturing your most valuable person along with him into our country; where, by the salubrity of our finer air and diet, you will soon recover your health and stomach.

In full assurance of your complying goodness, we have sent you some provision for your voyage, and we shall with impatience wait for your safe arrival in our kingdom. Most illustrious lady, farewel.
Prince EGROEGO.

Swift Counterfeited

[Jonathan Swift to Alexander Pope]

Dublin, May 1, 1733.

I answer your letter the sooner because I have a particular reason for doing so. Some weeks ago came a poem call'd The Life and Character of Dr. S. written by himself. It was reprinted here, and is dedicated to you. It is grounded upon a maxim in Rochefoucault, and the dedication, after a formal story, says that my manner of writing is to be found in every line. I believe I have told you, that I writ a year or two ago near five hundred lines upon the same maxim in R., and was a long time about it, as that Impostor says in his Dedication, with many Circumstances. All pure invention; I desire you to believe, and to tell my friends, that in this spurious piece there is not a single line, or a bit of a line, or thought, any way resembling the genuine Copy, any more than it does Virgil's Aeneid; for I never gave a Copy of mine, nor lent it out of sight. And although I shew'd it to all common acquaintance indifferently, and some of them (especially one or two females) had got many lines by heart, here and there, and repeated them often; yet it happens that not one single line or thought is contained in this imposture, although it appears that they who counterfeited me, had heard of the true one. But even this trick shall not provoke me to print the true one, which is indeed not proper to be seen, till I can be seen no more: I therefore desire you to undeceive my friends, and I will order an Advertisement to be printed here, and transmit it to England, that everybody may know the delusion, and acquit me, as, I am sure, you must have done yourself, if you have read any part of it, which is mean, and trivial, and full of that Cant that I most despise: I would sink to be a Vicar in Norfolk rather than be charged with such a performance . . . .

-from The Works of Alexander Pope, Vol. VII, p. 239.

Swift Borrows a Book

Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope

Dublin June 28, 1715.

My Lord Bishop of Clogher gave me your kind letter full of reproaches for my not writing. I am naturally no very exact correspondent, and when I leave a country without probability of returning, I think as seldom as I can of what I loved or esteemed in it, to avoid the Desiderium which of all things maketh life most uneasy. . .

I borrowed your Homer from the Bishop (mine is not yet landed) and read it out in two evenings. If it pleaseth others as well as me, you have got your end in profit and reputation: yet I am angry of some Rhymes and Triplets, and pray in your next do not let me have so many unjustifiable Rhymes to war and gods. I tell you all the faults I know, only in one or two places are you obscure; but I expected you to be so in one or two and twenty. I have heard no soul talk of it here, for indeed it is not come over; nor do we very much abound in Judges, at least I have not the honour to be acquainted with them. . .

I desire you will present my humble service to Mr. Addison, Mr. Congreve and Mr. Rowe, and Gay. I am, and will be always, extremely yours, etc.,

-from The Works of Alexander Pope, Vol. VII

Jonathan Swift Expounds

To Thomas Beach*

12 April 1735

After the fate of all poets, you are no favourite of fortune; for your letter of March 31st did not come to my hands till two days after Sir William Fownes's death, who, having been long afflicted with the stone and other disorders, besides great old age, died about nine days ago. If he had recovered, I should certainly have waited on him with your poem, and recommended it and the author very heartily to his favour. I have seen fewer good panegyrics than any other sort of writing, especially in verse, and therefore I much approve the method you have taken; I mean, that of describing a person who possesseth every virtue, and rather waiving that Sir William Fownes was in your thoughts, than that your picture was like in every part. He had indeed a very good natural understanding, nor wanted a talent for poetry; but his education denied him learning, for he knew no other language except his own; yet he was a man of taste and humour, as well as a wise and useful citizen, as appeared by some little treatises for regulating the government of this city; and I often wished his advice had been taken.

I read your poem several times, and showed it to three or four judicious friends, who all approved of it, but agreed with me, that it wanted some corrections; upon which I took the number of lines, which are in all two hundred and ninety-nine, the odd number being occasioned by what they call a triplet, which was a vicious way of rhyming, wherewith Dryden abounded, and was imitated by all the bad versifiers in Charles the Second's reign. Dryden, though my near relation, is one I have often blamed as well as pitied. He was poor, and in great haste to finish his plays, because by them he chiefly supported his family, and this made him so very uncorrect; he likewise brought in the Alexandrine verse at the end of the triplets. I was so angry at these corruptions, that above twenty-four years ago I banished them all by one triplet,** with the Alexandrine, upon a very ridiculous subject. I absolutely did prevail with Mr. Pope, and Gay, and Dr. Young, and one or two more, to reject them. Mr. Pope never used them till he translated Homer, which was too long a work to be so very exact in; and I think in one or two of his last poems he hath, out of laziness, done the same thing, though very seldom. . . .

[Jonathan Swift]

* Thomas Beach, wine-merchant of Wrexham, author of Eugenio.

** The last three lines of A Description of a City Shower.

-from Poets Through Their Letters: Volume 1 by Martin Seymour-Smith (London: Constable, 1969) p. 183-184.