Jonathan Swift: Irish Blow-In by Eugene Hammond, and: Jonathan Swift: Our Dean by Eugene Hammond (review)

The year 2017 marked the 350^th anniversary of Jonathan Swift's birth in Dublin, although whether he is to be considered Irish, and what that meant during his long life (1667–1745), is one of the many puzzles that any student of Swift encounters. He was educated in Ireland, and from 1714 lived there as dean of St. Patrick's cathedral until his death; the works for which he is best known—The Drapier's Letters, Gulliver's Travels, and A Modest Proposal—were written in Ireland and are wholly or partly about Ireland and its troubled relationship with England. The earlier decades when Swift was mostly based in England included extended spells in Ireland, but they were, crucially, years when he was trying to obtain a senior appointment in the Church of England—a comfortable living at the very least, a bishopric in prospect. His usefulness to the Tory ministry 1710–14 gave him hopes. These were dashed upon the death of Queen Anne and the Whig triumph that followed. Having to leave scenes in which he had held power of a sort, or at least had been close to power on a daily basis, was painful; taking up his post at St. Patrick's felt like exile. Living in Ireland was like banishment to a lesser land, and Swift was scathing about it in his writings. Scholars have generally thought that he regarded himself as English.

Eugene Hammond divides his two-volume biography of Swift conven tionally enough at 1714, but less conventionally he presents Swift as a happy, well-rounded, well-adjusted man in the years leading up to the collapse of the Tory ministry. The first volume thus traces a "tragic arc" because it ends with his removal. It is the story of a man dedicated to "principled behaviour," who gives "exceptional service" as "a civic activist" (especially in helping to achieve the peace with France that stabilized England's economy); who wanted to make history and record it, as Plutarch did, to inspire future leaders; and who was rewarded with nothing but heartache and frustration. (To put Swift's "tragedy" in perspective: Matthew Prior and Harley, Lord Oxford went to the Tower after 1714; Bolingbroke fled to France and joined the Pretender.) Out of heartache comes a resilient determination. Volume 2 shows a Swift who enjoys managing his cathedral; he makes friends in Ireland; he identifies with the poor, takes up their cause, and becomes an opponent of English imperialism. Swift's "savage indignation" is thus rationally explained as the product of circumstances.

In Hammond's rendering lies an implicit (and sometimes explicit) rebuke to those who have found Swift "disturbed," phobic, obsessive, misanthropic, misogynist, soured by resentments, and determined to identify as English. What we should see in the first half of his life, and especially in A Tale of a Tub—the work Hammond thinks his mas terpiece—is Swift's energy, his "unremitting exuberance." Without ques tion, this is a more attractive Swift, simpler, less problematic, less down right nasty, less troubled. He is a man both scholarly and sociable. His conversation and company is highly valued. He has a "sweetness of temper." People think him a little eccentric (especially about money) but no odder than other clever clerics, less inclined to hypocrisy, a believer in hierarchy but kind to all who deserve kindness, and with a proper regard for cleanliness. Until 1710 and his close association with Harley and St. John, Swift considered himself, according to Hammond, "unprob lematically Irish." Hammond's Swift is sanitized, the coarseness rubbed away. Hammond writes as if for new, rather tender, readers, students who not only need help in understanding Swift's texts and their social and political contexts, but also...