A group of book critics gathered together :
Critic 1 : Isit atale ? Isit atub ? Isit abuc ?
Critic 2 : Itfli es.
Critic 3 :Hau do es it flei?
Critic 2 : Uei, threu theair!
Critic 4 : Uair ? I si it not.
Critic 1 : It is . . . in vi si ble.
Critic 2 : Itfle is threu thier, an disinvi si ble –
Critic 3 : itcud bieni uaer, aenith ing.
Critic 2 : Gen tel men, lae dies, it do es not flei threu aeras such : it trans mits threu the aether . . .
Critic 4 : uat, it is as pri te ? Aphant um ? hau canui teth erit ?
Critic 2 : Nos pri te, bu tuerd sa plen ti. Uerds, in vi si blefl eiing, uca not si it, ietit com uni cates –
Critic 4: Pah ! Tis all bosh - u meic moc offmi, I uill ha ve no ne offit !
(Throws inkpot at offending object and leaves precipitately through a neaby portal.)
Critics 1, 2 &3 : Haha, now that he is gone, let us gather round to read the rest of it . .
(Can you guess what it is yet ?)
Not that it matters much, it was more a test run in Swiftian nonsense Latin, which was quite fun (mutters: Only where did I leave Mr Swift's dictionary . . .hurries off after vanishing coat tails)
An original example from his Consultation of Four Physicians upon a Lord that was Dying :
“First Doctor. Is his Honor sick ? Prae laetus felis
pulse. It do es beat veris loto de.
Second Doctor. No notis as qui cassi e ver feltu
metri it. Inde edit is as fastas an alarum ora fire
bellat nite.
Third Doctor. It is veri hei !”
Translated :
“First Doctor. Is his honour sick ? Pray let us feel his pulse.
It does beat very slow to-day.
Second Doctor. No, no, 'tis as quick as I ever felt ; you may
try it. Indeed, it is as fast as an alarum, or a fire-bell at night
Third Doctor. It is very high.”
pulse. It do es beat veris loto de.
Second Doctor. No notis as qui cassi e ver feltu
metri it. Inde edit is as fastas an alarum ora fire
bellat nite.
Third Doctor. It is veri hei !”
Translated :
“First Doctor. Is his honour sick ? Pray let us feel his pulse.
It does beat very slow to-day.
Second Doctor. No, no, 'tis as quick as I ever felt ; you may
try it. Indeed, it is as fast as an alarum, or a fire-bell at night
Third Doctor. It is very high.”
How did he fit it all in ? When it wasn't made up words and languages, far-flung imaginary countries, social satire and essays, it was pamphlets, poetry and polemics on top of carrying out his duties as clergyman (though exactly how much time was expended on this last could be viewed with some pardonable doubt). All of this in spite of growing deafness, tinnitus, vertigo and general discomfort, all symptoms of a condition that has since been diagnosed as Mernière’s Disease.
His reputation presents something of a kaleidoscope : held in low regard by Dr Johnson(‘Swift has told what he had to tell distinctly enough, but that is all. He had to count ten, and he counted right’), admired by Byron(‘His wit . . . unmatch’d by all), championed by Hazlitt as a poet rather than prose writer, referring to Swift’s ‘serious, saturnine and practical wit’ as compared to Rabelais’s sense of the fantastical; Coleridge perhaps offers the most incisive of succinct comments : ‘Swift was . . . the soul of Rabelais dwelling in a dry place’.
These and many other conflicting comments on Swift suggest the high complexity he represented, the difficulty of pigeon-holing him into any one convenient category. Hoorah. I don't care for pigeon-holing. Convenient, yes - but thereby lies a rub, too. It can become too convenient, even complacent by over-ease of use. This was the wit who never laughed, the cynical clergyman, the boiling, seething volcano contained within a weakly human frame given to fits of dizziness and nausea, a compendium of opposites.
An excellent character portrait of this contradictory man who gave such a lot of brilliant nonsense to the world can be found in Victoria Glendinning's biography:
Intimate, social as opposed to political, it draws on his private correspondence to paint a portrait of a witty man who never laughed, a ‘cultivated heathen . . in a world of confusion and falshood’ (Thomas Carlyle, Lectures on English Literary History)
Other links of related interest :
Ref (Swift’s Health) :
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