known:  in one of his later years, when his hand had lost its cunning, he is said to have exclaimed, as he picked it up, “What a genius I had when I wrote that book!” The characters of the story are Peter (representing St. Peter, or the Roman Catholic Church), Martin (Luther, or the Church of England), and Jack (John Calvin, or the Presbyterians).  By their father’s will each had been left a suit of clothes, made in the fashion of his day.  To this Peter added laces and fringes; Martin took off some of the ornaments of doubtful taste; but Jack ripped and tore off the trimmings of his dress to such an extent that he was in clanger of exposing his nakedness.  It is said that the invective was so strong and the satire so bitter, that they presented a bar to that preferment which Swift might otherwise have obtained.  He appears at this time to have cared little for public opinion, except that it should fear his trenchant wit and do homage to his genius.

THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS.—­In the same year, 1704, he also published The Battle of the Books, the idea of which was taken from a French work of Courtraye, entitled “Histoire de la guerre nouvellement declaree entre les Anciens et les Modernes.”  Swift’s work was written in furtherance of the views of his patron, Temple, who had some time before engaged in the controversy as to the relative merits of ancient and modern learning, and who, in the words of Macaulay, “was so absurd as to set up his own authority against that of Bentley on questions of Greek history and philology.”

The Battle of the Books is of present value, as it affords information upon the opinions then held on a question which, in various forms, has been agitating the literary world ever since.  In it Swift compares Dryden, Wotten, and Bentley with the old authors in St. James’s Library, where the battle of the books is said to have taken place.

Upon the death of Sir William Temple, in 1699, Swift had gone to London.  He was ambitious of power and money, and when he found little chance of preferment among the Whigs, he became a Tory.  It must be said, in explanation of this change, that, although he had called himself a Whig, he had disliked many of their opinions, and had never heartily espoused their cause.  Like others already referred to, he watched the political horizon, and was ready for a change when circumstances should warrant it.  This change and its causes are set forth in his Bickerstaff’s Ridicule of Astrology and Sacramental Test.

The Whigs tried hard to retain him; the Tories were rejoiced to receive him, and modes of preferment for him were openly canvassed.  One of these was to make him Bishop of Virginia, with metropolitan powers in America; but it failed.  He was also recommended for the See of Hereford; but persons near the queen advised her “to be sure that the man she was going to make a bishop was a Christian.”  Thus far he had only been made rector of Agher and vicar of Laracor and Rathbeggin.