the marriage to Stella is stated as an ascertained fact, on authority that is not now considered convincing.  Later biographers of Swift,—­Sir Henry Craik, Leslie Stephen, Mr. Churton Collins,—­have borne witness to the human interest of Scott’s biography, and its preeminence, in spite of inaccuracies, among all the Lives of Swift that have been written.  But Mr. Churton Collins thinks Scott did not present a really clear view of Swift’s mysterious character, and Craik says he took only the conventional attitude towards Swift’s politics, misanthropy, and religion.  The charge indicates Scott’s weakness, and perhaps also much of his strength, as a biographer and critic, for he had no prejudice against the conventional as such, and was never anxious to exhibit special “insight” of any kind.  Yet I think his portrayal of Swift has seemed to most readers a clear presentation of a real and comprehensible character.[191]

Scott’s remark when he undertook the work, that Swift was of his early favorites,[192] seems surprising when one remembers how his genial nature recoiled from misanthropy and cynicism; but his treatment of the Dean was so sympathetic that Jeffrey thought him decidedly too lenient, and was moved to express righteous indignation in the pages of the Edinburgh Review.[193] The rebuke was unnecessary, for Scott did not omit to record Swift’s failings and to express wholesomely vigorous opinions concerning them, though he felt that they ought to be looked upon as evidences of disease rather than of guilt.  He felt also, with perhaps some excess of charity but surely not such as could be in the least harmful, that “if the Dean’s principles were misanthropical, his practice was benevolent.  Few have written so much with so little view either to fame or to profit, or to aught but benefit to the public."[194] Jeffrey’s condemnation of Scott’s point of view was mingled with just praise.  He said of the biography:  “It is quite fair and moderate in politics; and perhaps rather too indulgent and tender towards individuals of all descriptions,—­more full, at least, of kindness and veneration for genius and social virtue, than of indignation at baseness and profligacy.  Altogether it is not much like the production of a mere man of letters, or a fastidious speculator in sentiment and morality; but exhibits throughout, and in a very pleasing form, the good sense and large toleration of a man of the world.”

The very practical motives that inspired most of Swift’s pamphlets would naturally attract Scott.  Probably it was the remembrance of the Drapier’s Letters that suggested to him a similar form of protest against proposed changes in the Scottish currency; certainly the Letters of Malachi Malagrowther had an effect comparable to that of Swift’s more consummately ingenious appeal.  Another quality in Swift’s work that would naturally arouse Scott’s admiration was the remarkable directness and lucidity of the