which came mysteriously to the publisher from the hands of Richard Sympson', and then was altered here and there without Swift's knowledge.'

Yet it cannot be proved that the Tale of a Tub and the other pieces in the volume did not appear as the author intended. The publisher was John Nutt. Now Benjamin Tooke had published for Swift the third part of Temple's Miscellanea in 1701, and it was Tooke with whom Swift corresponded in 1710 about the fifth edition of the Tale, which still bore the name of Nutt on the title-page. Similarly Tooke arranged for the publication of Swift's Miscellanies in Prose and Verse,3 which was brought out at the end of February 1711 by John Morphew, Nutt's successor. Swift called Tooke my bookseller'; and the Journal to Stella and the Letters show that he helped Swift on occasion in matters of business. He was a man for whose honesty', said Swift, 'I will engage'. The publishing and bookselling connexion, the trust and the familiarity that began with Temple's Miscellanea continued till Tooke's death; and it was Tooke's successor, Benjamin Motte, who brought out Gulliver's Travels in 1726. Why Tooke should not have been Swift's acknowledged publisher is not clear; but that he acted as Swift's literary agent is certain. Was he already his literary agent in 1704? The assistance of a sagacious and trusty friend, himself a publisher,

who was given a fair copy of the manuscript and acted in accordance with the author's wishes, while the author himself remained in the background, would provide an explanation of much of the mystery in which the issue of the Tale was purposely involved.

2

II. AUTHORSHIP.

There was much speculation about the author of the anonymous Tale. Some hinted that Sir William Temple had a hand in it.' Sacheverell thought it might be by Smalridge. Atterbury reported that at Oxford it was generally supposed to be by Edmund Smith and John Philips, though he himself suspected Swift.3 Others claimed it for Lord Somers. Others attributed it, in whole or in part, to Thomas Swift.

Only the claims made for Thomas Swift need to be stated. They were seriously urged, and gave the real author much annoyance; and for this reason the evidence for them is here set down fully:

1. The following passage is printed in John Nichols's Select Collection of Poems, 1780, vol. iv, p. *358:

One striking anecdote . . . is so remarkable, that I shall insert it here it is extracted from a letter of Dr. Charles Davenant, dated

See the quotation from Wotton's Observations, 1705, given below; also p. 297. Deane Swift in his Essay upon Jonathan Swift, 1755, p. 60, says that 'every section of the Tale was revised by Temple.

any one had seen such a manuscript, it would have been Atterbury. Compare H. C. Beeching, Francis Atterbury, 1909, p. 233.

4 See p. 22, note 1. Compare Addison, The Free-Hölder, No. 39, May 4, 1716: 'this extraordinary Person, out of his natural Aversion to Vain-glory, wrote several Pieces as well as performed several Actions, which he did not assume the Honour of: . . . many Works of this Nature have appeared, which every one has ascribed to him'.

Sept. 22, to his son Harry, secretary and chargé d'affairs for Q. Anne at Francfort. I desire you to deliver the inclosed to Col. Parks (aidde-camp to the Duke of Marlborough). The chief subject of it is to bespeak his kindness for my cousin Swift to be his chaplain against he has a regiment. My cousin has gained immortal honour by having had the principal hand in a book lately published, called The Tale of a Tub, which has made as much noise, and is as full of wit, as any book perhaps that has come out these last hundred years'. Nichols thought that 'my cousin Swift' was Jonathan Swift; but Davenant evidently meant Thomas Swift, who was his nephew, the word 'cousin' being used in the old loose sense of 'relative'.

2. Wotton refers thus to Thomas Swift in his Observations upon The Tale of a Tub':

The World besides will think it odd, that a Man should in a Dedication play upon that Great Man [i.e. Somers], to whom he is more obliged than to any other Man now living; for it was at Sir William Temple's Request, that my Lord Sommers, then LordKeeper of the Great-Seal of England, gave Mr. Swift2 a very good Benefice in one of the most Delicious Parts of one of the Pleasantest Counties of England. It is publicly reported that he wrote this Book: It is a Story, which you know, Sir, I neither made, nor spread; for it has been long as public as it can well be. . . . I acquit him from composing it. The Author, I believe, is dead, and it is probable that it was writ in the Year 1697, when it is said to have been written.

Thomas Swift had been presented by Somers to the Rectory of Puttenham in Surrey. The Author' whom Wotton believes to be dead is Sir William Temple, who died in January 1699.3

3. In June 1710, shortly before the fifth edition appeared, Edmund Curll published A Complete Key to the Tale of a Tub.* The first part of it asserted definitely that Thomas Swift wrote the main portion of the Tale,

1 See Appendix B, p. 323. 2 Wotton thought that Thomas Swift was Jonathan's brother, and distinguishes them as 'Mr. Swift' and Dr. Swift' (D.D. Dublin, 1701). In another passage he

says that 'a Brother of Dr. Swift's is publicly reported to have been the Editor at least, if not the Author' (p. 314).

3 See p. 312.

4 Printed in full as Appendix C.

as well as the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, and that Jonathan Swift added the Dedications to Somers and to Posterity, the Preface, and the four Digressions that form Sections iii, v, vii, and ix, as well as the Battle of the Books. The main part of the pamphlet, the Clavis proper, annotates more or less fully what is ascribed to Thomas Swift (with the exception of the Conclusion'), and leaves unexplained what is ascribed to Jonathan Swift (with the exception of Section ix). The notes are of little value, and some of them are wrong. As a whole the Complete Key has two purposes: to claim that a large part of the Tale was the work of Thomas Swift, and to explain that part, and that part only. On the first page of a copy preserved in the British Museum, Curll has written the following words: Given me by Ralph Noden, Esq; of the Middle Temple. E Curil.' Evidently Noden 3 was either the author of the Key, or had acted as intermediary for its publication.

2

4. In Nichols's edition of Swift's Works, 1808, vol. ii, there is prefixed to the Tale an Advertisement' consisting of Historical Particulars communicated to Nichols in 1777 by the Rev. Samuel Salter, D.D. then Master of the Charter-house'. One paragraph is as follows:

In March 1766, a copy of the first edition of the Tale of a Tub' was sold (for 5s. 6d. only) at an auction of books, by S. Baker*:

this copy had, it seems, belonged to Sheffield duke of Bucks; with whom Dean Swift does not appear either to have had, or to have wished for, any intimacy. In the first blank leaf the duke (as is believed and there affirmed) had written these words: 'What follows here written, is all by the hand of Mr. Thomas Swift:' or something of this tenour. In the next page Thomas Swift has given the following anecdotes.

The anecdotes were, as Nichols pointed out, all copied word for word from Curll's Key.

This is all the evidence for Thomas Swift's participation in the Tale,-nothing but rumour and Curll's Key. It is wholly disposed of by the letter which Swift wrote to Benjamin Tooke the publisher on June 29, 1710, when they were making arrangements for the of David Mallet and was sold by Samuel Baker on March 10, 1766. The entry in the catalogue is as follows:- 828 Tale of a Tub, with MS. Additions by Tho. Swift, near Relation to the Dean, and shewing what part[s] of the Book were written by the Doctor and himself, 1704. The same volume, then purchased by Dr. Hunter', reappears in the catalogue for the sale of Dr. Charles Chauncey's books on April 12-15, 1790: 'No. 2408] Swift's Tale of a Tub, morocco, with large MS. note. Note in this Book. All that is contained here, in writing, was set down by Thomas Swift himself. The above is said to be the Handwriting of Lady Betty Germain, whose Book this was. C. Chauncey.' The volume then fetched £3. 35. (priced catalogue, British Museum Library 7004 cc 10). In a copy of the Tale now in the Forster Collection at South Kensington, Forster jotted a note about this sale based on a newspaper

paragraph, and ending thus: 'Autograph of Lady Betty Germain at commt of vol. "All that is contained here in writing was set down by Jon. Swift himself." Sold for 3. 3.' Another account appeared in Notes and Queries on August 4, 1877: 'Last week at Sotheby and Co.'s a copy of Swift's Tale of a Tub was sold, which was said to have belonged to Lady Betty Germain, who has noted in it that it was written by Jonathan and Thomas Swift, and that she had got Thomas to write on the margins what each wrote. It confirms the dean's assertion that he did not write the Tale of a Tub, but only the Digressions. In this copy "Jon. Swift" is written against the preface and the Digressions, but Thomas's [sic] against each chapter of The Tale'. Despite the discrepancies in the accounts, it is clear that they all deal with the same volume.

I See Appendix D, pp. 343, 4.