4 
1829.] Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. 383 
quently, possessed all the rich excrescences of roughnesses of character 
that distinguish such a period—moreover he possesses, in their fullest 
degree, two qualities, seldom found combined in the same person ; viz., 
unbounded learning, and equal powers of humour, andvis gifted, in addi- 
tion, with a vigorous imagination, which had it directed itself into a 
different channel, might have made Rabelais the first poet of his age. 
For these reasons it is that this incomparable satirist has seldom met 
with imitators, a mean ignoble race, whose professed object isto pull 
down their great models to their own inferior level. When, however, 
we use the term “ imitators,” we are far from meaning to apply it to the 
intellect of a man like Swift, who followed in the track that Rabelais had 
before pointed out, only because his genius was of a congenial quality, 
and his learning nearly equal. The author of such works as the “ Tale 
of a Tub,” and “ Gulliver’s Travels,” both of which are store-houses of 
rich and matured thought, must not be confounded with the “ imitatorum 
servum pecus.” He has too much vigour of fancy—too much profound- 
ness of reflection—too much searching wit, and envenomed sarcasm— 
too much, in short, of all that constitutes the man of genius, to be other 
than a splendid original. In one point alone he is faulty, miserably 
faulty, we mean in a studious imitation of his great prototype’s obsceni- 
ties. Were it not for this taint, which throws over the splendour of 
Swift’s intellect a cloud that nothing can disperse, which tends even 
to impeach his moral character, and almost induces us to believe (despite 
the contradiction of Hawkesworth, who, in his memoirs of this great 
Tory writer, asserts that he was cleanly in his habits, and decorous in his 
conduct, even to fastidiousness) that the author who could deliberately 
put forth such degrading suggestions, must himself have been perverse, 
and equally degraded as a man—were it not, we repeat, for this sick- 
ening taint, the works of Swift would be among the very first of their 
class ; calculated no less to form and mature the mind of the philosopher, 
than of the politician. Arbuthnot, who forms the third of this illustrious 
triumvirate, is a writer of a quiet and lively fancy, full of ease and sim~ 
plicity, and a certain bonhommie, or archness, unknown to either of the 
other two. He has little or nothing of the extravagance of ‘Rabelais— 
nothing of his sweeping satire, or bold heedlessness of style, and is 
equally deficient in the perpetual point, terseness and dry sarcasm of 
Swift. But then to make amends, he is more natural than either: his 
jests seem to drop with less effort from his mouth; he appears more at 
home in his laughter. The tale of “ John Bull,” by which he is chiefly 
_ remembered, is an allegorical satire, in which an easy power is every- 
where visible—it is full to overflowing of character, and has the addi- 
tional qualification of good humour to recommend it. In this last 
respect Arbuthnot is incomparably the first satirist of modern times. In 
reading Rabelais, the mind is oppressed, dazzled, bewildered ; we feel, 
throughout his works, the presence of undoubted genius ; but it is of a 
genius alien to our own—one in which we cannot sympathize as we 
would desire; his humour astonishes more than it delights us, and we 
acknowledge, rather than feel, the magic of his works. The cheerful- 
ness of Swift is of a still less gratifying character: it is the cheerfulness 
of a determined misanthropist, and like a jest, uttered beside the grave, 
has a striking air of repulsiveness and inconsistency about it. We 
always feel as if we owed an apology to ourselves for even smiling at this 
author's humour—so withering is its character-—so malignant—so wholly 
