Alderman—Bibliographical Evidence of Shaftesbury. 65 
Long before Shaftesbury had established himself as a writer, 
the appearances of his unsigned treatises excited wide comment 
and speculation. Swift, writing from London to Robert Hunter 
in Paris, January 12th, 1708-09, remarks, ‘‘I cannot forbare telling 
you of your mechancete to impute the Letter on Enthusiasm to me; 
when I have some good reasons to think the author is now in 
Paris. And again in writing to Ambrose Philips, September 
14, 1708, he says, ‘‘There has been an essay on Enthusiasm lately 
published, that has run mightily, and is very well writ. All my 
friends will have me to be the author, sed ego non credulus illis. 
By the free Whiggish thinking I should rather take it to be yours, 
but mine it is not. . . 
The appearance, during the period 1698-1790, of twenty-five 
publications and republications of the works of this “noble au¬ 
thor” was not without its cause. The books were popular and 
sold rapidly. The editor of the 1733 pocket edition triumphantly 
asserts that “all the best Judges are agreed that we have never 
had any work in the English language, so beautiful, so delightful, 
and so instructive as these Char act eristichs.^^^^ Nor can this be 
considered a commercial exaggeration, for he goes on to state what 
obviously was a fact: “And five large Editions being sold off, give 
a very sensible proof of their being generally liked.” Eleven edi¬ 
tions of the Characteristics, each of three volumes, appeared be¬ 
tween 1711 and 1790. “The reception these writings have met 
with from all persons of good taste and judgment, has been such 
as might have given great satisfaction to that truly noble and in¬ 
genious Author, if he had lived longer to enjoy it.”^^ 
III. 
Nor are these numerous appearances of his works the only proofs 
of his vitality. Scarcely had his unsigned Letter concerning En¬ 
thusiasm (1708) appeared, when speculation began as to its author¬ 
ship. Swift generally was thought to be its originator, but he in 
turn passed the implication on to Philips and Hunter. There 
were forthcoming almost immediately three replies— Remarks on 
a Letter by a Lord concerning Enthusiasm, not written in raillery 
but in good humor, published anonymously; Bart’lemy Fair, or 
^^Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, edited by F. E. Ball, London, 1910, p. 136. 
^Correspondence, London, 1910, p. 111. 
Preface to 1733 edition. 
Gosse, Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 387. 
