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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Author:  

Dean Swift

 

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Dean Swift : [Captain Crichton's autobiography]

''4th-11th- Reading Homer and basking in the sun upon the sea side of the breakwater. Weather delicious. Have also been swallowing autobiographies - Gifford's, Thomas Elwood's, Capt. Crichton's autobiography by Dean Swift. Crichton was an old cavalry officer, an Irishman, who had served in Scotland under the bloodhound Dalzell, against the Covenanters: and as he could not tell his story decently himself, the Dean, while he was staying at Markethill, took down the facts from the old man and set them forth in his own words, but using the first person - Crichton loquente. The product is highly amusing: in every page you see a Dean of St Patrick's riding down the Whigamores, or a Sergeant Bothwell in canonicals thundering against Wood's Copper. But the best thing is that our admirable Dean makes Crichton (who did not care a button about the matter) deliver with bitter venom some of his, the Dean's, own Jonathan-Swiftean opinions about church government, and contradict and vituperate Bishop Burnet with an odium almost theological, and he a mere dragoon.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel      Print: Book

  

Deane Swift : Essay on the Life, &c. of Dr Swift

[Elizabeth Carter to Catherine Talbot, 13 June 1755:] 'How do you like Mr Johnson's Dictionary? I have only seen part of the Preface, which was like himself. I have just been reading Mr Swift's account of the Dean, a book at which I am greatly scandalized. I do not remember ever to have met with so open and shameful a vindication of that species of idolatry which is the absolute ruin of all virtue, the worship of the world.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Carter      Print: Book

 

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