II.

Early Writings

Among Swift's earliest prose work was The Battle of the Books (1697), a burlesque of the controversy then raging in literary circles over the relative merits of ancient and modern writers. In this work Swift championed the ancients and, with mordant satire, attacked the pedantry and sham scholarship of his day. His A Tale of a Tub (1704) is the most amusing of his satirical works and the most strikingly original. In it Swift ridiculed with matchless irony various forms of pretentious pedantry, mainly in literature and religion. The book gave rise to grave doubts concerning Swift's religious orthodoxy, however, and it is thought that because Queen Anne was offended, Swift lost his chance for ecclesiastical preferment in England.

Although nominally a Whig, Swift differed from his party on many important questions. In 1710 a Tory government came to power in England, and Swift was quickly won over to its ranks. He then turned his biting satire against the Whigs in a series of brilliant short pieces, assumed the editorship of the Examiner, the official Tory publication, and produced a number of pamphlets, in all of which he ably defended the policies of the Tory administration. Of these papers the most eloquent and influential was The Conduct of the Allies (November 1711), in which Swift charged that the Whigs had prolonged the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) out of self-interest. The pamphlet was instrumental in procuring the dismissal of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, the commander in chief of the British armies.