One remark is obvious. _Gulliver's Travels_ (omitting certain passages) is almost the most delightful children's book ever written. Yet it has been equally valued as an unrivalled satire. Old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was "in raptures with it," says Gay, "and can dream of nothing else." She forgives his bitter attacks upon her party in consideration of his assault upon human nature. He gives, she declares, "the most accurate" (that is, of course, the most scornful) "account of kings, ministers, bishops, and courts of justice, that is possible to be writ." Another curious testimony may be noticed. Godwin, when tracing all evils to the baneful effects of government, declares that the author of _Gulliver_ showed a "more profound insight into the true principles of political justice than any preceding or contemporary author." The playful form was unfortunate, thinks this grave philosopher, as blinding mankind to the "inestimable wisdom" of the work. This double triumph is remarkable. We may not share the opinions of the cynics of the day, or of the revolutionists of a later generation; but it is strange that they should be fascinated by a work which is studied with delight, without the faintest suspicion of any ulterior meaning, by the infantile mind.
The charm of Gulliver for the young depends upon an obvious quality, which is indicated in Swift's report of the criticism by an Irish bishop, who said that "the book was full of improbable lies, and for his part he hardly believed a word of it." There is something pleasant in the intense gravity of the narrative, which recalls and may have been partly suggested by _Robinson Crusoe_, though it came naturally to Swift. I have already spoken of his delight in mystification, and the detailed realization of pure fiction seems to have been delightful in itself. The Partridge pamphlets and its various practical jokes are illustrations of a tendency which fell in with the spirit of the time, and of which _Gulliver_ may be regarded as the highest manifestation. Swift's peculiarity is in the curious sobriety of fancy, which leads him to keep in his most daring flights upon the confines of the possible. In the imaginary travels of Lucian and Rabelais, to which _Gulliver_ is generally compared, we frankly take leave of the real world altogether. We are treated with arbitrary and monstrous combinations which may be amusing, but which do not challenge even a semblance of belief. In _Gulliver_ this is so little the case that it can hardly be said in strictness that the fundamental assumptions are even impossible. Why should there not be creatures in human form with whom as in Lilliput, one of our inches represents a foot, or, as in Brobdingnag, one of our feet represents an inch? The assumption is so modest that we are presented--it may be said--with a definite and soluble problem. We have not, as in other fictitious worlds, to deal with a state of things in which the imagination is bewildered, but with one in which it is agreeably stimulated. We have certainly to consider an extreme and exceptional case; but one to which all the ordinary laws of human nature are still strictly applicable. In Voltaire's trifle, _Micromegas_, we are presented to beings eight leagues in height and endowed with seventy-two senses. For Voltaire's purpose the stupendous exaggeration is necessary; for he wishes to insist upon the minuteness of human capacities. But the assumption of course disqualifies us from taking any intelligent interest in a region where no precedent is available for our guidance. We are in the air; anything and everything is possible. But Swift modestly varies only one element in the problem. Imagine giants and dwarfs as tall as a house or as low as a footstool, and let us see what comes of it. That is a plain, almost a mathematical problem; and we can therefore judge his success, and receive pleasure from the ingenuity and verisimilitude of his creations.