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Jonathan Swift's “The Day of Judgement”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Sidney L. Gulick Jr.
Sidney L. Gulick Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Extract

The Day of Judgement“ was in 1775 added to the Swift canon without question, by inclusion in a supplement to the Dean's works, and its authorship has apparently never been doubted. In the following paragraphs it will be shown that the poem was accepted on insufficient grounds, but that it is authentic. The poem is generally supposed to have been first printed in the Earl of Chesterfield's Letters to his Son (7 April, 1774), its authenticity guaranteed by an accompanying letter in which the earl wrote that he had the original in Swift's own handwriting. As a matter of fact, the poem was first published in the St. James's Chronicle (12 April, 1774) in a letter from an anonymous contributor, and apparently from this source transferred through the Monthly Review (July, 1774) to the fourth edition of Chesterfield's Letters (29 October, 1774). From the Letters, apparently, it was incorporated into the collection of Swift (1775), and thus into the Swift canon. The anonymity of the original source raises doubts concerning the poem's authenticity. From these doubts two references to the poem (both by Lord Chesterfield), one of which could not have been available to a literary forger, clear ”The Day of Judgement.“

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 1933 , pp. 850 - 855
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933

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References

1 Letters to his Son, 27 August, 1752.

2 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vi, 630.

3 Pages 409, 410.—I have omitted Nichols's quotation from the earl's letter.

4 Literary Anecdotes, vi, 631.

5 This edition was published in 24 weekly parts, from 2 March to 10 August, 1776, the index being the last part.

6 Works of Jonathan Swift … 2d edition (Boston, 1883), xiv, 259. The first edition was published at Edinburgh in 1814.

7 The identical note appears in The Poetical Works of Jonathan Swift. With a life, by Rev. John Mitford (Boston, 1853), ii, 17.

8 London, 1910. i, 213. Edited by William Ernst Browning, author of the Life of Lord Chesterfield.

9 Chesterfield, Miscellaneous Works, 2d edition, 1779. iv, 369–374.

10 Ibid., iv, Supplement, 76–94.

11 Chesterfield, Letters to his Son, 17 October, 1768; footnote by Mrs. Stanhope in any early edition.

12 Miscellaneous Works, i, 352.

13 Excerpts from Chesterfield's will were widely published after his death. See the London Chronicle (29 June, 1773); Scots Magazine (June, 1773), 287–288; Gentleman's Magazine (July, 1773), 317–318; Annual Register (1773), part i, 198–200.

14 Advertisements in the London Chronicle and London Evening Post, 23 November, 1773.

15 William M. Morrison: The Decisions of the Court of Session (Edinburgh, 1805), x, Appendix, Part i, 1–7.

16 Volume li, 25.

17 The editor of the Miscellaneous Works (2d edition, 1779, iv, 221) wrote: “The original of the letters to the bishop of Waterford were entrusted to me, by that venerable prelate, after he had sent me copies of all, made under his eyes.”