'Were I to form a regular thought of Fame, Which is perhaps, as hard to imagine right As to paint Echo to the sight, I would not draw the idea from an empty name; Because, alas! when we all die, Careless and ignorant posterity, Although they praise the learning and the wit, And though the title seems to show The name and man by whom the book was writ, Yet how shall they be brought to know Whether that very name was he, or you, or I? Less should I daub it o'er with transitory praise, And water-colours of these days: These days! where e'en th' extravagance of poetry Is at a loss for figures to express Men's folly, whimsies, and inconstancy, And by a faint description makes them less. Then tell us what is Fame, where shall we search for it? Look where exalted Virtue and Religion sit, Enthroned with heavenly Wit! Look where you see The greatest scorn of learned Vanity! (And then how much a nothing is mankind! Whose reason is weighed down by popular air. Who, by that, vainly talks of baffling death, And hopes to lengthen life by a transfusion of breath, Which yet whoe'er examines right will find To be an art as vain as bottling up of wind!) And when you find out these, believe true Fame is there, Far above all reward, yet to which all is due; And this, ye great unknown! is only known in you.'
It is remarkable that at the very time Swift was perpetrating these lyrical atrocities, he was at work on the _Tale of a Tub_, which is generally regarded as the most masterly effort of his genius. A critic has said that Swift's poetry 'lacks one quality only--imagination,' but verse without imagination is like a body without a soul, like a house without windows, like a landscape-painting without atmosphere, and no license of language will allow us to call Swift a poet. Enough that he became a master of rhyme, and used it with extraordinary facility. Dr. Johnson's estimate of Swift's powers in this respect is a just one:
'In the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the critic can exercise his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions, ease and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact. There seldom occurs a hard-laboured expression, or a redundant epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good style; they consist of proper words in proper places.'