It is curious that something of a similar fate should have happened to the other and greater figure, his contemporary, his enemy, in some respects his fellow-laborer, another and more brilliant slave of the government, which in itself had so little that was brilliant,--the great dean whose name has already appeared so often in these sketches. Swift, too, of all his books, is remembered chiefly by the book of the travels of “Gulliver,” which, though full of a satirical purpose unknown to Defoe, has come to rank along with “Robinson Crusoe.” We may say indeed that these two books form a class by themselves, of perennial enchantment for the young, and full of a curious and enthralling illusion which even in age we rarely shake off. Swift rises into bitter and terrible tragedy, while Defoe sinks into matter of fact and commonplace; but the shipwrecked sailor on his desolate island, and the exile at the courts of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, both in the beginnings of their careers hold our imaginations captive, and are as fresh and as powerful to-day as when, the one in keen satire, the other in the legitimate way of business, they first made their appearance in the world. It is a singular link between the men who both did Harley’s dirty work for him, and were subject to a leader so much smaller than themselves.