It
is a mistake to suppose that he was indifferent to literary fame: on the
contrary, he kept some of his works in manuscript for years in order to
perfect them for publication, of which "The Tale of a Tub," "Gulliver's
Travels," and the "Verses on his own Death" are examples.
I am indebted to Miss Wilmot-Chetwode, of Wordbrooke, for the loan of a
manuscript volume, from which I obtained some various readings. By the
advice of Mr. Elrington Ball, I applied to the librarians of Trinity
College and of the National Library, and from the latter I received a
number of pieces; but I found that the harvest had already been reaped so
fully, that there was nothing left to glean which could with certainty be
ascribed to Swift. On the whole, I believe that this edition of the Poems
will be found as complete as it is now possible to make it.
In the arrangement of the poems, I have adopted nearly the same order as
in the Aldine edition, for the pieces seem to fall naturally into those
divisions; but with this difference, that I have placed the pieces in
their chronological order in each division. With regard to the notes in
illustration of the text, many of them in the Dublin editions were
evidently written by Swift, especially the notes to the "Verses on his
own Death.
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