PREFACE
WHEN the University of Cambridge honoured me by inviting me to deliver the Leslie Stephen lecture, I thought I was in duty bound to go to the 18th century for my subject. For Leslie Stephen has made the 18th century his own by right of conquest. Nor was I deterred from choosing to speak of Jonathan Swift by the reflection, that I should take a view of him and his writings, which was not the view of Leslie Stephen, whom this lecture commemorates. If controversy be the athletics of literature, as I think it is, then Leslie Stephen was not of those who would have resented disagreement. For he was an athlete always—on the running path, on the High Alps, and in his study. Thus was I guided in the choice of my subject.
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