What object Swift had in writing this Abstract is not known.

If the dedication to the Count de Gyllenborg truly states his intention, it must be confessed that the "foreigners, and gentlemen of our own country" had not much upon which to congratulate themselves.

Why Swift should have chosen the Count de Gyllenborg to whom to address the dedication must also remain a matter for conjecture.

The Count had been sent out of the British Isles for instigating a conspiracy for a Jacobite insurrection in Great Britain.

Swift wrote his dedication three years after the Count's expulsion.