Extremely diverting are Gulliver's adventures among the tiny Lilliputians; only less so are his more perilous encounters with the giants of Brobdingnag....

By a singular dispensation of Providence, we usually read the _Travels_ while we are children; we are delighted with the marvellous story, we are not at all injured by the poison.

Poor Swift! he was conscious of insanity's approach; he repeated annually Job's curse upon the day of his birth; he died a madman.
There are numerous biographies of Swift; but probably the best characterization of the man and his life, rather than of his books, is to be found in Thackeray's _English Humorists_, and a closer study of the man and his works in Leslie Stevenson's "Swift," in Morley's _English Men of Letters_.

The other biographies of him are: Lord Orrery _Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr.Jonathan Swift_, 1751; Hawkes, on his life, 1765; Sheridan's life, 1785; Forster's life, 1875 (unfinished); Henry Craik's life (1882).

The best edition of Swift's writings and correspondence is that edited by Scott, 1824.
FOOTNOTES: [1] _Redriff Rotherhithe_: then a Thames side village, now part of London.
[2] _Pound_: nearly five dollars.
[3] _Levant_: the point where the sun rises.