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A Tale of a Tub

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Novels

          This article is about the satire by Jonathan Swift. For the 1633
          play by Ben Jonson, see A Tale of a Tub (play).

   Title page of the first edition
   Enlarge
   Title page of the first edition

   A Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift,
   composed between 1694 and 1697 and published in 1704. It is probably
   his most difficult satire, and possibly his most masterful. The Tale is
   a prose parody which is divided up into sections of " digression" and
   "tale." The "tale" presents a consistent satire of religious excess,
   while the digressions are a series of parodies of contemporary writing
   in literature, politics, theology, Biblical exegesis, and medicine. The
   overarching parody is of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity.

Summary

   A Tale of a Tub is divided between various forms of digression and
   sections of a "tale." The "tale," or narrative, is an allegory that
   concerns the adventures of three brothers, Peter, Martin, and Jack, as
   they attempt to make their way in the world. Each of the brothers
   represents one of the primary branches of Christianity in the west.
   This part of the book is a pun on "tub," which Alexander Pope says was
   a common term for a pulpit, and a reference to Swift's own position as
   a clergyman. Peter (named for Saint Peter) stands in for the Roman
   Catholic Church. Jack (named for John Calvin, but whom Swift also
   connects to " Jack of Leyden") represents the various dissenting
   Protestant churches whose modern descendants would include the
   Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Mennonites, and the assorted
   Charismatic churches. The third brother, middle born and middle
   standing, is Martin (named for Martin Luther), whom Swift uses to
   represent the 'via media' of the Church of England. The brothers have
   inherited three wonderfully satisfactory coats (representing religious
   practice) by their father (representing God), and they have his will
   (representing the Bible) to guide them. Although the will says that the
   brothers are forbidden from making any changes to their coats, they do
   nearly nothing but alter their coats from the start. Inasmuch as the
   will represents the Bible and the coat represents the practice of
   Christianity, the allegory of the narrative is supposed to be an
   apology for the British church's refusal to alter its practice in
   accordance with Puritan demands and its continued resistance to
   alliance with the Roman church.

   From its opening (once past the prolegomena, which comprises the first
   three sections), the book is constructed like a layer cake, with
   Digression and Tale alternating. However, the digressions overwhelm the
   narrative, both in terms of the forcefulness and imaginativeness of
   writing and in terms of volume. Furthermore, after Chapter X (the
   commonly anthologized "Digression on Madness"), the labels for the
   sections are incorrect. Sections then called "Tale" are Digressions,
   and those called "Digression" are also Digressions.

   A Tale of a Tub is an enormous parody with a number of smaller parodies
   within it. Many critics have followed Swift's biographer Irvin
   Ehrenpreis in arguing that there is no single, consistent narrator in
   the work. One difficulty with this position, however, is that if there
   is no single character posing as the author, then it is at least clear
   that nearly all of the "personae" employed by Swift for the parodies
   are so much alike that they function as a single identity. In general,
   whether we view the book as comprised of dozens of impersonations or a
   single one, Swift writes the Tale through the pose of a Modern or New
   Man. See the abridged discussion of the "Ancients and Moderns," below,
   for more on the nature of the "modern man" in Swift's day.

   Swift's explanation for the title of the book is that the Ship of State
   was threatened by a whale (specifically, the Leviathan of Thomas
   Hobbes) and the new political societies (the Rota Club is mentioned),
   and his book is intended to be a tub that the sailors of state (the
   nobles and ministers of state) might toss over the side to divert the
   attention of the beast (those who questioned the government and its
   right to rule). Hobbes was highly controversial in the Restoration, but
   Swift's invocation of Hobbes might well be ironic. The narrative of the
   brothers is a faulty allegory, and Swift's narrator is either a madman
   or a fool. The book is not one that could occupy the Leviathan, or
   preserve the Ship of State, so Swift may be intensifying the dangers of
   Hobbes's critique rather than allaying them to provoke a more rational
   response.

   The digressions individually frustrate readers who expect a clear
   purpose. Each digression has its own topic, and each is an essay on its
   particular sidelight. In his biography of Swift, Ehrenpreis argued that
   each digression is an impersonation of a different contemporary author.
   This is the "persona theory," which holds that the Tale is not one
   parody, but rather a series of parodies, arising out of chamber
   performance in the Temple household. Prior to Ehrenpreis, some critics
   had argued that the narrator of the Tale is a character, just as the
   narrator of a novel would be. Given the evidence of A. C. Elias about
   the acrimony of Swift's departure from the Temple household, evidence
   from Swift's Journal to Stella about how uninvolved in the Temple
   household Swift had been, and the number of repeated observations about
   himself by the Tale's author, it seems reasonable to propose that the
   digressions reflect a single type of man, if not a particular
   character.

   In any case, the digressions are each readerly tests; each tests
   whether or not the reader is intelligent and skeptical enough to detect
   nonsense. Some, such as the discussion of ears or of wisdom being like
   a nut, a cream sherry, a cackling hen, etc., are outlandish and require
   a militantly aware and thoughtful reader. Each is a trick, and together
   they train the reader to sniff out bunk and to reject the unacceptable.

Cultural setting

   During the Restoration period in England, the print revolution began to
   change every aspect of society. It became possible for anyone to spend
   a small amount of money and have his or her opinions published as a
   broadsheet. It also became possible for nearly anyone to gain access to
   the latest discoveries in science, literature, and political theory, as
   books became less expensive and digests and "indexes" of the sciences
   grew more numerous. The change in British society brought about by the
   print revolution was roughly analogous to our own experiences with the
   Internet. Just as now a silly person may spend a small amount of money
   and publish silly opinions, so it was then. Just as now we are
   confronted with a staggering array of conspiracy theories, "secret"
   histories, signs of the apocalypse, "secrets" of politicians,
   "revelations" of prophets, alarms about household products, hoaxes, and
   outright fraud, so it was then. The problem for them, as for us, was
   telling true from false, credible from impossible. Swift writes A Tale
   of a Tub in the guise of someone who is excited and gullible about all
   the things the new world has to offer. This narrator is in love with
   the modern age and feels that he is quite the equal (or superior) of
   any author who ever lived because he, unlike them, possesses
   'technology' and opinions that are just plain newer. Swift seemingly
   asks the question of what a person with no discernment but with a
   thirst for knowledge would be like, and the answer is the narrator of
   Tale of a Tub.

   Swift was annoyed by people who were so eager to possess the newest
   knowledge that they failed to pose skeptical questions. If he was not a
   particular fan of the aristocracy, he was a sincere opponent of
   democracy (which was often viewed then as the sort of " mob rule" that
   led to the worst abuses of the English Interregnum.) The cultural
   stakes were high, and Swift's satire was intended to provide a genuine
   service by painting the portrait of conspiracy minded and injudicious
   writers.

   At that time in England, politics, religion and education were unified
   in a way that they are not now. The monarch was the head of the state
   church. Each school (secondary and university) had a political
   tradition. (Officially, there was no such thing as " Whig and Tory" at
   the time, but the labels are useful and were certainly employed by
   writers themselves.) The two major parties were associated with
   religious and economic groups. The implications of this unification of
   politics, class, and religion are important. Although it is somewhat
   extreme and simplistic to put it this way, failing to be for the Church
   was failing to be for the monarch; having an interest in physics and
   trade was to be associated with dissenting religion and the Whig Party.
   When Swift attacks the lovers of all things modern, he is thereby
   attacking the new world of trade, of dissenting religious believers,
   and, to some degree, an emergent portion of the Whig Party.

Authorial background

   Born of English parents in Ireland, Jonathan Swift was working as Sir
   William Temple's secretary at the time he composed A Tale of a Tub
   (1694-1697). The publication of the work coincided with Swift's
   striking out on his own, having despaired of getting a good "living"
   from Temple or Temple's influence. There is speculation about what
   caused the rift between Swift and his employer, but, as A. C. Elias
   persuasively argues, it seems that the final straw came with Swift's
   work on Temple's Letters. Swift had been engaged to translate Temple's
   French correspondence, but Temple, or someone close to Temple, edited
   the French text to make Temple seem both prescient and more fluent.
   Consequently, the letters and the translations Swift provided did not
   gibe, and, since Swift could not accuse Temple of falsifying his
   letters, and because the public would never believe that the retired
   state minister had lied, Swift came across as incompetent.
   Jonathan Swift
   Jonathan Swift

   Even though Swift published the "Tale" as he left Temple's service, it
   was conceived earlier, and the book is a salvo in one of Temple's
   battles. Swift's general polemic concerns an argument (the " Quarrel of
   the Ancients and the Moderns") that had been over for nearly ten years
   by the time the book was published. The "Quarrel of the Ancients and
   Moderns" was generally a French academic brouhaha of the early 1690's,
   occasioned by Fontenelle arguing that modern scholarship had allowed
   modern man to surpass the ancients in knowledge. Temple argued against
   this position in his "On Ancient and Modern Learning" (where he
   provided the first English formulation of the commonplace that we see
   more only because we are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants),
   and Temple's somewhat naive essay prompted a small flurry of responses.
   Among others, two men who took the side opposing Temple were Richard
   Bently (classicist and editor) and William Wotton (critic).

   The entire discussion in England was over by 1696, and yet it seems to
   have fired Swift's imagination. Swift saw in the opposing camps of
   Ancients and Moderns a shorthand of two general ways of looking at the
   world (see the historical background, below, for some of the senses in
   which "new men" and "ancients" might be understood). The Tale of a Tub
   attacks all who praise modernity over classical learning. Temple had
   done as much, but Swift, unlike Temple, has no praise for the classical
   world, either. There is no normative value in Rome, no lost English
   glen, no hearth ember to be invoked against the hubris of modern
   scientism. Some critics have seen in Swift's reluctance to praise
   mankind in any age proof of his misanthropy, and others have detected
   in it an overarching hatred of pride. At the same time, the Tale
   revived the Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns at least enough to prompt
   Wotton to come out with a new edition of his pamphlet attacking Temple,
   and he appended to it an essay against the author of A Tale of a Tub.
   Swift was able to cut pieces from Wotton's "Answer" to include in the
   fifth edition of the Tale as "Notes" at the bottom of the page. Swift's
   satire also gave something of a framework for other satirists in the
   Scribblerian circle, and Modern vs. Ancient is picked up as one
   distinction between political and cultural forces.

   If Swift hoped that the Tale of a Tub would win him a living, he was
   disappointed. Swift himself believed that the book cost him any chance
   of high position within the church. It is most likely, though, that
   Swift was not seeking a clerical position with the Tale. Instead, it
   was probably meant to establish him as a literary and political figure
   and to strike out a set of positions that would win the notice of
   influential men. This it did. As a consequence of this work, and
   Swift's activity in Church causes, Swift became a familiar of Robert
   Harley (future Earl of Oxford) and Henry St. John (the future Viscount
   Bolingbroke). When the Tories gained the government in 1710, Swift was
   rewarded for his work. By 1713-14, however, the Tory government had
   fallen, and Swift was "rewarded" with the Deanery of St. Patrick's
   Cathedral, Dublin — a reward he considered an exile.

Nature of the satire

   Title page of the fifth edition, 1705, with the added Notes and Apology
   for the &c.
   Enlarge
   Title page of the fifth edition, 1705, with the added Notes and Apology
   for the &c.

   Upon its publication, the public realized both that there was an
   allegory in the story of the brothers and that there were particular
   political references in the Digressions. A number of "Keys" appeared
   soon thereafter, analogous to contemporary services like Cliffs Notes
   or Spark Notes. "Keys" offered the reader a commentary on the Tale and
   explanations of its references. Edmund Curll rushed out a Key to the
   work, and William Wotton offered up an "Answer" to the author of the
   work.

   Swift's targets in the Tale included indexers, note-makers, and, above
   all, people who saw "dark matter" in books. He attacks criticism
   generally, and he appeared to be delighted by the fact that one of his
   enemies, William Wotton, had offered to explain the Tale in an "answer"
   to the book and that one of the men he had explicitly attacked, Curll,
   had offered to explain the book to the public. In the fifth edition of
   the book in 1705, Swift provided an apparatus to the work that
   incorporated Wotton's explanations and Swift's narrator's own notes as
   well. The notes appear to occasionally provide genuine information and
   just as often to mislead, and William Wotton's name, a defender of the
   Moderns, was appended to a number of notes. This allows Swift to make
   the commentary part of the satire itself, as well as to elevate his
   narrator to the level of self-critic.

   It is hard to say what the Tale's satire is about, since it is about
   any number of things. It is most consistent in attacking misreading of
   all sorts. Both in the narrative sections and the digressions, the
   single human flaw that underlies all the follies Swift attacks is
   over-figurative and over-literal reading, both of the Bible and of
   poetry and political prose. The narrator is seeking hidden knowledge,
   mechanical operations of things spiritual, spiritual qualities to
   things physical, and alternate readings of everything.

   Within the "tale" sections of the book, Peter, Martin, and Jack fall
   into bad company (becoming the official religion of the Roman empire)
   and begin altering their coats (faith) by adding ornaments. They then
   begin relying on Peter to be the arbitrator of the will, and he begins
   to rule by authority (he remembered the handyman saying that he once
   heard the father say that it was alright to put on more ornaments),
   until such a time that Jack rebels against the rule of Peter. Jack
   begins to read the will (the Bible) overly literally. He rips the coat
   to shreds to try to restore the original state of the garment
   (equivalent of the "primitive Christianity" sought by dissenters). He
   begins to rely only upon "inner illumination" for guidance and thus
   walks around with his eyes closed, after swallowing candle snuffs.
   Eventually, Peter and Jack begin to resemble one another, and only
   Martin is left with a coat that is at all like the original.

   An important factor in the reception of Swift's work is that the
   narrator of the work is an extremist in every direction. Consequently,
   he can no more construct a sound allegory than he can finish his
   digressions without losing control (eventually confessing that he is
   insane). For a Church of England reader, the allegory of the brothers
   provides small comfort. Martin has a corrupted faith, one full of holes
   and still with ornaments on it. His only virtue is that he avoids the
   excesses of his brothers, but the original faith is lost to him.
   Readers of the Tale have picked up on this unsatisfactory resolution to
   both "parts" of the book, and A Tale of a Tub has often been offered up
   as evidence of Swift's misanthropy.

   As has recently been argued by Michael McKeon, Swift might best be
   described as a severe skeptic, rather than a Whig, Tory, empiricist, or
   religious writer. He supported the Classics in the Quarrel of the
   Ancients and the Moderns, and he supported the established church and
   the aristocracy, because he felt the alternatives were worse. He argued
   elsewhere that there is nothing inherently virtuous about a noble
   birth, but its advantages of wealth and education made the aristocrat a
   better ruler than the equally virtuous but unprivileged commoner. A
   Tale of a Tub is a perfect example of Swift's devastating intellect at
   work. By its end, little seems worth believing in.

   Formally, the satire in the Tale is historically novel for several
   reasons. First, Swift more or less invented prose parody. In the
   "Apology for the &c." (which was added in 1705), Swift explains that
   his work is, in several places, a "parody," which is where he imitates
   the style of persons he wishes to expose. What is interesting is that
   the word "parody" had not been used for prose before, and the
   definition he offers is arguably a parody of John Dryden defining
   "parody" in the "Preface to the Satires." Prior to Swift, parodies were
   imitations designed to bring mirth, but not primarily in the form of
   mockery. (For example, Dryden himself imitated the Aeneid in
   "MacFlecknoe" to describe the apotheosis of a dull poet, but the
   imitation made fun of the poet, and not of Virgil.)

   Additionally, Swift's satire is relatively unique in that he offers no
   resolutions. While he ridicules any number of foolish habits, he never
   offers the reader a positive set of values to embrace. While this type
   of satire became more common as people imitated Swift, later, Swift is
   quite unusual in offering the readers no way out. He does not persuade
   to any position, but he does persuade readers from an assortment of
   positions. This is one of the qualities that has made the Tale Swift's
   least-read major work.

Historical background

   In the historical background to the period of 1696-1705, the most
   important political events might be the Restoration of Charles II in
   1660, the Test Act, and the English Settlement or Glorious Revolution
   of 1688-1689. Politically, the English had suffered a Civil War that
   had culminated with the beheading of the king, years of Interregnum
   under the Puritan Oliver Cromwell, and then Parliament inviting the
   king back to rule in 1660. Upon Charles II's death, his brother, James
   II of England took the throne. However, when it was alleged that James
   was Roman Catholic and married to a Roman Catholic, James fled the
   country, and Parliament decided on the way in which all future English
   monarchs would be chosen. This method would always favour Protestantism
   over sanguinity.
   Woodcut from the Tale demonstrating the three stages of human endeavor:
   the gallows, the theater, and the pulpit.
   Enlarge
   Woodcut from the Tale demonstrating the three stages of human endeavor:
   the gallows, the theatre, and the pulpit.

   From the point of view of the politically aware Englishman, Parliament
   had essentially elected a king. Although officially the king was
   supreme, there could be no doubt that the Commons had picked the king
   and could pick another instead. Also, although there was now a law
   demanding that all swear allegiance to the monarch as head of the
   church, it became less and less clear why the nation was to be so
   intolerant.

   Religious struggles at the time were primarily between the Church of
   England and the dissenting churches. The threat posed by these
   dissenters was keenly felt by Establishment clerics like Jonathan
   Swift. While contemporary Great Britain praises and practices tolerance
   and contemporary Britons may find tolerance inherently virtuous, the
   dissenters of the late 17th and early 18th centuries were themselves
   quite intolerant. It was common enough for Puritans and other
   dissenters to disrupt church services, to accuse political leaders of
   being the anti-Christ, and to move the people toward violent schism,
   riots, and peculiar behaviors (including attempts to set up miniature
   theocracies). Protestant dissenters had led the English Civil War. The
   pressure of dissenters was felt on all levels of British politics and
   could be seen in the change of the British economy.

   The Industrial Revolution was beginning in the period between the
   writing and publication of A Tale of a Tub, though no one at the time
   would have known this. What Englishmen did know, however, was that what
   they called "trade" was on the rise. Merchants, importers/exporters,
   and "stock jobbers" were growing very wealthy. It was becoming more
   common to find members of the aristocracy with less money than members
   of the trading class. Those on the rise in the middle class professions
   were perceived as being more likely to be dissenters than members of
   the other classes were, and such institutions as the stock exchange and
   Lloyd's of London were founded by Puritan traders. Members of these
   classes were also widely ridiculed as attempting to pretend to learning
   and manners that they had no right to. Further, these "new men" were
   not, by and large, the product of the universities nor the traditional
   secondary schools. Consequently, these now wealthy individuals were not
   conversant in Latin, were not enamored of the classics, and were not
   inclined to put much value on these things.

   Between 1688 and 1705, England was politically quite unstable. With the
   ascension of Queen Anne, political Establishment figures felt
   themselves particularly vulnerable. Anne was rumored to be immoderately
   stupid, and she was supposedly governed by her friend, Sarah Churchill,
   wife of the Duke of Marlborough. Although Swift was a Whig for much of
   this period, he was allied most nearly with the Ancients camp (which is
   to say Establishment, Church of England, aristocracy, traditional
   education), and he was politically active in the service of the Church.
   He claims, both in "The Apology for the &c." and in a reference in Book
   I of Gulliver's Travels, to have written the Tale to defend the crown
   from the troubles of the monsters besetting it. These monsters were
   numerous. At this time, political clubs and societies were
   proliferating. The print revolution had meant that people were
   gathering under dozens of banners, and political and religious
   sentiments previously unspoken were now rallying supporters. As the
   general dissenting position became the monied position, and as
   Parliament increasingly held power, historically novel degrees of
   freedom had brought an historically tenuous equipoise of change and
   stability.

Publication history

   The Tale was originally published in 1704, by John Nutt. Swift had used
   Benjamin Tooke previously when publishing for Sir William Temple, he
   would use Tooke for both the fifth edition of the Tale (1705) and later
   works, and it was Tooke's successor, Benjamin Motte, who published
   Swift's Gulliver's Travels. This difference in printer is only one of
   the things that led to debate over authorship of the work.

   The first, second, and third editions of the Tale appeared in 1704, and
   the fifth edition came out the next year. In "The Apology for the &c.,"
   Swift indicates that he originally gave his publisher a preliminary
   copy of the work, while he kept a blotted copy at his own hand and lent
   other copies (including one to Thomas Swift, Jonathan's "parson
   cousin"). As a consequence, the first edition appeared with many
   errors. The second edition was a resetting of the type. The third
   edition was a reprint of the second, with corrections, and the fourth
   edition contained corrections of the third.

   The first substantially new edition of the work is the fifth edition of
   1705. This is largely the text modern editors will use. It was in this
   edition that the Notes and the "Apology for the &c." ("&c." was Swift's
   shorthand for Tale of a Tub: Nutt was supposed to expand the
   abbreviation out to the book's title but did not do so; the mistake was
   left) were added, which many contemporary readers (and authors) found a
   heating up of an already savage satire. In 1710, Swift had the 5th
   edition reprinted by Benjamin Tooke, but it is substantively the same
   as the 1705 printing, only with a new setting of the type.

Authorship debate

   Although today very little of this debate remains, questions of the
   authorship of the Tale occupied many notable critics both in the 18th
   and 19th centuries. Famously, Samuel Johnson claimed that A Tale of a
   Tub was a work of true genius (in contrast to Gulliver's Travels where
   once one imagines "big people and little people" the rest is easy) and
   too good to be Jonathan Swift's. In the 19th century, many critics who
   saw in Jonathan Swift's later work misanthropy and madness wished to
   reject the Tale as his. In a way, a critic's view on who wrote the Tale
   reflected that critic's politics. Swift was such a powerful champion of
   Tory, or anti-Whig, causes that fans of the Tale were eager to
   attribute the book to another author from nearly the day of its
   publication.

   The work appeared anonymously in 1704. It was Swift's habit to publish
   anonymously throughout his career. This anonymity was partially a way
   of protecting his career, and partially his person. (Swift's publisher
   for the "Drapier Letters" was thrown in jail, and other authors had
   found themselves beaten by thugs hired by their satirical targets.) As
   a struggling churchman, Swift needed the support of nobles to gain a
   living. Additionally, nobles were still responsible for Church affairs
   in the House of Lords, so his political effectiveness in church affairs
   depended upon the lords. Swift needed to be at some distance from the
   sometimes bawdy and scatological work that he wrote.

   The Tale was immediately popular and controversial. Consequently, there
   were rumors of various people as the author of the work — Jonathan
   Swift then being not largely known except for his work in the House of
   Lords for the passage of the First Fruits and Fifths bill for tithing.
   Some people thought that William Temple wrote it. Francis Atterbury
   said people at Oxford thought it had been written by Edmund Smith and
   John Philips, though he thought it was by Jonathan Swift. Some people
   thought it belonged to Lord Somers.

   However, Jonathan Swift had a cousin, also in the church, named Thomas
   Swift. Thomas and Jonathan were in correspondence during the time of
   the composition of the Tale, and Thomas Swift later claimed to have
   written the work. Jonathan responded to this allegation by saying that
   Thomas had no hand in anything but the smallest of passages, and he
   would welcome hearing Thomas 'explain' the work, if he had written it.

   The controversy over authorship is aggravated by the choice of
   publisher. Not only did Swift use Tooke after the publication of the
   Tale, he had used Tooke before its publication as well, so the
   appearance of the work in John Nutt's shop was atypical.

   Stylistically and in sentiment, the Tale is undeniably Jonathan's. Most
   important in this regard is the narrative pose and the creation of
   narrative parody. (Previously, parody had referred only to poetic
   compositions.) The dramatic (and we would now say novelistic) pretense
   of writing as a character is in keeping with Jonathan Swift's lifelong
   practice. Furthermore, Thomas Swift has left few literary remains.

   Those wishing to pursue the evidence for Thomas Swift may see the
   summary in A. C. Guthkelch and D. Nichol Smith's authoritative edition
   of A Tale of a Tub (1920 and 1958) for Oxford University Press, where
   they say, "all the evidence for Thomas Swift's participation in the
   Tale (is) nothing but rumour and (Edmund) Curll's Key." Indeed, in 1710
   Swift had the fifth edition republished by Tooke, and he explained in a
   letter how the rumor had been started. He said that, when the
   publication initially took place, Swift was abroad in Ireland and "that
   little Parson-cousin of mine" "affected to talk suspiciously, as if he
   had some share in it." In other words, anonymity conspired with Thomas
   Swift's desire for fame to create the confusion. Afterward, only
   critical preference seems to account for anyone holding Thomas Swift
   the author.

   Robert Hendrickson notes in his book British Literary Anecdotes that
   "Swift was always partial to his strikingly original The Tale of a Tub
   (1704). On reading the work again in later years, he exclaimed 'Good
   God! What a genius I had when I wrote that book!'"
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