Beschreibung:

Autograph manuscript, signed "Jonathan".
N.p.: c. 1694-1700]. 8vo. (visible area: 158 x 102 mm., but inlaid to a larger leaf), 1p., 12 lines. Framed and glazed in a double matt with a small 19th-century engraved portrait of Swift. Provenance : Fredrick Locker-Lampson (1821-95, with his signature at the foot of the leaf. rare jonathan swift manuscript on english usage and (perhaps incidently) love. This manuscript reflects Swift's emphasis on the basic definitions of language and usage which he saw as the foundations of great writing: "Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of style" wrote Jonathan Swift in his Letter to a Young Clergyman (January 9, 1720). Swift ranks among the very greatest craftsmen in English literature. This manuscript was probably prepared by Swift as a teaching tool for private lessons for one of a small group of bright young women whom Swift tutored. The best-known of these women was "Stella" (Swift's name for Esther Johnson), whose relationship with Swift has long been famous. When Swift died in 1745, he was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, next to his lifelong companion Stella, whose death in 1728 hastened Swift's mental breakdown. Their relationship is immortalized in Swift's Journal to Stella. Swift's choice of the word "love" to define a verb is interesting in its description of both the active and passive actions of experiencing love: " By the sign it has of doing or suffering; as I love, - I am loved. " This example may be evidence of Swift's early affection for Stella. A notebook of Swift's lessons in his own hand, now lost, was last seen disbound in the 1820s by Sir Walter Scott; and a copy of that notebook in Stella's hand and annotated by Swift still survives. Leading Swift scholar A. C. Elias who has confirmed the authenticity of the present manuscript, has speculated that this previously unpublished leaf may well be from one of these rare Swift instructional volumes. Letters from Swift to occasionally come up for auction, but samples of his manuscripts are very rare. Only three manuscripts in Swift's hand appear in the Anglo-American auction records of the last 50 years: one a list of church prelates, another a comment on a monument in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the third several lines of linguistic jottings on the backs of two letters received by Swift. This manuscript had not been previously noted by modern Swift scholars, although it had been catalogued in the Appendix to the Rowfant Library: A Catalogue of the Printed Books, Manuscripts . . . (London, 1900). The Rowfant Library was one of the greatest collections of literary books and manuscripts ever assembled. Locker-Lampson’s Swift collection, excepting the present leaf which was overlooked in a bound collection of unrelated manuscripts, is now at the Huntington Library. An Appendix to the Rowfant Library: A Catalogue of the Printed Books, Manuscripts . . . (London, 1900), page 46.