<P> Swift was annoyed by people so eager to possess the newest knowledge that they failed to pose sceptical 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 . Swift's satire was intended to provide a genuine service by painting the portrait of conspiracy minded and injudicious writers . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> 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 a French academic debate of the early 1690s, 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 modern critics see more only because they 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 Bentley (classicist and editor) and William Wotton (critic). </P>

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