Commentary on Additions to a Tale of A
Additions to A Tale of a Tub Commentary p.1 Abstract of what follows after Sect. IX. in the Manuscript] Although this has been thought to be “a mistake for ‘X’” (GUTHKELCH AND NICHOL SMITH, p. 302n1), there are good reasons to believe that “Sect. IX” is correct (see Textual and Historical Introduction, p. 7). The History of Martin] ‘Martin’ naturally evokes the spiritus rector of the Reformation (see the footnote appended to the Tale’s fifth edition of 1710 [Prose Works, I, 84]), Martin Luther (1483-1546), whose controversial and contentious life looms particularly large in two ecclesiastical histories which Swift “abstracted” at Moor Park in 1697/8 (REAL [1978], pp. 128, 130): the first by Johannes Sleidanus, Commentariorum de statv religionis & reipublicæ Carolo V Cæsare libri xxvi ([Frankfurt: Johannes Theodor Schönwetter, 1610], pp. 1-74), and the second by Pietro Soave, better known as Father Sarpi, History of the Council of Trent (trans. Sir Nathanael Brent [London: by John Macock for Samuel Mearne, et al., 1676], pp. 5-15, 70-72, and passim [PASSMANN AND VIENKEN III, 1704-5]); ‘Martin’ also represents the Church of England (see the gloss on “to drop the former Martin, & to substitute in his place Lady Besses Institution, which is to pass under the name of Martin in the sequel of this true History” [p. 5, ll. 18-20]). Irritatingly, however, Martin seems to be the ‘weakest’ and the least outstanding of the three brothers in the Tale; a fact that has led to the extraordinary conclusion that “Swift would have accomplished his aim best by leaving Martin out” (Ehrenpreis, Mr Swift, pp.
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