He is content with no general correspondences; his allegory does not fade away into a story in which only the main characters have a secondary significance; the minutest circumstances have a bearing in the satire and the moral.

In _The Tale of a Tub_ and in _Gulliver's Travels_--particularly in the former--the multitude as well as the aptness of the parallels between the imaginary narrative and the facts it is meant to represent is unrivalled in works of the kind.

Only the highest mental powers, working with intense fervour and concentration, could have achieved the sustained brilliancy of the result.

"What a genius I had when I wrote that book!" Swift is said to have exclaimed in his old age when he re-read _The Tale of a Tub_, and certainly the book is a marvel of constructive skill, all the more striking because it makes allegory out of history and consequently is denied that freedom of narrative so brilliantly employed in the _Travels_.
Informing all his writings too, besides intense feeling and an omnipresent and controlling art, is strong common sense.

His aphorisms, both those collected under the heading of _Thoughts on Various Subjects_, and countless others scattered up and down his pages, are a treasury of sound, if a little sardonic, practical wisdom.