Members of the list may be interested in two articles recently (and coincidentally) published that bear on the question of Jonathan Swift’s possible interest in becoming the first Anglican Bishop in Virginia.

	In a thorough examination of the question (earlier scholars disagree with each other), Jonathan Pritchard argues that Swift was not joking when he in effect contemplated a move to Williamsburg.  See “Swift’s 'Bishoprick of Virginia,”” Swift Studies, 31(2016), 9-39.

	My own contribution marshals evidence that Swift informed himself on matters in Virginia and later used that knowledge both to allude to the Jamestown cannibalism in “A Modest Proposal” and to attack the College of William and Mary and its first president, James Blair, in Book IV of Guilliver’s Travels.  See

			https://nq.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/4/590.extract

	I wrote a more popular account of my work for the Virginia Gazette in November and would be pleased to send that along to anyone who asks (off list, of course).


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terry L. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English Emeritus, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg Virginia 
 23187 

http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/ <http://wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/tlmeye/>

http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html <http://www.ecologyfund.com/ecology/_ecology.html>
————————————————————————————————————————————————————

      Have we got a college?  Have we got a football team?.... Well, we can't afford both.   Tomorrow we start tearing down the college.
             --Groucho Marx, in "Horse Feathers."


______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html