SOURCE: Landa, Louis A. “A Modest Proposal and Populousness.” In Eighteenth-Century English Literature: Modern Essays in Criticism, edited by James L. Clifford, pp. 102-111. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.

In the following essay, Landa remarks on Swift's perception that Ireland's citizens may only become a source of wealth to the nation if the country seizes its natural opportunities and resources.

Among Swift's Irish tracts is one entitled Maxims Controlled [i.e., confuted] in Ireland, written probably about the time of A Modest Proposal (1729), though published later. In this lesser known tract Swift examined ‘certain maxims of state, founded upon long observation and experience, drawn from the constant practice of the wisest nations, and from the very principles of government.’¹ His purpose was to demonstrate that however much these maxims applied to other countries they had no application to Ireland. Among the maxims examined and confuted is one that...