Following Sir William Temple's death, Swift scrambled for a position while publishing Temple's works, a demanding but modestly lucrative enterprise that allowed him to call attention to himself as the protégé of a respected and uncommonly well connected former patron. Once he secured a modest independence as vicar of Laracor, he began to demonstrate his considerable abilities by also publishing, at a significant interval, two substantial works of his own. These shows of strength displayed the wide reading and the literary mastery that would, he hoped, attract the favour of the recently fallen Whig Junto. Since he was busy establishing himself in Ireland, a task that included getting his friends Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley settled in Dublin, he could visit England only briefly. So he probably regarded these bids for attention as an investment in the future, stepping stones to future advancement within the learned profession he had chosen. Despite its title, A Discourse of the Contests and Dissentions between the Nobles and Commons in Athens and Rome is a topical and partisan pamphlet. In it, Swift intervenes in the paper war that accompanied the attempt by the House of Commons to impeach the Whig lords who had dominated the earlier ministry, and he unabashedly sides with the Court Whigs who were under attack. A Tale of a Tub, on the other hand, was apparently largely written during his years with Temple but subsequently revised to keep it current. Swift dedicated it to Baron Somers, chief of the Junto lords, and timed its publication in 1704 for a moment when it seemed Somers might return to power.

In this brilliant, unruly satire of abuses in learning and religion, Swift makes what is probably the oddest bid for preferment in the history of English political writing. Yet A Tale shares many features with the more straightforward Discourse that preceded it. Each proceeds by analogy to link distinguishable realms – the personal and the political, quotidian experience and affairs of state, national events and international, and (in A Tale) religion with learning.