Letter 1
1. Addressed "To Mrs. Dingley, at Mr. Curry's house over against the Ram in Capel Street, Dublin, Ireland," and endorsed by Esther Johnson, "Sept. 9. Received." Afterwards Swift added, "MD received this Sept. 9," and "Letters to Ireland from Sept.1710, begun soon after the change of Ministry. Nothing in this."
2. Beaumont is the "grey old fellow, poet Joe," of Swift's verses "On the little house by the Churchyard at Castlenock." Joseph Beaumont, a linen- merchant, is described as "a venerable, handsome, grey-headed man, of quick and various natural abilities, but not improved by learning." His inventions and mathematical speculations, relating to the longitude and other things, brought on mental troubles, which were intensified by bankruptcy, about 1718. He was afterwards removed from Dublin to his home at Trim, where he rallied; but in a few years his madness returned, and he committed suicide.
3. Vicar of Trim, and formerly a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. In various places in his correspondence Swift criticises the failings of Dr. Anthony Raymond, who was, says Scott, "a particular friend." His unreliability in money matters, the improvidence of his large family, his peculiarities in grammar, his pride in his good manners, all these points are noticed in the journal and elsewhere. But when Dr. Raymond returned to Ireland after a visit to London, Swift felt a little melancholy, and regretted that he had not seen more of him. In July 1713 Raymond was presented to the Crown living of Moyenet.
4. A small township on the estuary of the Dee, between twelve and thirteen miles north-west of Chester. In the early part of the eighteenth century Parkgate was a rival of Holyhead as a station for the Dublin packets, which started, on the Irish side, from off Kingsend.
5. Dr. St. George Ashe, afterwards Bishop of Derry, who had been Swift's tutor at Trinity College, Dublin. He died in 1718. It is this lifelong friend who is said to have married Swift and Esther Johnson in 1716.
6. The Commission to solicit for the remission of the First-Fruits and twentieth parts, payable to the Crown by the Irish clergy, was signed by the Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, and Cashel, and the Bishops of Kildare, Meath, and Killala.
7. Dr. William Lloyd was appointed Bishop of Killala in 1690. He had previously been Dean of Achonry.
8. Dr. John Hough (1651-1743). In 1687 he had been elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford, in place of the nominee of James II. Hough was Bishop of Oxford, Lichfield, and Worcester successively, and declined the primacy in 1715.
9. Steele was at this time Gazetteer. The Cockpit, in Whitehall, looked upon St. James's Palace, and was used for various Government purposes.
10. This coffee-house, the resort of the Whig politicians, was kept by a man named Elliot. It is often alluded to in the Tatler and Spectator.
11. William Stewart, second Viscount Mountjoy, a friend and correspondent of Swift's in Ireland. He was the son of one of William's generals, and was himself a Lieutenant-General and Master-General of the Ordnance; he died in 1728.
12. Catherine, daughter of Maurice Keating, of Narraghmore, Kildare, and wife of Garret Wesley, of Dangan, M.P. for Meath. She died in 1745. On the death of Garret Wesley without issue in 1728, the property passed to a cousin, Richard Colley, who was afterwards created Baron Mornington, and was grandfather to the Duke of Wellington.
13. The landlady of Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley.
14. Swift's housekeeper at Laracor. Elsewhere Swift speaks of his "old Presbyterian housekeeper," "who has been my Walpole above thirty years, whenever I lived in this kingdom." "Joe Beaumont is my oracle for public affairs in the country, and an old Presbyterian woman in town."
15. Isaiah Parvisol, Swift's tithe-agent and steward at Laracor, was an Irishman of French extraction, who died in 1718 (Birkbeck's Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, 1899, p.85).
Letter 2
1. In some MS. Accounts of Swift's, in the Forster Collection at South Kensington there is the following entry:--"Set out for England Aug. 31st on Thursday, 10 at night; landed at Parkgate Friday 1st at noon. Sept. 1, 171O, came to London. Thursday at noon, Sept. 7th, with Lord Mountjoy, etc. Mem.: Lord Mountjoy bore my expenses from Chester to London."
2. In a letter to Archbishop King of the same date Swift says he was "equally caressed by both parties; by one as a sort of bough for drowning men to lay hold of, and by the other as one discontented with the late men in power."
3. The Earl of Godolphin, who was severely satirised by Swift in his Sid Hamet's Rod, 171O. He had been ordered to break his staff as Treasurer on August 8. Swift told Archbishop King that Godolphin was "altogether short, dry, and morose."
4. Martha, widow of Sir Thomas Giffard, Bart., of County Kildare, the favourite sister of Sir William Temple, had been described by Swift in early pindaric verses as "wise and great." Afterwards he was to call her "an old beast" (Journal, Nov. 11, 171O). Their quarrel arose, towards the close of 17O9, out of a difference with regard to the publication of Sir William Temple's Works. On the appearance of vol. v. Lady Giffard charged Swift with publishing portions of the writings from an unfaithful copy in lieu of the originals in his possession, and in particular with printing laudatory notices of Godolphin and Sunderland which Temple intended to omit, and with omitting an unfavourable remark on Sunderland which Temple intended to print. Swift replied that the corrections were all made by Temple himself.
5. Lord Wharton's second wife, Lucy, daughter of Lord Lisburn. She died in 1716, a few months after her husband. See Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters.
6. Mrs. Bridget Johnson, who married, as her second husband, Ralph Mose or Moss, of Farnham, an agent for Sir William Temple's estate, was waiting-woman or companion to Lady Giffard. In her will (1722) Lady Giffard left Mrs. Moss 2O pounds, "with my silver cup and cover." Mrs. Moss died in 1745, when letters of administration were granted to a creditor of the deceased.
7. Dr. William King (165O-1729), a Whig and High Churchman, had more than one difference with Swift during the twenty years following Swift's first visit to London in connection with the First-Fruits question.
8. Swift's benefice, in the diocese of Meath, two miles from Trim.
9. Steele, who had been issuing the Tatler thrice weekly since April 17O9. He lost the Gazetteership in October.
10. James, second Duke of Ormond (1665-1745) was appointed Lord Lieutenant on the 26th of October. In the following year he became Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief. He was impeached of high treason and attainted in 1715; and he died in exile.
11. "Presto," substituted by the original editor for "Pdfr," was suggested by a passage in the Journal for Aug. 2, 1711, where Swift says that the Duchess of Shrewsbury "could not say my name in English, but said Dr. Presto, which is Italian for Swift."
12. Charles Jervas, the popular portrait-painter, has left two portraits of Swift, one of which is in the National Portrait Gallery, and the other in the Bodleian Library.
13. Sir William Temple's nephew, and son of Sir John Temple (died 17O4), Solicitor and Attorney-General, and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. "Jack" Temple acquired the estate of Moor Park, Surrey, by his marriage with Elizabeth, granddaughter of Sir William Temple, and elder daughter of John Temple, who committed suicide in 1689. As late as 17O6 Swift received an invitation to visit Moor Park.
14. Dr. Benjamin Pratt, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, was appointed Dean of Down in 1717. Swift calls him "a person of wit and learning," and "a gentleman of good birth and fortune,. . very much esteemed among us" (Short Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton). On his death in 1721 Swift wrote, "He was one of the oldest acquaintance I had, and the last that I expected to die. He has left a young widow, in very good circumstances. He had schemes of long life. . . . What a ridiculous thing is man!" (Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, 1899, p. 106).
15. A Westmeath landlord, whom Swift met from time to time in London. The Leighs were well acquainted with Esther Johnson.
16. Dr. Enoch Sterne, appointed Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in 17O4. Swift was his successor in the deanery on Dr. Sterne's appointment as Bishop of Dromore in 1713. In 1717 Sterne was translated to the bishopric of Clogher. He spent much money on the cathedrals, etc., with which he was connected.
17. Archdeacon Walls was rector of Castle Knock, near Trim. Esther Johnson was a frequent visitor at his house in Queen Street, Dublin.
18. William Frankland, Comptroller of the Inland Office at the Post Office, was the second son of the Postmaster-General, Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart. Luttrell (vi. 333) records that in 17O8 he was made Treasurer of the Stamp Office, or, according to Chamberlayne's Mag. Brit. Notitia for 171O, Receiver- General.
19. Thomas Wharton, Earl and afterwards Marquis of Wharton, had been one of Swift's fellow-travellers from Dublin. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland under the Whig Government, from 17O8 to 171O, Wharton was the most thorough-going party man that had yet appeared in English politics; and his political enemies did not fail to make the most of his well-known immorality. In his Notes to Macky's Characters Swift described Wharton as "the most universal villain that ever I knew." On his death in 1715 he was succeeded by his profligate son, Philip, who was created Duke of Wharton in 1718.
20. This money was a premium the Government had promised Beaumont for his Mathematical Sleying Tables, calculated for the improvement of the linen manufacture.
21. The bellman was both town-crier and night-watchman.
Letter 3
1. Dr. William Cockburn (1669-1739), Swift's physician, of a good Scottish family, was educated at Leyden. He invented an electuary for the cure of fluxes, and in 173O, in The Danger of Improving Physick, satirised the academical physicians who envied him the fortune he had made by his secret remedy. He was described in 1729 as "an old very rich quack."
2. Sir Matthew Dudley, Bart., an old Whig friend, was M.P. for Huntingdonshire, and Commissioner of the Customs from 17O6 to 1712, and again under George I., until his death in 1721.
3. Isaac Manley, who was appointed Postmaster-General in Ireland in 17O3 (Luttrell, v. 333). He had previously been Comptroller of the English Letter Office, a post in which he was succeeded by William Frankland, son of Sir Thomas Frankland. Dunton calls Manley "loyal and acute."
4. Sir Thomas Frankland was joint Postmaster-General from 1691 to 1715. He succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father, Sir William Frankland, in 1697, and he died in 1726. Macky describes Sir Thomas as "of a sweet and easy disposition, zealous for the Constitution, yet not forward, and indulgent to his dependants." On this Swift comments, "This is a fair character."
5. Theophilus Butler, elected M.P. for Cavan, in the Irish Parliament, in 17O3, and for Belturbet (as "the Right Hon. Theophilus Butler") in 1713. On May 3, 171O, Luttrell wrote (Brief Relation of State Affairs, vi. 577), "'Tis said the Earl of Montrath, Lord Viscount Mountjoy. . . and Mr. Butler will be made Privy Councillors of the Kingdom of Ireland." Butler--a contemporary of Swift's at Trinity College, Dublin--was created Baron of Newtown-Butler in 1715, and his brother, who succeeded him in 1723, was made Viscount Lanesborough. Butler's wife was Emilia, eldest daughter and co-heir of James Stopford, of Tara, County Meath.
6. No. 193 of the Tatler, for July 4, 1710, contained a letter from Downes the Prompter--not by Steele himself--in ridicule of Harley and his proposed Ministry.
7. Charles Robartes, second Earl of Radnor, who died in 1723. In the Journal for Dec. 3O, 1711, Swift calls him "a scoundrel."
8. Benjamin Tooke, Swift's bookseller or publisher, lived at the Middle Temple Gate. Dunton wrote of him, "He is truly honest, a man of refined sense, and is unblemished in his reputation." Tooke died in 1723.
9. Swift's servant, of whose misdeeds he makes frequent complaints in the Journal.
10. Deputy Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. In one place Swift calls him Captain Pratt; and in all probability he is the John Pratt who, as we learn from Dalton's English Army Lists, was appointed captain in General Erle's regiment of foot in 1699, and was out of the regiment by 17O6. In 17O2 he obtained the Queen's leave to be absent from the regiment when it was sent to the West Indies. Pratt seems to have been introduced to Swift by Addison.
11. Charles Ford, of Wood Park, near Dublin, was a great lover of the opera and a friend of the Tory wits. He was appointed Gazetteer in 1712. Gay calls him "joyous Ford," and he was given to over-indulgence in conviviality. See Swift's poem on Stella at Wood Park.
12. Lord Somers, to whom Swift had dedicated The Tale of a Tub, with high praise of his public and private virtues. In later years Swift said that Somers "possessed all excellent qualifications except virtue."
13. At the foundation school of the Ormonds at Kilkenny. (see note 22.)
14. A Whig haberdasher.
15. Benjamin Hoadley, the Whig divine, had been engaged in controversy with Sacheverell, Blackall, and Atterbury. After the accession of George I. he became Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester in success.
16. Dr. Henry Sacheverell, whose impeachment and trial had led to the fall of the Whig Government.
17. Sir Berkeley Lucy, Bart., F.R.S., married Katherine, daughter of Charles Cotton, of Beresford, Staffordshire, Isaac Walton's friend. Lady Lucy died in 174O, leaving an only surviving daughter, Mary, who married the youngest son of the Earl of Northampton, and had two sons, who became successively seventh and eighth Earls of Northampton. Forster and others assumed that "Lady Lucy" was a Lady Lucy Stanhope, though they were not able to identify her. It was reserved for Mr. Ryland to clear up this difficulty. As he points out, Lady Lucy's elder sister, Olive, married George Stanhope, Dean of Canterbury, and left a daughter Mary,--Swift's "Moll Stanhope,"--a beauty and a madcap, who married, in 1712, William Burnet, son of Bishop Burnet, and died in 1714. Mary, another sister of Lady Lucy's, married Augustine Armstrong, of Great Ormond Street, and is the Mrs. Armstrong mentioned by Swift on Feb. 3, 1711, as a pretender to wit, without taste. Sir Berkeley Lucy's mother was a daughter of the first Earl of Berkeley, and it was probably through the Berkeleys that Swift came to know the Lucys.
18. Ann Long was sister to Sir James Long, and niece to Colonel Strangeways. Once a beauty and toast of the Kit-Cat Club, she fell into narrow circumstances through imprudence and the unkindness of her friends, and retired under the name of Mrs. Smythe to Lynn, in Norfolk, where she died in 1711 (see Journal, December 25, 1711). Swift said, "She was the most beautiful person of the age she lived in; of great honour and virtue, infinite sweetness and generosity of temper, and true good sense" (Forster's Swift, 229). In a letter of December 1711, Swift wrote that she "had every valuable quality of body and mind that could make a lady loved and esteemed."
19. Said, I know not on what authority, to be Swift's friend, Mrs. Barton. But Mrs. Barton is often mentioned by Swift as living in London in 1710-11.
20. One of Swift's cousins, who was separated from her husband, a man of bad character, living abroad. Her second husband, Lancelot, a servant of Lord Sussex, lived in New Bond Street, and there Swift lodged in 1727.
21. 100,000 pounds.
22. Francis Stratford's name appears in the Dublin University Register for 1686 immediately before Swift's. Budgell is believed to have referred to the friendship of Swift and Stratford in the Spectator, No. 353, where he describes two schoolfellows, and says that the man of genius was buried in a country parsonage of 160 pounds a year, while his friend, with the bare abilities of a common scrivener, had gained an estate of above 100,000 pounds.
23. William Cowper, afterwards Lord Cowper.
24. Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards Viscount Harcourt, had been counsel for Sacheverell. On Sept. 19, 171O, he was appointed Attorney-General, and on October 19 Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In April 1713 he became Lord Chancellor.
25. This may be some relative of Dr. John Freind (see Letter 9), or, more probably, as Sir Henry Craik suggests, a misprint for Colonel Frowde, Addison's friend (see Journal, Nov. 4, 171O). No officer named Freind or Friend is mentioned in Dalton's English Army Lists.
26. See the Tatler, Nos. 124, 2O3. There are various allusions in the "Wentworth Papers" to this, the first State Lottery of 171O; and two bluecoat boys drawing out the tickets, and showing their hands to the crowd, as Swift describes them, are shown in a reproduction of a picture in a contemporary pamphlet given in Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, i. 115.
27. A few weeks later Swift wrote, "I took a fancy of resolving to grow mad for it, but now it is off."
28. Sir John Holland, Bart., was a leading manager for the Commons in the impeachment of Sacheverell. He succeeded Sir Thomas Felton in the Comptrollership in March 171O.
29. Dryden Leach. (see Letter 7)
30. William Pate, "bel esprit and woollen-draper," as Swift called him, lived opposite the Royal Exchange. He was Sheriff of London in 1734, and died in 1746. Arbuthnot, previous to matriculating at Oxford, lodged with Pate, who gave him a letter of introduction to Dr. Charlett, Master of University College; and Pate is supposed to have been the woollen-draper, "remarkable for his learning and good-nature," who is mentioned by Steele in the Guardian, No. 141.
31. James Brydges, son of Lord Chandos of Sudeley, was appointed Paymaster- General of Forces Abroad in 17O7. He succeeded his father as Baron Chandos in 1714, and was created Duke of Chandos in 1729. The "princely Chandos" and his house at Canons suggested to Pope the Timon's villa of the "Epistle to Lord Burlington." The Duke died in 1744.
32. Charles Talbot, created Duke of Shrewsbury in 1694, was held in great esteem by William III., and was Lord Chamberlain under Anne. In 1713 he became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and held various offices under George I., until his death in 1718. "Before he was o. age," says Macaulay, "he was allowed to be one of the finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time."
33. See No. 23O.
34. William Cavendish, second Duke of Devonshire (1673-1729), who was Lord Steward from 17O7 to 1710 and from 1714 to 1716. Afterwards he was Lord President of the Council. Swift's comment on Macky's character of this Whig nobleman was, "A very poor understanding."
35. John Annesley, fourth Earl of Anglesea, a young nobleman of great promise, had only recently been appointed joint Vice-Treasurer, Receiver-General, and Paymaster of the Forces in Ireland, and sworn of the Privy Council.
36. Nichols, followed by subsequent editors, suggested that "Durham" was a mistake for "St. David's," because Dr. George Bull, Bishop of St. David's, died in 1710. But Dr. Bull died on Feb. 17, 171O, though his successor, Dr. Philip Bisse, was not appointed until November; and Swift was merely repeating a false report of the death of Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, which was current on the day on which he wrote. Luttrell says, on Sept. 19, "The Lord Crewe. . . died lately"; but on the 23rd he adds, "The Bishop of Durham is not dead as reported" (Brief Relation, vi. 63O, 633.
37. Lady Elizabeth ("Betty") Butler, who died unmarried in 175O.
38. Swift wrote in 1734, "Once every year I issued out an edict, commanding that all ladies of wit, sense, merit, and quality, who had an ambition to be acquainted with me, should make the first advances at their peril: which edict, you may believe, was universally obeyed."
39. Charles, second Earl of Berkeley (1649-171O), married Elizabeth, daughter of Baptist Noel, Viscount Campden. The Earl died on Sept. 24, 171O, and his widow in 1719. Swift, it will be remembered, had been chaplain to Lord Berkeley in Ireland in 1699.
40. Lady Betty and Lady Mary Butler. (see Letter 7, notes 2 and 3.)
41. Henry Boyle, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 17O2 to 17O8, was Secretary of State from 17O8 to 171O, when he was succeeded by St. John. In 1714 he was created Baron Carleton, and he was Lord President from 1721 until his death in 1725.
42. On Sept. 29 Swift wrote that his rooms consisted of the first floor, a dining-room and bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week. On his last visit to England, in 1726, he lodged "next door to the Royal Chair" in Bury Street. Steele lived in the same street from 17O7 to 1712; and Mrs. Vanhomrigh was Swift's next-door neighbour.
43. In Exchange Alley. Cf. Spectator, No. 454: "I went afterwards to Robin's, and saw people who had dined with me at the fivepenny ordinary just before, give bills for the value of large estates."
Letter 4
1 John Molesworth, Commissioner of the Stamp Office, was sent as Envoy to Tuscany in 1710, and was afterwards Minister at Florence, Venice, Geneva, and Turin. He became second Viscount Molesworth in 1725, and died in 1731.
2 Misson says, "Every two hours you may write to any part of the city or suburbs: he that receives it pays a penny, and you give nothing when you put it into the Post; but when you write into the country both he that writes and he that receives pay each a penny." The Penny Post system had been taken over by the Government, but was worked separately from the general Post.
3 The Countess of Berkeley's second daughter, who married, in 1706, Sir John Germaine, Bart. (165O-1718), a soldier of fortune. Lady Betty Germaine is said to have written a satire on Pope (Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, ii. 11), and was a constant correspondent of Swift's. She was always a Whig, and shortly before her death in 1769 she made a present of 100 pounds to John Wilkes, then in prison in the Tower. Writing of Lady Betty Butler and Lady Betty Germaine, Swift says elsewhere, "I saw two Lady Bettys this afternoon; the beauty of one, the good breeding and nature of the other, and the wit of either, would have made a fine woman." Germaine obtained the estate at Drayton through his first wife, Lady Mary Mordaunt--Lord Peterborough's sister--who had been divorced by her first husband, the Duke of Norfolk. Lady Betty was thirty years younger than her husband, and after Sir John's death she remained a widow for over fifty years.
4 The letter in No. 28O of the Tatler.
5 Discover, find out. Cf. Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, iii. 6: "He was first smoked by the old Lord Lafeu."
6 A village near Dublin.
7 Excellent.
8 John Molesworth, and, probably, his brother Richard, afterwards third Viscount Molesworth, who had saved the Duke of Marlborough's life at the battle of Ramillies, and had been appointed, in 171O, colonel of a regiment of foot.
9 Presumably at Charles Ford's.
10 The Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod, published as a single folio sheet, was a satire on Godolphin.
11 Apparently Marcus Antonius Morgan, steward to the Bishop of Kildare (Craik). Swift wrote to the Duke of Montagu on Aug. 12, 1713 (Buccleuch MSS., 1899, i. 359). "Mr. Morgan of Kingstrope is a friend, and was, I am informed, put out of the Commission of justice for being so."
12 Dr. Raymond is called Morgan's "father" because he warmly supported Morgan's interests.
13 The Rev. Thomas Warburton, Swift's curate at Laracor, whom Swift described to the Archbishop as "a gentleman of very good learning and sense, who has behaved himself altogether unblamably."
14 The tobacco was to be used as snuff. About this time ladies much affected the use of snuff, and Steele, in No. 344 of the Spectator, speaks of Flavilla pulling out her box, "which is indeed full of good Brazil," in the middle of the sermon. People often made their own snuff out of roll tobacco, by means of rasps. On Nov. 3, 1711, Swift speaks of sending "a fine snuff rasp of ivory, given me by Mrs. St. John for Dingley, and a large roll of tobacco."
15 Katherine Barton, second daughter of Robert Barton, of Brigstock, Northamptonshire, and niece of Sir Isaac Newton. She was a favourite among the toasts of the Kit-Cat Club, and Lord Halifax, who left her a fortune, was an intimate friend. In 1717 she married John Conduitt, afterwards Master of the Mint.
16 William Connolly, appointed a Commissioner of the Revenue in 1709, was afterwards Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He died in 1729. Francis Robarts, appointed a Commissioner of the Revenue in 1692, was made a Teller of the Exchequer in England in 1704, and quitted that office, in September 171O, on his reappointment, in Connolly's place, as Revenue Commissioner in Ireland. In 1714 Robarts was removed, and Connolly again appointed Commissioner.
17 Enoch Sterne, Collector of Wicklow and Clerk to the Irish House of Lords. Writing to Dr. Sterne on Sept. 26, Swift said, "I saw Collector Sterne, who desired me to present his service to you, and to tell you he would be glad to hear from you, but not about business."
18 In his "Character of Mrs. Johnson" Swift says, "She was never known to cry out, or discover any fear, in a coach." The passage in the text is obscure. Apparently Esther Johnson had boasted of saving money by walking, instead of riding, like a coward.
19 John Radcliffe (165O-1714), the well-known physician and wit, was often denounced as a clever empiric. Early in 1711 he treated Swift for his dizziness. By his will, Radcliffe left most of his property to the University of Oxford.
20 Charles Barnard, Sergeant-Surgeon to the Queen, and Master of the Barber Surgeons' Company. His large and valuable library, to which Swift afterwards refers, fetched great prices. Luttrell records Barnard's death in his diary for Oct. 12, 171O.
21 Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, had been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in August 1710. In May 1711 he was raised to the peerage and made Lord High Treasurer; and he is constantly referred to in the Journal as "Lord Treasurer." He was impeached in 1715, but was acquitted to 1717; he died in 1724.
22 The Right Hon. Thomas Bligh, M.P., of Rathmore, County Meath, died on Aug. 28, 1710. His son, mentioned later in the Journal, became Earl of Darnley.
Letter 5
1 Penalty.
2 Erasmus Lewis, Under Secretary of State under Lord Dartmouth, was a great friend of Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot. He had previously been one of Harley's secretaries, and in his Horace Imitated, Book I. Ep. vii., Swift describes him as "a cunning shaver, and very much in Harley's favour." Arbuthnot says that under George I. Lewis kept company with the greatest, and was "principal governor" in many families. Lewis was a witness to Arbuthnot's will. Pope and Esther Vanhomrigh both left him money to buy rings. Lewis died in 1754, aged eighty-three.
3 Charles Darteneuf, or Dartiquenave, was a celebrated epicure, who is said to have been a son of Charles II. Lord Lyttleton, in his Dialogues of the Dead, recalling Pope's allusions to him, selects him to represent modern bon vivants in the dialogue between Darteneuf and Apicius. See Tatler 252. Darteneuf was Paymaster of the Royal Works and a member of the Kit-Cat Club. He died in 1737.
4 No. 23O.
5 Good, excellent.
6 Captain George Delaval, appointed Envoy Extraordinary to the King of Portugal in Oct, 171O, was with Lord Peterborough in Spain in 1706. In May 1707 he went to Lisbon with despatches for the Courts of Spain and Portugal, from whence he was to proceed as Envoy to the Emperor of Morocco, with rich presents (Luttrell, vi. 52, 174, 192).
7 Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, as Ranger of Bushey Park and Hampton Court, held many offices under William III., and was First Lord of the Treasury under George I., until his death in 1715. He was great as financier and as debater, and he was a liberal patron of literature.
8 John Manley, M.P. for Bossiney, was made Surveyor-General on Sept. 3O, 1710, and died in 1714. In 1706 he fought a duel with another Cornish member (Luttrell, vi. 11, 535, 635). He seems to be the cousin whom Mrs. De la Riviere Manley accuses of having drawn her into a false marriage. For Isaac Manley and Sir Thomas Frankland, see Letter 3, notes 3 and 4.
9 The Earl of Godolphin (see Letter 2, note 3).
10 Sir John Stanley, Bart., of Northend, Commissioner of Customs, whom Swift knew through his intimate friends the Pendarves. His wife, Anne, daughter of Bernard Granville, and niece of John, Earl of Bath, was aunt to Mary Granville, afterwards Mrs. Delany, who lived with the Stanleys at their house in Whitehall.
11 Henry, Viscount Hyde, eldest son of Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, succeeded his father in the earldom in 1711, and afterwards became Earl of Clarendon. His wife, Jane, younger daughter of Sir William Leveson Gower,-- who married a daughter of John Granville, Earl of Bath,--was a beauty, and the mother of two beauties--Jane, afterwards Countess of Essex (see journal, Jan. 29, 1712), and Catherine, afterwards Countess of Queensberry. Lady Hyde was complimented by Prior, Pope, and her kinsman, Lord Lansdowne, and is said to have been more handsome than either of her daughters. She died in 1725; her husband in 1753. Lord Hyde became joint Vice-Treasurer for Ireland in 171O; hence his interest with respect to Pratt's appointment.
12 See Letter 3, note 10.
13 Sir Paul Methuen (1672-1757), son of John Methuen, diplomatist and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Methuen was Envoy and Ambassador to Portugal from 1697 to 1708, and was M.P. for Devizes from 1708 to 171O, and a Lord of the Admiralty. Under George I. he was Ambassador to Spain, and held other offices. Gay speaks of "Methuen of sincerest mind, as Arthur grave, as soft as womankind," and Steele dedicated to him the seventh volume of the Spectator. In his Notes on Macky's Characters, Swift calls him "a profligate rogue. . . without abilities of any kind."
14 Sir James Montagu was Attorney-General from 1708 to Sept. 171O, when he resigned, and was succeeded by Sir Simon Harcourt. Under George I. Montagu was raised to the Bench, and a few months before his death in 1723 became Chief Baron of the Exchequer.
15 The turnpike system had spread rapidly since the Restoration, and had already effected an important reform in the English roads. Turnpike roads were as yet unknown in Ireland.
16 Ann Johnson, who afterwards married a baker named Filby.
17 An infusion of which the main ingredient was cowslip or palsy-wort.
18 William Legge, first Earl of Dartmouth (1672-175O), was St. John's fellow Secretary of State. Lord Dartmouth seems to have been a plain, unpretending man, whose ignorance of French helped to throw important matters into St. John's hands.
19 Richard Dyot was tried at the Old Bailey, on Jan. 13, 171O-11, for counterfeiting stamps, and was acquitted, the crime being found not felony, but only breach of trust. Two days afterwards a bill of indictment was found against him for high misdemeanour.
20 Sir Philip Meadows (1626-1718) was knighted in 1658, and was Ambassador to Sweden under Cromwell. His son Philip (died 1757) was knighted in 170O, and was sent on a special mission to the Emperor in 1707. A great-grandson of the elder Sir Philip was created Earl Manvers in 1806.
21 Her eyes were weak.
22 The son of the Sir Robert Southwell to whom Temple had offered Swift as a "servant" on his going as Secretary of State to Ireland in 1690. Edward Southwell (1671-173O) succeeded his father as Secretary of State for Ireland in 1702, and in 1708 was appointed Clerk to the Privy Council of Great Britain. Southwell held various offices under George I. and George II., and amassed a considerable fortune.
23 Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718), dramatist and poet laureate, and one of the first editors of Shakespeare, was at this time under-secretary to the Duke of Queensberry, Secretary of State for Scotland.
24 No. 238 contains Swift's "Description of a Shower in London."
25 This seems to be a vague allusion to the text, "Cast thy bread upon the waters," etc.
26 Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), the fashionable portrait-painter of the period.
27 At the General election of 171O the contest at Westminster excited much interest. The number of constituents was large, and the franchise low, all householders who paid scot and lot being voters. There were, too, many houses of great Whig merchants, and a number of French Protestants. But the High Church candidates, Cross and Medlicott, were returned by large majorities, though the Whigs had chosen popular candidates--General Stanhope, fresh from his successes in Spain, and Sir Henry Dutton Colt, a Herefordshire gentleman.
28 Sir Andrew Fountaine (1676-1753), a distinguished antiquary, of an old Norfolk family, was knighted by William III. in 1699, and inherited his father's estate at Norfolk in 17O6. He succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as Warden of the Mint in 1727, and was Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Caroline. He became acquainted with Swift in Ireland in 1707, when he went over as Usher of the Black Rod in Lord Pembroke's Court.
29 See Letter 2, note 17. The Bishop was probably Dr. Moreton, Bishop of Meath (see Journal, July 1, 1712).
30 The game of ombre--of Spanish origin--is described in Pope's Rape of the Lock. See also the Compleat Gamester, 1721, and Notes and Queries, April 8, 1871. The ace of spades, or Spadille, was always the first trump; the ace of clubs (Basto) always the third. The second trump was the worst card of the trump suit in its natural order, i.e. the seven in red and the deuce in black suits, and was called Manille. If either of the red suits was trumps, the ace of the suit was fourth trump (Punto). Spadille, Manille, and Basto were "matadores," or murderers, as they never gave suit.
31 See Letter 3, note 30,
32 In the Spectator, No. 337, there is a complaint from "one of the top China women about town," of the trouble given by ladies who turn over all the goods in a shop without buying anything. Sometimes they cheapened tea, at others examined screens or tea-dishes.
33 The Right Hon. John Grubham Howe, M.P. for Gloucestershire, an extreme Tory, had recently been appointed Paymaster of the Forces. He is mentioned satirically as a patriot in sec. 9 of The Tale of a Tub.
34 George Henry Hay, Viscount Dupplin, eldest son of the sixth Earl of Kinnoull, was made a Teller of the Exchequer in August, and a peer of Great Britain in December 1711, with the title of Baron Hay. He married, in 1709, Abigail, Harley's younger daughter, and he succeeded his father in the earldom of Kinnoull in 1719.
35 Edward Harley, afterwards Lord Harley, who succeeded his father as Earl of Oxford in 1724. He married Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, but died without male issue in 1741. His interest in literature caused him to form the collection known as the Harleian Miscellany.
36 William Penn (1644-1718), the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania. Swift says that he "spoke very agreeably, and with much spirit."
37 This "Memorial to Mr. Harley about the First-Fruits" is dated Oct. 7, 171O.
38 Henry St. John, created Viscount Bolingbroke in July 1712. In the quarrel between Oxford and Bolingbroke in 1714, Swift's sympathies were with Oxford.
39 I.e., it is decreed by fate. So Tillotson says, "These things are fatal and necessary."
40 See Letter 3, note 8.
41 Obscure. Hooker speaks of a "blind or secret corner."
42 Ale served in a gill measure.
43 Scott suggests that the allusion is to The Tale of a Tub.
44 An extravagant compliment.
45 See Letter 8
46 L'Estrange speaks of "trencher-flies and spungers."
47 See Letter 1, note 10.
48 Samuel Garth, physician and member of the Kit-Cat Club, was knighted in 1714. He is best known by his satirical poem, The Dispensary, 1699.
49 Gay speaks of "Wondering Main, so fat, with laughing eyes" (Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece, st. xvii.).
50 See Letter 5, note 10.
51 See the letter of Oct. 10, 1710, to Archbishop King.
52 See Letter 1
53 Seventy-three lines in folio upon one page, and in a very small hand." (Deane Swift).
Letter 6
1. I.e., Lord Lieutenant.
2 Tatler, No. 238.
3 See Letter 1, note 12.
4 Charles Coote, fourth Earl of Mountrath, and M.P. for Knaresborough. He died unmarried in 1715.
5 Henry Coote, Lord Mountrath's brother. He succeeded to the earldom in 1715, but died unmarried in 172O.
6 The Devil Tavern was the meeting-place of Ben Jonson's Apollo Club. The house was pulled down in 1787.
7 Addison was re-elected M.P. for Malmesbury in Oct. 171O, and he kept that seat until his death in 1719.
8 Captain Charles Lavallee, who served in the Cadiz Expedition of 1702, and was appointed a captain in Colonel Hans Hamilton's Regiment of Foot in 1706 (Luttrell, v. 175, vi. 64O; Dalton's English Army Lists, iv. 126).
9 See Letter 5
10 The Tatler, No. 23O, Sid Hamet's Rod, and the ballad (now lost) on the Westminster Election.
11 The Earl of Galway (1648-172O), who lost the battle of Almanza to the Duke of Berwick in 1707. Originally the Marquis de Ruvigny, a French refugee, he had been made Viscount Galway and Earl of Galway successively by William III.
12 William Harrison, the son of a doctor at St. Cross, Winchester, had been recommended to Swift by Addison, who obtained for him the post of governor to the Duke of Queensberry's son. In Jan. 1711 Harrison began the issue of a continuation of Steele's Tatler with Swift's assistance, but without success. In May 1711, St. John gave Harrison the appointment of secretary to Lord Raby, Ambassador Extraordinary at the Hague, and in Jan. 1713 Harrison brought the Barrier Treaty to England. He died in the following month, at the age of twenty-seven, and Lady Strafford says that "his brother poets buried him, as Mr. Addison, Mr. Philips, and Dr. Swift." Tickell calls him "that much loved youth," and Swift felt his death keenly. Harrison's best poem is Woodstock Park, 1706.
13 The last volume of Tonson's Miscellany, 1708.
14 James Douglas, second Duke of Queensberry and Duke of Dover (1662-1711), was appointed joint Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1708, and third Secretary of State in 1709. Harrison must have been "governor" either to the third son, Charles, Marquis of Beverley (born 1698), who succeeded to the dukedom in 1711, or to the fourth son, George, born in 1701.
15 Anthony Henley, son of Sir Robert Henley, M.P. for Andover, was a favourite with the wits in London. He was a strong Whig, and occasionally contributed to the Tatler and Maynwaring's Medley. Garth dedicated The Dispensary to him. Swift records Henley's death from apoplexy in August 1711.
16 Sir William Ashurst, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, and Mr. John Ward were replaced by Sir Richard Hoare, Sir George Newland, and Mr. John Cass at the election for the City in 1710. Scott was wrong in saying that the Whigs lost also the fourth seat, for Sir William Withers had been member for the City since 1707.
17 Sir Richard Onslow, Bart., was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in 1708. Under George I. he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was elevated to the peerage as Baron Onslow in 1716. He died in the following year.
18 "The upper part of the letter was a little besmeared with some such stuff; the mark is still on it" (Deane Swift).
19 John Bolton, D.D., appointed a prebendary of St. Patrick's in 1691, became Dean of Derry in 1699. He died in 1724. Like Swift, Bolton was chaplain to Lord Berkeley, the Lord Lieutenant, and, according to Swift, he obtained the deanery of Derry through Swift having declined to give a bribe of 1000 pounds to Lord Berkeley's secretary. But Lord Orrery says that the Bishop of Derry objected to Swift, fearing that he would be constantly flying backwards and forwards between Ireland and England.
20 See Letter 2, note 16.
21 "That is, to the next page; for he is now within three lines of the bottom of the first" (Deane Swift).
22 See Letter 4, note 15.
23 Joshua Dawson, secretary to the Lords Justices. He built a fine house in Dawson Street, Dublin, and provided largely for his relatives by the aid of the official patronage in his hands.
24 He had been dead three weeks (see Letters 3 and 5).
25 In The Importance of the Guardian Considered, Swift says that Steele, "to avoid being discarded, thought fit to resign his place of Gazetteer."
26 As Swift never used the name "Stella" in the Journal, this fragment of his "little language" must have been altered by Deane Swift, the first editor. Forster makes the excellent suggestion that the correct reading is "sluttikins," a word used in the Journal on Nov. 28, 1710. Swift often calls his correspondents "sluts."
27 Godolphin, who was satirised in Sid Hamel's Rod (see Letter 2, note 3).
28 No. 23O.
29 "This appears to be an interjection of surprise at the length of his journal" (Deane Swift).
30 Matthew Prior, poet and diplomatist, had been deprived of his Commissionership of Trade by the Whigs, but was rewarded for his Tory principles in 1711 by a Commissionership of Customs.
31 "The twentieth parts are 12 pence in the pound paid annually out of all ecclesiastical benefices as they were valued at the Reformation. They amount to about 500 pounds per annum; but are of little or no value to the Queen after the offices and other charges are paid, though of much trouble and vexation to the clergy" (Swift's "Memorial to Mr. Harley").
32 Charles Mordaunt, the brilliant but erratic Earl of Peterborough, had been engaged for two years, after the unsatisfactory inquiry into his conduct in Spain by the House of Lords in 17O8, in preparing an account of the money he had received and expended. The change of Government brought him relief from his troubles; in November he was made Captain-General of Marines, and in December he was nominated Ambassador Extraordinary to Vienna.
33 Tapped, nudged.
34 I.e., told only to you.
35 Sir Hew Dalrymple (1652-1737), Lord President of the Court of Session, and son of the first Viscount Stair.
36 Robert Benson, a moderate Tory, was made a Lord of the Treasury in August 1710, and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the following June, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Bingley in 1713. He died in 1731.
37 The Smyrna Coffee-house was on the north side of Pall Mall, opposite Marlborough House. In the Tatler (Nos. 10, 78) Steele laughed at the "cluster of wise heads" to be found every evening at the Smyrna; and Goldsmith says that Beau Nash would wait a whole day at a window at the Smyrna, in order to receive a bow from the Prince or the Duchess of Marlborough, and would then look round upon the company for admiration and respect.
38 See Letter 4, note 14.
39 See Letter 5, note 17.
40 An Irish doctor, with whom Swift invested money.
41 Enoch Sterne, Collector of Wicklow and Clerk to the House of Lords in Ireland.
42 Claret.
43 Colonel Ambrose Edgworth, a famous dandy, who is supposed to have been referred to by Steele in No. 246 of the Tatler. Edgworth was the son of Sir John Edgworth, who was made Colonel of a Regiment of Foot in 1689 (Dalton, iii, 59). Ambrose Edgworth was a Captain in the same regiment, but father and son were shortly afterwards turned out of the regiment for dishonest conduct in connection with the soldiers' clothing. Ambrose was, however, reappointed a Captain in General Eric's Regiment of Foot in 1691. He served in Spain as Major in Brigadier Gorge's regiment; was taken prisoner in 1706; and was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of Colonel Thomas Allen's Regiment of Foot in 17O7.
44 This volume of Miscellanies in Prose and Verse was published by Morphew in 1711.
45 Dr. Thomas Lindsay, afterwards Bishop of Raphoe.
Letter 7
1 The first mention of the Vanhomrighs in the Journal. Swift had made their acquaintance when he was in London in 1708.
2 Lady Elizabeth and Lady Mary (see Letter 3, note 40 and below).
3 John, third Lord Ashburnham, and afterwards Earl of Ashburnham (1687-1737), married, on Oct. 21, 1710, Lady Mary Butler, younger daughter of the Duke of Ormond. She died on Jan. 2, 1712-3, in her twenty-third year. She was Swift's "greatest favourite," and he was much moved at her death.
4 Edward Wortley Montagu, grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich, and M.P. for Huntingdon. He was a great friend of Addison's, and the second volume of the Tatler was dedicated to him. In 1712 he married the famous Lady Mary Pierrepont, eldest daughter of the Duke of Kingston, and under George I. he became Ambassador Extraordinary to the Porte. He died in 1761, aged eighty.
5 See Letter 5, note 27. No copy of these verses is known.
6 Henry Alexander, fifth Earl of Stirling, who died without issue in 1739. His sister, Lady Judith Alexander, married Sir William Trumbull, Pope's friend.
7 "These words, notwithstanding their great obscurity at present, were very clear and intelligible to Mrs. Johnson: they referred to conversations, which passed between her and Dr. Tisdall seven or eight years before; when the Doctor, who was not only a learned and faithful divine, but a zealous Church- Tory, frequently entertained her with Convocation disputes. This gentleman, in the year 17O4, paid his addresses to Mrs. Johnson" (Deane Swift). The Rev. William Tisdall was made D.D. in 17O7. Swift never forgave Tisdall's proposal to marry Esther Johnson in 17O4, and often gave expression to his contempt for him. In 1706 Tisdall married, and was appointed Vicar of Kerry and Ruavon; in 1712 he became Vicar of Belfast. He published several controversial pieces, directed against Presbyterians and other Dissenters.
8 No. 193 of the Tatler, for July 4, 1710, contained a letter from Downes the Prompter in ridicule of Harley's newly formed Ministry. This letter, the authorship of which Steele disavowed, was probably by Anthony Henley.
9 William Berkeley, fourth Baron Berkeley of Stratton, was sworn of the Privy Council in September 1710, and was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He married Frances, youngest daughter of Sir John Temple, of East Sheen, Surrey, and died in 174O.
10 Probably the widow of Sir William Temple's son, John Temple (see Letter 2, note 13). She was Mary Duplessis, daughter of Duplessis Rambouillet, a Huguenot.
11 The Rev. James Sartre, who married Addison's sister Dorothy, was Prebendary and Archdeacon of Westminster. He had formerly been French pastor at Montpelier. After his death in 1713 his widow married a Mr. Combe, and lived until 175O.
12 William Congreve's last play was produced in 1700. In 1710, when he was forty, he published a collected edition of his works. Swift and Congreve had been schoolfellows at Kilkenny, and they had both been pupils of St. George Ashe--afterwards Bishop of Clogher--at Trinity College, Dublin. On Congreve's death, in 1729, Swift wrote, "I loved him from my youth."
13 See Letter 4, note 11.
14 Dean Sterne.
15 See Letter 6, note 19.
16 When he became Dean he withheld from Swift the living of St. Nicholas Without, promised in gratitude for the aid rendered by Swift in his election.
17 Crowe was a Commissioner for Appeals from the Revenue Commissioners for a short time in 17O6, and was Recorder of Blessington, Co. Wicklow. In his Short Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton, 1710, Swift speaks of Whartons "barbarous injustice to. . . poor Will Crowe."
18 See Letter 3, note 10.
19 See Letter 3, note 35.
20 See Letter 1, note 15.
21 Richard Tighe, M.P. for Belturbet, was a Whig, much disliked by Swift. He became a Privy Councillor under George I.
22 Dryden Leach, of the Old Bailey, formerly an actor, was son of Francis Leach. Swift recommended Harrison to employ Leach in printing the continuation of the Tatler; but Harrison discarded him. (See Journal, Jan. 16, 1710-11, and Timperley's Literary Anecdotes, 600, 631).
23 The Postman, which appeared three days in the week, written by M. Fonvive, a French Protestant, whom Dunton calls "the glory and mirror of news writers, a very grave, learned, orthodox man." Fonvive had a universal system of intelligence, at home and abroad, and "as his news is early and good, so his style is excellent."
24 Sir William Temple left Esther Johnson the lease of some property in Ireland.
25 See Letter 5, note 23.
26 An out-of-the-way or obscure house. So Pepys (Diary, Oct. 15, 1661) "To St. Paul's Churchyard to a blind place where Mr. Goldsborough was to meet me."
27 Sir Richard Temple, Bart., of Stowe, a Lieutenant-General who saw much service in Flanders, was dismissed in 1713 owing to his Whig views, but on the accession of George I. was raised to the peerage, and was created Viscount Cobham in 1718. He died in 1749. Congreve wrote in praise of him, and he was the "brave Cobham" of Pope's first Moral Essay.
28 Richard Estcourt, the actor, died in August 1712, when his abilities on the stage and as a talker were celebrated by Steele to No. 468 of the Spectator. See also Tatler, Aug. 6, 17O9, and Spectator, May 5, 1712. Estcourt was "providore" of the Beef-Steak Club, and a few months before his death opened the Bumper Tavern in James Street, Covent Garden.
29 See Letter 5, note 49.
30 Poor, mean. Elsewhere Swift speaks of "the corrector of a hedge press in Little Britain," and "a little hedge vicar."
31 Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke, was Lord Lieutenant from April 17O7 to December 17O8. A nobleman of taste and learning, he was, like Swift, very fond of punning, and they had been great friends in Ireland.
32 See Letter 3, note 11.
33 See Letter 3, note 18.
34 A small town and fortress in what is now the Pas de Calais.
35 Richard Stewart, third son of the first Lord Mountjoy (see Letter 1, note 11), was M.P. at various times for Castlebar, Strabane, and County Tyrone. He died in 1728.
Letter 8
1 See Letter 3, note 1.
2 Swift, Esther Johnson, and Mrs. Dingley seem to have begun their financial year on the 1st of November. Swift refers to "MD's allowance" in the Journal for April 23, 1713.
3 Samuel Dopping, an Irish friend of Stella's, who was probably related to Anthony Dopping, Bishop of Meath (died 1697), and to his son Anthony (died 1743), who became Bishop of Ossory.
4 See Letter 2, note 17.
5 The wife of Alderman Stoyte, afterwards Lord Mayor of Dublin. Mrs. Stoyte and her sister Catherine; the Walls; Isaac Manley and his wife; Dean Sterne, Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, and Swift, were the principal members of a card club which met at each other's houses for a number of years.
6 See Letter 1, note 12.
7 "This cypher stands for Presto, Stella, and Dingley; as much as to say, it looks like us three quite retired from all the rest of the world" (Deane Swift).
8 Steele's "dear Prue," Mary Scurlock, whom he married as his second wife in 17O7, was a lady of property and a "cried-up beauty." She was somewhat of a prude, and did not hesitate to complain to her husband, in and out of season, of his extravagance and other weaknesses. The other lady to whom Swift alludes is probably the Duchess of Marlborough.
9 See Letter 7, note 7.
10 Remembers: an Irish expression.
11 This new Commission, signed by Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Armagh, and William King, was dated Oct. 24, 1710. In this document Swift was begged to take the full management of the business of the First-Fruits into his hands, the Bishops of Ossory and Killala--who were to have joined with him in the negotiations--having left London before Swift arrived. But before this commission was despatched the Queen had granted the First-Fruits and Twentieth Parts to the Irish clergy.
12 Lady Mountjoy, wife of the second Viscount Mountjoy (see Letter 1), was Anne, youngest daughter of Murrough Boyle, first Viscount Blessington, by his second wife, Anne, daughter of Charles Coote, second Earl of Mountrath. After Lord Mountjoy's death she married John Farquharson, and she died in 1741.
13 Forster suggests that Swift wrote "Frond " or "Frowde" and there is every reason to believe that this was the case. No Colonel Proud appears in Dalton's Army Lists. A Colonel William Frowde, apparently third son of Sir Philip Frowde, Knight, by his third wife, Margaret, daughter of Sir John Ashburnham, was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in Colonel Farrington's (see note 18) Regiment of Foot in 1694. He resigned his commission on his appointment to the First Life Guards in 17O2, and he was in this latter regiment in 17O4. In November and December 1711 Swift wrote of Philip Frowde the elder (Colonel William Frowde's brother) as "an old fool," in monetary difficulties. It is probable that Swift's Colonel Proud (? Frowde) was not Colonel William Frowde, but his nephew, Philip Frowde, junior, who was Addison's friend at Oxford, and the author of two tragedies and various poems. Nothing seems known of Philip Frowde's connection with the army, but he is certainly called "Colonel" by Swift, Addison, and Pope (see Forster's Swift, 159; Addison's Works, v. 324; Pope's Works, v. 177, vi. 227). Swift wrote to Ambrose Philips in 17O5, "Col. Frond is just as he was, very friendly and grand reveur et distrait. He has brought his poems almost to perfection." It will be observed that when Swift met Colonel "Proud" he was in company with Addison, as was also the case when he was with Colonel "Freind" (see Letter 3, note 25).
14 Charles Davenant, LL.D., educated at Balliol College, Oxford, was the eldest son of Sir William Davenant, author of Gondibert. In Parliament he attacked Ministerial abuses with great bitterness until, in 17O3, he was made secretary to the Commissioners appointed to treat for a union with Scotland. To this post was added, in 17O5, an Inspector-Generalship of Exports and Imports, which he retained until his death in 1714. Tom Double, a satire on his change of front after obtaining his place, was published in 17O4. In a Note on Macky's character of Davenant, Swift says, "He ruined his estate, which put him under a necessity to comply with the times." Davenant's True Picture of a Modern Whig, in Two Parts, appeared in 17O1-2; in 17O7 he published "The True Picture of a Modern Whig revived, set forth in a third dialogue between Whiglove and Double," which seems to be the piece mentioned in the text, though Swift speaks of the pamphlet as "lately put out."
15 Hugh Chamberlen, the younger (1664-1728), was a Fellow of the College of Physicians and Censor in 17O7, 1717, and 1721. Atterbury and the Duchess of Buckingham and Normanby were among his fashionable patients. His father, Hugh Chamberlen, M.D., was the author of the Land Bank Scheme of 1693-94.
16 Sir John Holland (see Letter 3, note 28).
17 Swift may mean either rambling or gambolling.
18 Thomas Farrington was appointed Colonel of the newly raised 29th Regiment of Foot in 17O2. He was a subscriber for a copy of the Tatler on royal paper (Aitken, Life of Steele, i. 329, 33O).
19 In The History of Vanbrugh's House, Swift described everyone as hunting for it up and down the river banks, and unable to find it, until at length they--
"-- in the rubbish spy
A thing resembling a goose pie."
Sir John Vanbrugh was more successful as a dramatist than as an architect, though his work at Blenheim and elsewhere has many merits.
20 For the successes of the last campaign.
21 John Sheffield, third Earl of Mulgrave, was created Duke of Buckingham and Normanby in 17O3, and died in 1721. On Queen Anne's accession he became Lord Privy Seal, and on the return of the Tories to power in 1710 he was Lord Steward, and afterward (June 1710) Lord President of the Council. The Duke was a poet, as well as a soldier and statesman, his best known work being the Essay on Poetry. He was Dryden's patron, and Pope prepared a collected edition of his works.
22 Laurence Hyde, created Earl of Rochester in 1682, died in 1711. He was the Hushai of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, "the friend of David in distress." In 1684 he was made Lord President of the Council, and on the accession of James II., Lord Treasurer; he was, however, dismissed in 1687. Under William III. Rochester was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an office he resigned in 17O3; and in September 1710 he again became Lord President. His imperious temper always stood in the way of popularity or real success.
23 Sir Thomas Osborne, Charles II.'s famous Minister, was elevated to the peerage in 1673, and afterwards was made successively Earl of Danby, Marquis of Caermarthen, and Duke of Leeds. On Nov. 29, 1710, a few days after this reference to him, the Duke was granted a pension of 3500 pounds a year out of the Post Office revenues. He died in July 1712, aged eighty-one, and soon afterwards his grandson married Lord Oxford's daughter.
24 This is, of course, a joke; Swift was never introduced at Court.
25 Captain Delaval (see Letter 5, note 6).
26 Admiral Sir Charles Wager (1666-1743) served in the West Indies from 17O7 to 17O9, and gained great wealth from the prizes he took. Under George I. he was Comptroller of the Navy, and in 1733 he became First Lord of the Admiralty, a post which he held until 1742.
27 See Letter 7, note 27.
28 See Letter 5, note 13.
29 Isaac Bickerstaff's "valentine" sent him a nightcap, finely wrought by a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth (Tatler, No. 141). The "nightcap" was a periwig with a short tie and small round head, and embroidered nightcaps were worn chiefly by members of the graver professions.
30 Tatler, No. 237.
31 Tatler, No. 23O.
32 "Returning home at night, you'll find the sink Strike your offended sense with double stink." ("Description of a City Shower, 11. 5, 6.)
33 Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.
34 See Letter 1, note 3.
35 See Letter 8, note 5.
36 See Letter 6, note 4.
37 See Letter 1, note 11.
38 The bellman's accents. Cf. Pepys' Diary, Jan. 16, 1659-60: "I staid up till the bellman came by with his bell just under my window as I was writing of this very line, and cried, 'Past one of the clock, and a cold, frosty, windy morning.'"
Letter 9
1 John Freind, M.D. (1675-1728), was a younger brother of the Robert Freind, of Westminster School, mentioned elsewhere in the Journal. Educated under Dr. Busby at Westminster, he was in 1694 elected a student of Christ Church, where he made the acquaintance of Atterbury, and supported Boyle against Bentley in the dispute as to the authorship of the letters of Phalaris. In 1705 he attended the Earl of Peterborough to Spain, and in the following year wrote a defence of that commander (Account of the Earl of Peterborough's Conduct in Spain). A steady Tory, he took a share in the defence of Dr. Sacheverell; and in 1723, when M.P. for Launceston, he fell under the suspicion of the Government, and was sent to the Tower. On the accession of George II., however, he came into favour with the Court, and died Physician to the Queen.
2 See Letter 8, note 19.
3 St. John was thirty-two in October 1710. He had been Secretary at War six years before, resigning with Harley in 1707. Swift repeats this comparison elsewhere. Temple was forty-six when he refused a Secretaryship of State in 1674.
4 Sir Henry St. John seems to have continued a gay man to the end of his life. In his youth he was tried and convicted for the murder of Sir William Estcourt in a duel (Scott). In 1716, after his son had been attainted, he was made Viscount St. John. He died in 1742, aged ninety.
5 "Swift delighted to let his pen run into such rhymes as these, which he generally passes off as old proverbs" (Scott). Many of the charming scraps of "Old Ballads" and "Old Plays" at the head of Scott's own chapters are in reality the result of his own imagination.
6 See Letter 3, note 18.
7 Sir Richard Levinge, Bart., had been Solicitor-General for Ireland from 1704 to 1709, and was Attorney-General from 1711 to 1714. Afterwards he was Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland.
8 See Letter 2, note 18.
9 Thomas Belasyse, second Viscount Fauconberg, or Falconbridge (died 1700), a nobleman of hereditary loyalty, married, in 1657, the Protector's youngest daughter, Mary Cromwell, who is represented as a lady of high talent and spirit. She died on March 14, 1712. Burnet describes her as "a wise and worthy woman," who would have had a better prospect of maintaining her father's post than either of her brothers.
10 Richard Freeman, Chief Baron, was Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1707 until his death in November 1710.
11 See Letter 7, note 17.
12 Sir Richard Cox, Bart. (1650-1733), was Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1703 to 1707. In 1711 he was appointed Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench, but he was removed from office on the death of Queen Anne. His zealous Protestantism sometimes caused his views to be warped, but he was honest and well-principled.
13 Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. (1676-1746), succeeded Bromley as Speaker in 1714. In February 1713 Swift said, "He is the most considerable man in the House of Commons." His edition of Shakespeare was published by the University of Oxford in 1743-44. Pope called it "pompous," and sneered at Hanmer's "superior air" (Dunciad, iv. 105).
14 See Letter 5, note 8.
15 Elliot was keeper of the St. James's Coffee-house (see Letter 1).
16 Forster suggested that the true reading is "writhing." If so, it is not necessary to suppose that Lady Giffard was the cause of it. Perhaps it is the word "tiger" that is corrupt.
17 The Hon. Charles Boyle (1676-1731), of the Boyle and Bentley controversy, succeeded to the peerage as Lord Orrery in 1703. When he settled in London he became the centre of a Christ Church set, a strong adherent of Harley's party, and a member of Swift's "club." His son John, fifth Earl of Orrery, published Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift in 1751.
18 William Domville, a landed proprietor in County Dublin, whom Swift called "perfectly as fine a gentleman as I know."
19 On May 16, 1711, Swift wrote, "There will be an old to do." The word is found in Elizabethan writers in the sense of "more than enough." Cf. Macbeth, ii. 3: "If a man were porter of hell gate, he should have old turning the key."
20 See Letter 3, note 10. Clements was related to Pratt, the Deputy Vice- Treasurer, and was probably the Robert Clements who became Deputy Vice- Treasurer, and whose grandson Robert was created Earl of Leitrim in 1795.
21 Letter 5, note 11.
22 Swift's sister Jane, who had married a currier in Bride Street, named Joseph Fenton, a match to which Swift strongly objected. Deane Swift says that Swift never saw his sister again after the marriage; he had offered her 500 pounds if she would show a "proper disdain" of Fenton. On her husband's dying bankrupt, however, Swift paid her an annuity until 1738, when she died in the same lodging with Esther Johnson's mother, Mrs. Bridget Mose, at Farnham (Forster's Swift, pp. 118-19).
23 Welbore Ellis, appointed Bishop of Kildare in 1705. He was translated to Meath in 1731, and died three years later.
24 The expression of the Archbishop is, "I am not to conceal from you that some expressed a little jealously, that you would not be acceptable to the present courtiers; intimating that you were under the reputation of being a favourite of the late party in power" (King to Swift, Nov. 2, 1710).
25 This indignant letter is dated Nov. 23, 1710. It produced an apologetic reply from the Archbishop (Nov. 30, 1710), who represented that the letter to Southwell was a snare laid in his way, since if he declined signing it, it might have been interpreted into disrespect to the Duke of Ormond. Of the bishops King said, "You cannot do yourself a greater service than to bring this to a good issue, to their shame and conviction."
Letter 10
1 William Bromley (died 1732) was M.P. for the University of Oxford. A good debater and a strong High Churchman, he was Secretary of State from August 1713 until the Queen's death in the following year.
2 Colonel, afterwards Major-General, John Hill (died 1735) was younger brother of Mrs. Masham, the Queen's favourite, and a poor relation of the Duchess of Marlborough. He was wounded at Mons in 1709, and in 1711 was sent on an unsuccessful expedition to attack the French settlements in North America. In 1713 he was appointed to command the troops at Dunkirk.
3 "The footmen in attendance at the Houses of Parliament used at this time to form themselves into a deliberative body, and usually debated the same points with their masters. It was jocularly said that several questions were lost by the Court party in the menial House of Lords which were carried triumphantly in the real assembly; which was at length explained by a discovery that the Scottish peers whose votes were sometimes decisive of a question had but few representatives in the convocation of lacqueys. The sable attendant mentioned by Swift, being an appendage of the brother of Mrs. Masham, the reigning favourite, had a title to the chair, the Court and Tory interest being exerted in his favour" (Scott). Steele alludes to the "Footmen's Parliament" in No. 88 of the Spectator.
4 See Letter 1, note 3.
5 A Court of Equity abolished in the reign of Charles I. It met in the Camera Alba, or Whitehall, and the room appears to have retained the name of the old Court.
6 See Letter 6, note 2.
7 Swift's first contribution to the Examiner (No. 13) is dated Nov. 2, 1710.
8 Seduced, induced. Dryden (Spanish Friar) has "To debauch a king to break his laws."
9 Freeman (see Letter 9, note 10).
10 "To make this intelligible, it is necessary to observe, that the words 'this fortnight', in the preceding sentence, were first written in what he calls their little language, and afterwards scratched out and written plain. It must be confessed this little language, which passed current between Swift and Stella, has occasioned infinite trouble in the revisal of these papers" (Deane Swift).
11 Trim. An attack upon the liberties of this corporation is among the political offences of Wharton's Lieutenancy of Ireland set forth in Swift's Short Character of the Earl of Wharton.
12 Apologies.
13 "A Description of the Morning," in No. 9 of the Tatler.
14 See Letter 6, note 19.
15 William Palliser (died 1726).
16 See Letter 4, note 15.
17 "Here he writ with his eyes shut; and the writing is somewhat crooked, although as well in other respects as if his eyes had been open" (Deane Swift).
18 Tatler, No. 249; cf. p. 93. During this visit to London Swift contributed to only three Tatlers, viz. Nos. 230, 238, and 258.
19 St. Andrew's Day.
20 No. 241.
21 Tatler, No. 258.
22 Lieutenant-General Philip Bragg, Colonel of the 28th Regiment of Foot, and M.P. for Armagh, died in 1759.
23 James Cecil, fifth Earl of Salisbury, who died in 1728.
24 See Letter 2, note 13.
25 See Letter 8, note 22.
26 Kneller seems never to have painted Swift's portrait.
27 On Nov. 25 and 28.
28 Arthur Annesley, M.P. for Cambridge University, had recently become fifth Earl of Anglesea, on the death of his brother (see Letter 3, note 35). Under George I. he was Joint Treasurer of Ireland, and Treasurer at War.
29 A Short Character of the Earl of Wharton, by Swift himself, though the authorship was not suspected at the time. "Archbishop King," says Scott, "would have hardly otherwise ventured to mention it to Swift in his letter of Jan. 9, 1710, as 'a wound given in the dark.'" Elsewhere, however, in a note, Swift hints that Archbishop King was really aware of the authorship of the pamphlet.
30 A false report. (See Letter 11, note 4.)
31 None of these Commissioners of Revenue lost their places at this time. Samuel Ogle was Commissioner from 1699 to 1714; John South from 1696 until his death in 1711; and Sir William St. Quintin, Bart., from 1706 to 1713. Stephen Ludlow succeeded South in September 1711.
32 See Letter 7, note 35.
33 James Hamilton, sixth Earl of Abercorn (1656-1734), a Scotch peer who had strongly supported the Union of 1706.
Letter 11
1 L'Estrange speaks of "insipid twittle twattles." Johnson calls this "a vile word."
2 A cousin of Swift's; probably a son of William Swift.
3 Nicholas Sankey (died 1722) succeeded Lord Lovelace as Colonel of a Regiment of Foot in Ireland in 1689. He became Brigadier-General in 1704, Major- General 1707, and Lieutenant-General 1710. He served in Spain, and was taken prisoner at the battle of the Caya in 1709.
4 See Letter 10, note 30.
5 The Earl of Abercorn (see Letter 10, note 33) married, in 1686, Elizabeth, only child of Sir Robert Reading, Bart., of Dublin, by Jane, Dowager Countess of Mountrath. Lady Abercorn survived her husband twenty years, dying in 1754, aged eighty-six.
6 Charles Lennox, first Duke of Richmond and Gordon (1672-1723), was the illegitimate son of Charles II. by Madame de Querouaille.
7 Sir Robert Raymond, afterwards Lord Raymond (1673-1733), M.P. for Bishop's Castle, Shropshire, was appointed Solicitor-General in May 1710, and was knighted in October. He was removed from office on the accession of George I., but was made Attorney-General in 1720, and in 1724 became a judge of the King's Bench. In the following year he was made Lord Chief-Justice, and was distinguished both for his learning and his impartiality.
8 Lynn-Regis.
9 Richard Savage, fourth Earl Rivers, the father of Richard Savage, the poet. Under the Whigs Lord Rivers was Envoy to Hanover; and after his conversion by Harley, he was Constable of the Tower under the Tories. He died in 1712.
10 Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland from 1695 until his death in 1717.
11 Lord Shelburne's clever sister, Anne, only daughter of Sir William Petty, and wife of Thomas Fitzmaurice, Lord of Kerry, afterwards created first Earl of Kerry.
12 Mrs. Pratt, an Irish friend of Lady Kerry, lodged at Lord Shelburne's during her visit to London. The reference to Clements (see Letter 9, note 20), Pratt's relative, in the Journal for April 14, 1711, makes it clear that Mrs. Pratt was the wife of the Deputy Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, to whom Swift often alludes (see Letter 3, note 10).
13 Lieutenant-General Thomas Meredith, Major-General Maccartney, and Brigadier Philip Honeywood. They alleged that their offence only amounted to drinking a health to the Duke of Marlborough, and confusion to his enemies. But the Government said that an example must be made, because various officers had dropped dangerous expressions about standing by their General, Marlborough, who was believed to be aiming at being made Captain General for life. For Maccartney see the Journal for Nov. 15, 1712, seq. Meredith, who was appointed Adjutant-General of the Forces in 1701, was made a Lieutenant- General in 1708. He saw much service under William III., and Marlborough, and was elected M.P. for Midhurst in 1709. He died in 1719 (Dalton's Army Lists, III. 181). Honeywood entered the army in 1694; was at Namur; and was made a Brigadier-General before 1711. After the accession of George I. he became Colonel of a Regiment of Dragoons, and commanded a division at Dettingen. At his death in 1752 he was acting as Governor of Portsmouth, with the rank of General (Dalton, iv. 30).
14 Or "malkin"; a counterfeit, or scarecrow.
15 William Cadogan, Lieutenant-General and afterwards Earl Cadogan (1675- 1726), a great friend of Marlborough, was Envoy to the United Provinces and Spanish Flanders. Cadogan retained the post of Lieutenant to the Tower until 1715.
16 Earl Cadogan's father, Henry Cadogan, barrister, married Bridget, daughter of Sir Hardresse Waller, and sister of Elizabeth, Baroness Shelburne in her own right.
17 See Letter 5, note 30.
18 Cadogan married Margaretta, daughter of William Munter, Counsellor of the Court of Holland.
19 Presumably the eldest son, William, who succeeded his father as second Earl of Kerry in 1741, and died in 1747. He was at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and was afterwards a Colonel in the Coldstream Guards.
20 Henry Petty, third Lord Shelburne, who became Earl of Shelburne in 1719. His son predeceased him, without issue, and on Lord Shelburne's death, in 1751, his honours became extinct. His daughter Anne also died without issue.
21 The menagerie, which had been one of the sights of London, was removed from the Tower in 1834. In his account of the Tory Fox Hunter in No. 47 of the Freeholder, Addison says, "Our first visit was to the lions."
22 Bethlehem Hospital, for lunatics, in Moorfields, was a popular "sight" in the eighteenth century. Cf. the Tatler, No. 30: "On Tuesday last I took three lads, who are under my guardianship, a rambling, in a hackney coach, to show them the town: as the lions, the tombs, Bedlam."
23 The Royal Society met at Gresham College from 1660 to 1710. The professors of the College lectured on divinity, civil law, astronomy, music, geometry, rhetoric, and physic.
24 The most important of the puppet-shows was Powell's, in the Little Piazza, Covent Garden, which is frequently mentioned in the Tatler.
25 The precise nature this negligent costume is not known, but it is always decried by popular writers of the time.
26 Retched. Bacon has "Patients must not keck at them at the first."
27 Swift was born on November 30.
28 Mrs. De la Riviere Manley, daughter of Sir Roger Manley, and cousin of John Manley, M.P., and Isaac Manley (see Letter 3, note 3), wrote poems and plays, but is best known for her "Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality, of both sexes. From the New Atalantis, 1709," a book abounding in scandalous references to her contemporaries. She was arrested in October, but was discharged in Feb. 1710. In May 1710 she brought out a continuation of the New Atalantis, called "Memoirs of Europe towards the Close of the Eighth Century." In June 1711 she became editress of the Tory Examiner, and wrote political pamphlets with Swift's assistance. Afterwards she lived with Alderman Barber, the printer, at whose office she died in 1724. In her will she mentioned her "much honoured friend, the Dean of St. Patrick, Dr. Swift."
29 "He seems to have written these words in a whim; for the sake of what follows" (Deane Swift).
30 See Letter 8, note 33.
31 No. 249 (see Letter 10, note 18).
32 See Letter 5, note 34.
33 In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Tisdall, of Dec. 16, 1703, Swift said: "I'll teach you a way to outwit Mrs. Johnson: it is a new-fashioned way of being witty, and they call it a bite. You must ask a bantering question, or tell some damned lie in a serious manner, and then she will answer or speak as if you were in earnest; and then cry you, 'Madam, there's a bite!' I would not have you undervalue this, for it is the constant amusement in Court, and everywhere else among the great people." See, too, the Tatler, No. 12, and Spectator, Nos. 47, 504: "In a word, a Biter is one who thinks you a fool, because you do not think him a knave."
34 See Letter 9, note 4.
35 "As I hope to be saved;" a favourite phrase in the Journal.
36 See Letter 7, note 12.
37 This statement receives some confirmation from a pamphlet published in September 1710, called "A Condoling Letter to the Tatler: On Account of the Misfortunes of Isaac Bickerstaf Esq., a Prisoner in the ---- on Suspicion of Debt."
38 Dr. Lambert, chaplain to Lord Wharton, was censured in Convocation for being the author of a libellous letter.
39 Probably the same person as Dr. Griffith, spoken of in the Journal for March 3, 1713,--when he was ill,--as having been "very tender of" Stella.
40 See Letter 9, note 22.
41 Vexed, offended. Elsewhere Swift wrote, "I am apt to grate the ears of more than I could wish."
42 Ambrose Philips, whose Pastorals had been published in the same volume of Tonson's Miscellany as Pope's. Two years later Swift wrote, "I should certainly have provided for him had he not run party mad." In 1712 his play, The Distrest Mother, received flattering notice in the Spectator, and in 1713, to Pope's annoyance, Philips' Pastorals were praised in the Guardian. His pretty poems to children led Henry Carey to nickname him "Namby Pamby."
43 An equestrian statue of William III., in College Green, Dublin. It was common, in the days of party, for students of the University of Dublin to play tricks with this statue.
44 Lieutenant-General Richard Ingoldsby (died 1712) was Commander of the Forces in Ireland, and one of the Lords Justices in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant.
45 This seems to have been a mistake; cf. Journal for July 13, 1711, Alan Brodrick, afterwards Viscount Midleton, a Whig politician and lawyer, was made Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in Ireland in 1709, but was removed from office in June 1711, when Sir Richard Cox succeeded him. On the accession of George I. he was appointed Lord Chancellor for Ireland. Afterwards he declined to accept the dedication to him of Swift's Drapiers Letters, and supported the prosecution of the author. He died in 1728.
46 Robert Doyne was appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1695, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1703. This appointment was revoked on the accession of George I.
47 See Letter 9, note 12.
48 Of the University of Dublin.
49 See Letter 2, note 18 and Letter 3, note 4. Sir Thomas Frankland's eldest son, Thomas, who afterwards succeeded to the baronetcy, acquired a fortune with his first wife, Dinah, daughter of Francis Topham, of Agelthorpe, Yorkshire. He died in 1747.
50 See Letter 8, note 21.
51 see Letter 4, note 15.
52 Mary, daughter of Sir John Williams, Bart., and widow of Charles Petty, second Lord Shelburne, who died in 1696. She had married, as her second husband, Major-General Conyngham, and, as her third husband, Colonel Dallway.
53 Dr. John Vesey became Bishop of Limerick in 1672, and Archbishop of Tuam in 1678. He died in 1716.
54 See Letter 3, note 39.
55 Sex.
56 Toby Caulfeild, third son of the fifth Lord Charlemont. In 1689 he was Colonel to the Earl of Drogheda's Regiment of Foot, and about 1705 he succeeded to the command of Lord Skerrin's Regiment of Foot. After serving in Spain his regiment was reduced, having lost most of its men (Luttrell, vi. 158).
57 John Campbell, second Duke of Argyle (1680-1743), was installed a Knight of the Garter in December 1710, after he had successfully opposed a vote of thanks to Marlborough, with whom he had quarrelled. It was of this nobleman that Pope wrote--
"Argyle, the State's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field." In a note to Macky's Memoirs, Swift describes the Duke as an "ambitious, covetous, cunning Scot, who had no principle but his own interests and greatness."
58 Harley's second wife, Sarah, daughter of Simon Middleton, of Edmonton, and sister of Sir Hugh Middleton, Bart. She died, without issue, in 1737.
59 Elizabeth Harley, then unmarried, the daughter of Harley's first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Foley, of Whitley Court, Worcestershire. She subsequently married the Marquis of Caermarthen, afterwards Duke of Leeds.
60 Harcourt (see Letter 3, note 24).
61 William Stawel, the third baron, who succeeded to the title in 1692, was half-brother to the second Baron Stawel. The brother here referred to was Edward, who succeeded to the title as fourth baron in 1742.
Letter 12
1 Charles Finch, third Earl of Winchelsea, son of Lord Maidstone, and grandson of Heneage, second Earl of Winchelsea. On his death in 1712 Swift spoke of him as "a worthy honest gentleman, and particular friend of mine."
2 Vedeau was a shopkeeper, who abandoned his trade for the army (Journal, March 28, April 4, 1711). Swift calls him "a lieutenant, who is now broke, and upon half pay" (Journal, Nov. 18, 1712)
3 Sir Edmund Bacon, Bart. (died 1721), of Herringflat, Suffolk, succeeded his father in the baronetcy in 1686.
4 The reverse at Brihuega.
5 See Letter 8, note 12.
6 John Barber, a printer, became Lord Mayor of London in 1732, and died in 1741. Mrs. Manley was his mistress, and died at his printing office. Swift speaks of Barber as his "very good and old friend."
7 Bernage was an officer serving under Colonel Fielding. In August 1710 a difficulty arose through Arbuthnot trying to get his brother George made Captain over Bernage's head; but ultimately Arbuthnot waived the business, because he would not wrong a friend of Swift's.
8 See Letter 1, note 52.
9 George Smalridge (1663-1719), the High Church divine and popular preacher, was made Dean of Carlisle in 1711, and Bishop of Bristol in 1714. Steele spoke of him in the Tatler (Nos. 73, 114) as "abounding in that sort of virtue and knowledge which makes religion beautiful."
10 St. Albans Street, Pall Mall, was removed in 1815 to make way for Waterloo Place. It was named after Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans.
11 Ben Portlack, the Duke of Ormond's secretary.
12 Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford (1684-1750), only son of Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Lord Hertford succeeded to the dukedom in 1748. From 1708 to 1722 he was M.P. for Northumberland, and from 1708 to 1713 he took an active part in the war in Flanders.
13 See Letter 4
14 A Short Character of the Earl of Wharton (see Letter 10 note 29).
15 See Letter 9
16 Henry Herbert, the last Baron Herbert of Cherbury, succeeded to the peerage in 1709, and soon afterwards married a sister of the Earl of Portsmouth. A ruined man, he committed suicide in 1738.
17 Nos. 257, 260.
18 See Letter 6, note 12.
19 "AFTER is interlined" (Deane Swift).
20 With this account may be compared what Pope says, as recorded in Spence's Anecdotes, p. 223: "Lord Peterborough could dictate letters to nine amanuenses together, as I was assured by a gentleman who saw him do it when Ambassador at Turin. He walked round the room, and told each of them in his turn what he was to write. One perhaps was a letter to the emperor, another to an old friend, a third to a mistress, a fourth to a statesman, and so on: yet he carried so many and so different connections in his head, all at the same time."
21 Francis Atterbury, Dean of Carlisle, had taken an active part in the defence of Dr. Sacheverell. After a long period of suspense he received the appointment of Dean of Christ Church, and in 1713 he was made Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster. Atterbury was on intimate terms with Swift, Pope, and other writers on the Tory side, and Addison--at whose funeral the Bishop officiated--described him as "one of the greatest geniuses of his age."
22 John Carteret, second Baron Carteret, afterwards to be well known as a statesman, succeeded to the peerage in 1695, and became Earl Granville and Viscount Carteret on the death of his brother in 1744. He died in 1763. In October 1710, when twenty years of age, he had married Frances, only daughter of Sir Robert Worsley, Bart., of Appuldurcombe, Isle of Wight.
23 Dillon Ashe, D.D., Vicar of Finglas, and brother of the Bishop of Clogher. In 1704 he was made Archdeacon of Clogher, and in 1706 Chancellor of Armagh. He seems to have been too fond of drink.
24 Henley (see Letter 6, note 15) married Mary, daughter of Peregrine Bertie, the second son of Montagu, Earl of Lindsey, and with her obtained a fortune of 30,000 pounds. After Henley's death his widow married her relative, Henry Bertie, third son of James, Earl of Abingdon.
25 Hebrews v. 6.
Letter 13
1 Probably Mrs. Manley and John Barber (see Letter 11, note 28 and Letter 12, note 6).
2 Sir Andrew Fountaine's (see Letter 5, note 28) father, Andrew Fountaine, M.P., married Sarah, daughter of Sir Thomas Chicheley, Master of the Ordnance. Sir Andrew's sister, Elizabeth, married Colonel Edward Clent. The "scoundrel brother," Brig, died in 1746, aged sixty-four (Blomefield's Norfolk, vi. 233- 36).
3 Dame Overdo, the justice's wife in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair.
4 See Letter 3, note 5.
5 Atterbury, who had recently been elected Prolocutor to the Lower House of Convocation.
6 Dr. Sterne, Dean of St. Patrick's, was not married.
7 January 6 was Twelfth-night.
8 Garraway's Coffee-house, in Change Alley, was founded by Thomas Garway, the first coffee-man who sold and retailed tea. A room upstairs was used for sales of wine "by the candle."
9 Sir Constantine Phipps, who had taken an active part in Sacheverell's defence. Phipps' interference in elections in the Tory interest made him very unpopular in Dublin, and he was recalled on the death of Queen Anne.
10 Joseph Trapp, one of the seven poets alluded to in the distich:--
"Alma novem genuit celebres Rhedycina poetas,
Bubb, Stubb, Grubb, Crabb, Trapp, Young, Carey, Tickell, Evans." Trapp wrote a tragedy in 1704, and in 1708 was chosen the first Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1710 he published pamphlets on behalf of Sacheverell, and in 1712 Swift secured for him the post of chaplain to Bolingbroke. During his latter years he held several good livings. Elsewhere Swift calls him a "coxcomb."
11 See Letter 7, note 21.
12 The extreme Tories, who afterwards formed the October Club.
13 Crowd. A Jacobean writer speaks of "the lurry of lawyers," and "a lurry and rabble of poor friars."
14 See Letter 5, note 10.
15 St. John's first wife was Frances, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Winchcombe, Bart., of Berkshire, and in her right St. John enjoyed the estates of Bucklebury, which on her death in 1718 passed to her sister. In April 1711 Swift said that "poor Mrs. St. John" was growing a great favourite of his; she was going to Bath owing to ill-health, and begged him to take care of her husband. She "said she had none to trust but me, and the poor creature's tears came fresh in her eyes." Though the marriage was, naturally enough, unhappy, she did not leave St. John's house until 1713, and she returned to him when he fell from power. There are letters from her to Swift as late as 1716, not only doing her best to defend his honour, but speaking of him with tenderness.
16 "Battoon" means (1) a truncheon; (2) a staff of office. Luttrell, in 1704, speaks of "a battoon set with diamonds sent him from the French king."
17 Edward Harley, second son of Sir Edward Harley, was M.P. for Leominster and Recorder of the same town. In 1702 he was appointed Auditor of the Imposts, a post which he held until his death in 1735. His wife, Sarah, daughter of Thomas Foley, was a sister of Robert Harley's wife, and his eldest son eventually became third Earl of Oxford. Harley published several books on biblical subjects.
18 See Letter 6, note 12. The last number of Steele's Tatler appeared on Jan. 2, 1711; Harrison's paper reached to fifty-two numbers.
19 Dryden Leach (see Letter 7, note 22).
20 Cf. Letter 7, October 28th.
21 Published by John Baker and John Morphew. See Aitken's Life of Steele, i. 299-301.
22 In No. 224 of the Tatler, Addison, speaking of polemical advertisements, says: "The inventors of Strops for Razors have written against one another this way for several years, and that with great bitterness." See also Spectator, Nos. 428, 509, and the Postman for March 23, 1703: "The so much famed strops for setting razors, etc., are only to be had at Jacob's Coffee- house. . . . Beware of counterfeits, for such are abroad."
23 Sir John Holland (see Letter 3, note 28).
24 Addison speaks of a fine flaxen long wig costing thirty guineas (Guardian, No. 97), and Duumvir's fair wig, which Phillis threw into the fire, cost forty guineas (Tatler, No. 54)
25 Swift's mother, Abigail Erick, was of a Leicestershire family, and after her husband's death she spent much of her time with her friends near her old home. Mr. Worrall, vicar of St. Patrick's, with whom Swift was on terms of intimacy in 1728-29, was evidently a relative of the Worralls where Mrs. Swift had lodged, and we may reasonably suppose that he owed the living to Swift's interest in the family.
26 The title of a humorous poem by Lydgate. A "lickpenny" is a greedy or grasping person.
27 Small wooden blocks used for lighting fires. See Swift ("Description of the Morning"),
"The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drowned in shriller notes of chimney-sweep;" and Gay (Trivia, ii. 35),
"When small-coal murmurs in the hoarser throat,
From smutty dangers guard thy threatened coat."
28 The Tory Ministers.
Letter 14
1 See Letter 7, note 22.
2 Thomas Southerne's play of Oroonoko, based on Mrs. Aphra Behn's novel of the same name, was first acted in 1696.
3 "Mrs." Cross created the part of Mrs. Clerimont in Steele's Tender Husband in 1705.
4 See Letter 12, note 7.
5 George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, was M.P. for Cornwall, and Secretary at War. In December 1711 he was raised to the peerage, and in 1712 was appointed Comptroller of the Household. He died in 1735, when the title became extinct. Granville wrote plays and poems, and was a patron of both Dryden and Pope. Pope called him "Granville the polite." His Works in Verse and Prose appeared in 1732.
6 Samuel Masham, son of Sir Francis Masham, Bart., had been a page to the Queen while Princess of Denmark, and an equerry and gentleman of the bed- chamber to Prince George. He married Abigail Hill (see Letter 16, note 7), daughter of Francis Hill, a Turkey merchant, and sister of General John Hill, and through that lady's influence with the Queen he was raised to the peerage as Baron Masham, in January 1712. Under George I. he was Remembrancer of the Exchequer. He died in 1758.
7 A roughly printed pamphlet, The Honourable Descent, Life, and True Character of the . . . Earl of Wharton, appeared early in 1711, in reply to Swift's Short Character; but that can hardly be the pamphlet referred to here, because it is directed against libellers and backbiters, and cannot be described as "pretty civil."
8 "In that word (the seven last words of the sentence huddled into one) there were some puzzling characters" (Deane Swift).
9 Sir Robert Worsley, Bart., married, in 1690, Frances, only daughter of the first Viscount Weymouth. Their daughter Frances married Lord Carteret (see Letter 12, note 22) in 1710. In a letter to Colonel Hunter in March 1709 Swift spoke of Lady (then Mrs.) Worsley as one of the principal beauties in town. See, too, Swift's letter to her of April 19, 1730: "My Lady Carteret has been the best queen we have known in Ireland these many years; yet is she mortally hated by all the young girls, because (and it is your fault) she is handsomer than all of them together."
10 See Letter 3, note 1.
11 See Letter 5, note 17.
12 William Stratford, son of Nicholas Stratford, Bishop of Chester, was Archdeacon of Richmond and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, until his death in 1729.
13 See Letter 3, note 22.
14 James, third Earl of Berkeley (168O-1736), whom Swift calls a "young rake" (see Letter 16, note 15). The young Countess of Berkeley was only sixteen on her marriage. In 1714 she was appointed a lady of the bed-chamber to Caroline, Princess of Wales, and she died of smallpox in 1717, aged twenty- two. The Earl was an Admiral, and saw much service between 1701 and 1710; under George I. he was First Lord of the Admiralty.
15 Edward Wettenhall was Bishop of Kilmore from 1699 to 1713.
16 In the Dedication to The Tale of a Tub Swift had addressed Somers in very different terms: "There is no virtue, either in public or private life, which some circumstances of your own have not often produced upon the stage of the world."
17 Their lodgings, opposite to St. Mary's Church in Stafford Street, Dublin.
Letter 15
1 The Stamp Act was not passed until June 1712: see the Journal for Aug. 7, 1712.
2 Both in St. James's Park. The Canal was formed by Charles II. from several small ponds, and Rosamond's Pond was a sheet of water in the south-west corner of the Park, "long consecrated," as Warburton said, "to disastrous love and elegiac poetry." It is often mentioned as a place of assignation in Restoration plays. Evelyn (Diary, Dec. 1, 1662) describes the "scheets" used on the Canal.
3 Mrs. Beaumont.
4 The first direct mention of Hester Vanhomrigh. She is referred to only in two other places in the Journal (Feb. 14, 1710-11, and Aug, 14, 1711).
5 See Letter 3, note 17.
6 No. 27, by Swift himself.
7 No. 7 of Harrison's series.
8 The printers of the original Tatler.
9 Harley had forwarded to Swift a banknote for fifty pounds (see Journal, March 7, 1710-11).
10 At Moor Park.
11 Scott says that Swift here alludes to some unidentified pamphlet of which he was the real or supposed author.
12 See Letter 11, note 13.
13 The Examiner.
14 See Letter 6, note 43.
15 Mistaken.
16 Mrs. De Caudres, "over against St. Mary's Church, near Capel Street," where Stella now lodged.
17 "A crease in the sheet" (Deane Swift).
18 "In the original it was, good mallows, little sollahs. But in these words, and many others, he writes constantly ll for rr" (Deane Swift).
19 See Letter 4, note 19.
20 "Those letters which are in italics in the original are of a monstrous size, which occasioned his calling himself a loggerhead" (Deane Swift). [Italics replaced by capitals for the transcription of this etext.]
21 I.e., to ask whether.
Letter 16
1 Harcourt.
2 "A shilling passes for thirteenpence in Ireland" (Deane Swift).
3 Robert Cope, a gentleman of learning with whom Swift corresponded.
4 Archdeacon Morris is not mentioned in Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiae Hiberniae.
5 See Letter 14, note 6.
6 See Letter 10, note 2.
7 Abigail Hill, afterwards Lady Masham, had been introduced into the Queens service as bed-chamber woman by the Duchess of Marlborough. Her High Church and Tory views recommended her to Queen Anne, and in 17O7 she was privately married to Mr. Samuel Masham, a gentleman in the service of Prince George (see Letter 14, note 6). The Duchess of Marlborough discovered that Mrs. Masham's cousin, Harley, was using her influence to further his own interests with the Queen; and in spite of her violence the Duchess found herself gradually supplanted. From 1710 Mrs. Masham's only rival in the royal favour was the Duchess of Somerset. Afterwards she quarrelled with Harley and joined the Bolingbroke faction.
8 See Letter 4, note 16.
9 No. 14 of Harrison's series.
10 See Letter 15, note 4.
11 Richard Duke, a minor poet and friend of Dryden's, entered the Church about 1685. In July 1710 he was presented by the Bishop of Winchester to the living of Witney, Oxfordshire, which was worth 700 pounds a year.
12 Sir Jonathan Trelawney, one of the seven bishops committed to the Tower in 1688, was translated to Winchester in 17O7, when he appointed Duke to be his chaplain.
13 See Letter 4, note 3.
14 See Letter 3, note 39.
15 See Letter 14, note 14.
16 See Letter 7, note 28.
17 Cf. Feb. 22, 1711.
18 Esther Johnson lodged opposite St. Mary's in Dublin.
19 This famous Tory club began with the meeting together of a few extreme Tories at the Bell in Westminster. The password to the Club--"October"--was one easy of remembrance to a country gentleman who loved his ale.
20 "Duke" Disney, "not an old man, but an old rake," died in 1731. Gay calls him "facetious Disney," and Swift says that all the members of the Club "love him mightily." Lady M. W. Montagu speaks of his
"Broad plump face, pert eyes, and ruddy skin,
Which showed the stupid joke which lurked within." Disney was a French Huguenot refugee, and his real name was Desaulnais. He commanded an Irish regiment, and took part in General Hill's expedition to Canada in 1711 (Kingsford's Canada, ii. 465). By his will (Wentworth papers, 109) he "left nothing to his poor relations, but very handsome to his bottle companions."
21 There were several Colonel Fieldings in the first half of the eighteenth century, and it is not clear which is the one referred to by Swift. Possibly he was the Edmund Fielding--grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh--who died a Lieutenant-General in 1741, at the age of sixty-three, but is best known as the father of Henry Fielding, the novelist.
22 Cf. Feb. 17, 1711.
23 See Letter 3, note 37.
24 "It is a measured mile round the outer wall; and far beyond any the finest square in London" (Deane Swift).
25 "The common fare for a set-down in Dublin" (ib.).
26 "Mrs. Stoyte lived at Donnybrook, the road to which from Stephen's Green ran into the country about a mile from the south-east corner" (ib.).
27 "Those words in italics are written in a very large hand, and so is the word large" (ib.). [Italics replaced by capitals for the transcription of this etext.]
28 Deane Swift alters "lele" to "there," but in a note states how he here altered Swift's "cypher way of writing." No doubt "lele" and other favourite words occurred frequently in the MS., as they do in the later letters.
Letter 17
1 Sir Thomas Mansel, Bart., Comptroller of the Household to Queen Anne, and a Lord of the Treasury, was raised to the peerage in December 1711 as Baron Mansel of Margam. He died in 1723.
2 Lady Betty Butler and Lady Betty Germaine (see Letter 3, note 40 and Letter 4, note 3).
3 James Eckershall, "second clerk of the Queen's Privy Kitchen." Chamberlayne (Magnae Britanniae Notitia, 171O, p. 536) says that his wages were 11 pounds, 8 shillings and a penny-ha'penny, and board-wages 138 pounds, 11 shillings and tenpence-ha'penny, making 150 pounds in all. Afterwards Eckershall was gentleman usher to Queen Anne; he died at Drayton in 1753, aged seventy-four. Pope was in correspondence with him in 172O on the subject of contemplated speculations in South Sea and other stocks.
4 In October 1710 (see Letter 6, note 44) Swift wrote as if he knew about the preparation of these Miscellanies. The volume was published by Morphew instead of Tooke, and it is frequently referred to in the Journal.
5 In 1685 the Duke of Ormond (see Letter 2, note 10) married, as his second wife, Lady Mary Somerset, eldest surviving daughter of Henry, first Duke of Beaufort.
6 Arthur Moore, M.P., was a Commissioner of Trade and Plantations from 1710 until his death in 1730. Gay calls him "grave," and Pope ("Prologue to the Satires," 23) says that Moore blamed him for the way in which his "giddy son," James Moore Smythe, neglected the law.
7 James, Lord Paisley, who succeeded his father (see Letter 10, note 33) as seventh Earl of Abercorn in 1734, married, in 1711, Anne, eldest daughter of Colonel John Plumer, of Blakesware, Herts.
8 Harley's ill-health was partly due to his drinking habits.
9 Crowd or confusion.
10 The first wife of Charles Seymour, sixth Duke of Somerset, was Lady Elizabeth Percy, only daughter of Joscelyn, eleventh Earl of Northumberland, and heiress of the house of Percy. She married the Duke, her third husband, at the age of eighteen.
11 John Richardson, D.D., rector of Armagh, Cavan, and afterwards chaplain to the Duke of Ormond. In 1711 he published a Proposal for the Conversion of the Popish Natives of Ireland to the Established Religion, and in 1712 a Short History of the Attempts to Convert the Popish Natives of Ireland. In 17O9 the Lower House of Convocation in Ireland had passed resolutions for printing the Bible and liturgy in Irish, providing Irish preachers, etc. In 1711 Thomas Parnell, the poet, headed a deputation to the Queen on the subject, when an address was presented; but nothing came of the proposals, owing to fears that the English interest in Ireland might be injured. In 1731 Richardson was given the small deanery of Kilmacluagh.
12 See Feb. 27, 1711.
13 Harley.
14 "Bank bill for fifty pound," taking the alternate letters (see Letter 15, note 9).
15 See Letter 5, note 17.
16 See Nos. 27 and 29, by Swift himself.
17 "Print cannot do justice to whims of this kind, as they depend wholly upon the awkward shape of the letters" (Deane Swift).
18 See Letter 8, note 2.
19 "Here is just one specimen given of his way of writing to Stella in these journals. The reader, I hope, will excuse my omitting it in all other places where it occurs. The meaning of this pretty language is: 'And you must cry There, and Here, and Here again. Must you imitate Presto, pray? Yes, and so you shall. And so there's for your letter. Good-morrow'" (Deane Swift). What Swift really wrote was probably as follows: "Oo must cly Lele and Lele and Lele aden. Must oo mimitate Pdfr, pay? Iss, and so oo sall. And so lele's fol oo rettle. Dood-mallow."
20 Lady Catherine Morice (died 1716) was the eldest daughter of Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and wife of Sir Nicholas Morice, Bart., M.P. for Newport.
21 Perhaps Henry Arundell, who succeeded his father as fifth Baron Arundell of Wardour in 1712, and died in 1726.
22 Antoine, Abbe de Bourlie and Marquis de Guiscard, was a cadet of a distinguished family of the south of France. He joined the Church, but having been driven from France in consequence of his licentious excesses, he came to England, after many adventures in Europe, with a recommendation from the Duke of Savoy. Godolphin gave him the command of a regiment of refugees, and employed him in projects for effecting a landing in France. These schemes proving abortive, Guiscard's regiment was disbanded, and he was discharged with a pension of 500 pounds a year. Soon after the Tories came to power Guiscard came to the conclusion that there was no hope of employment for him, and little chance of receiving his pension; and he began a treacherous correspondence with the French. When this was detected he was brought before the Privy Council, and finding that everything was known, and wishing a better death than hanging, he stabbed Harley in the breast. Mrs. Manley, under Swift's directions, wrote a Narrative of Guiscard's Examination, and the incident greatly added to the security of Harley's position, and to the strength of the Government.
23 Harley's surgeon, Mr. Green.
24 See Letter 9, note 20.
25 Mrs. Walls' baby (see Feb 5, 1711).
26 The phrase had its origin in the sharp practices in the horse and cattle markets. Writing to Arbuthnot in 1727, Swift said that Gay "had made a pretty good bargain (that is a Smithfield) for a little place in the Custom House."
27 "There."
Letter 18
1 See Swift's paper in the Examiner, No. 32, and Mrs. Manley's pamphlet, already mentioned.
2 Presumably Mrs. Johnson's palsy-water (see Letter 5, note 17).
3 Thomas Wentworth, Baron Raby (1672-1739), was created Viscount Wentworth and Earl of Strafford in June 1711. Lord Raby was Envoy and Ambassador at Berlin for some years, and was appointed Ambassador at the Hague in March 1711. In November he was nominated as joint Plenipotentiary with the Bishop of Bristol to negotiate the terms of peace. He objected to Prior as a colleague; Swift says he was "as proud as hell." In 1715 it was proposed to impeach Strafford, but the proceedings were dropped. In his later years he was, according to Lord Hervey, a loquacious and illiterate, but constant, speaker in the House of Lords.
4 A beauty, to whom Swift addressed verses in 17O8. During the frost of January 17O9 Swift wrote: "Mrs. Floyd looked out with both her eyes, and we had one day's thaw; but she drew in her head, and it now freezes as hard as ever." She was a great friend of Lady Betty Germaine's.
5 Swift never had the smallpox.
6 See Letter 12, note 22.
7 Heart.
8 The first number of the Spectator appeared on March 1, 1711.
9 In one of his poems Swift speaks of Stella "sossing in an easy-chair."
10 See Letter 4, note 20.
11 "It is reasonable to suppose that Swift's acquaintance with Arbuthnot commenced just about this time; for in the original letter Swift misspells his name, and writes it Arthbuthnet, in a clear large hand, that MD might not mistake any of the letters" (Deane Swift). Dr. John Arbuthnot had been made Physician in Ordinary to the Queen; he was one of Swift's dearest friends.
12 Clobery Bromley, M.P. for Coventry, son of William Bromley, M.P. (see Letter 10, note 1), died on March 2O, 1711, and Boyer (Political State, i. 255) says that the House, "out of respect to the father, and to give him time, both to perform the funeral rites and to indulge his just affliction," adjourned until the 26th.
13 See Letter 5, note 4.
14 See Letter 17, note 11.
15 Sir John Perceval, Bart. (died 1748), was created Baron Perceval 1715, Viscount Perceval 1722, and Earl of Egmont 1733, all in the Irish peerage. He married, in 1710, Catherine, eldest daughter of Sir Philip Parker A'Morley, Bart., of Erwarton, Suffolk; and his son (born Feb. 27, 1710-11) was made Baron Perceval and Holland, in the English peerage, in 1762.
16 This report was false. The Old Pretender did not marry until 1718, when he was united to the Princess Clementina Maria, daughter of Prince James Sobieski.
Letter 19
1 John Hartstonge, D.D. (died 1717), was Bishop of Ossory from 1693 to 1714, when he was translated to Derry.
2 See Letter 15, note 16.
3 Thomas Proby was Chirurgeon-General in Ireland from 1699 until his death in 1761. In his Short Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton, Swift speaks of him as "a person universally esteemed," who had been badly treated by Lord Wharton. In 1724 Proby's son, a captain in the army, was accused of popery, and Swift wrote to Lord Carteret that the charge was generally believed to be false: "The father is the most universally beloved of any man I ever knew in his station. . . . You cannot do any personal thing more acceptable to the people of Ireland than in inclining towards lenity to Mr. Proby and his family." Proby was probably a near relative of Sir Thomas Proby, Bart., M.P., of Elton, Hunts, at whose death in 1689 the baronetcy expired. Mrs. Proby seems to have been a Miss Spencer.
4 Meliora, daughter of Thomas Coningsby, Baron of Clanbrassil and Earl of Coningsby, and wife of Sir Thomas Southwell, afterwards Baron Southwell, one of the Commissioners of Revenue in Ireland, and a member of the Irish Privy Council. Lady Southwell died in 1736.
5 Lady Betty Rochfort was the daughter of Henry Moore, third Earl of Drogheda. Her husband, George Rochfort, M.P. for Westmeath, was son of Robert Rochfort, an Irish judge, and brother of Robert Rochford, M.P., to whose wife Swift addressed his Advice to a very Young Lady on her Marriage. Lady Betty's son Robert was created Earl of Belvedere in 1757.
6 See Letter 17, note 23. Mr. Bussiere, of Suffolk Street, had been called in directly after the outrage, but Radcliffe would not consult him.
7 The letter from Dr. King dated March 17, 1711, commenting on Guiscard's attack upon Harley.
8 See Feb. 10, 1710-11.
9 The word "trangram" or "tangram" ordinarily means a toy or gimcrack, or trumpery article. Cf. Wycherley (Plain Dealer, iii. 1), "But go, thou trangram, and carry back those trangrams which thou hast stolen or purloined." Apparently "trangum" here means a tally.
10 See Letter 12, note 2.
11 Swift means Godolphin, the late Lord Treasurer.
12 Sir John Holland (see Letter 3, note 28).
13 "It caused a violent daub on the paper, which still continues much discoloured in the original" (Deane Swift).
14 "He forgot here to say, 'At night.' See what goes before" (Deane Swift).
15 See Letter 17, note 1.
16 Irishman. "Teague" was a term of contempt for an Irishman.
17 To "Mr. Harley, wounded by Guiscard." In this piece Prior said, "Britain with tears shall bathe thy glorious wound," a wound which could not have been inflicted by any but a stranger to our land.
18 Sir Thomas Mansel married Martha, daughter and heiress of Francis Millington, a London merchant.
19 Slatterning, consuming carelessly.
20 "The candle grease mentioned before, which soaked through, deformed this part of the paper on the second page" (Deane Swift).
21 Harcourt.
22 William Rollinson, formerly a wine merchant, settled afterwards in Oxfordshire, where he died at a great age. He was a friend of Pope, Bolingbroke, and Gay.
23 In relation to the banknote (see Letter 17, note 14).
24 "Swift was, at this time, their great support and champion" (Deane Swift).
25 See Letter 14, note 15.
26 See Letter 17, note 25.
27 "Stella, with all her wit and good sense, spelled very ill; and Dr. Swift insisted greatly upon women spelling well" (Deane Swift).
28 "The slope of the letters in the words THIS WAY, THIS WAY, is to the left hand, but the slope of the words THAT WAY, THAT WAY, is to the right hand" (Deane Swift).
29 See Letter 17, note 24.
30 See Letter 5, note 11 and Letter 10, note 28.
Letter 20
1 By the Act 9 Anne, cap. 23, the number of hackney coaches was increased to 800, and it was provided that they were to go a mile and a half for one shilling, two miles for one shilling and sixpence, and so on.
2 See Letter 11, note 39.
3 In a letter to Swift, of March 17, 1711, King said that it might have been thought that Guiscard's attack would have convinced the world that Harley was not in the French interest; but it did not have that effect with all, for some whispered the case of Fenius Rufus and Scevinus in the 15th book of Tacitus: "Accensis indicibus ad prodendum Fenium Rufum, quem eundem conscium et inquisitorem non tolerabant." Next month Swift told King that it was reported that the Archbishop had applied this passage in a speech made to his clergy, and explained at some length the steps he had taken to prevent the story being published in the Postboy. King thanked Swift for this action, explaining that he had been arguing on Harley's behalf when someone instanced the story of Rufus.
4 A Tory paper, published thrice weekly by Abel Roper.
5 Sir Charles Duncombe, banker, died on April 9, 1711. The first wife of the Duke of Argyle (see Letter 11, note 57) was Duncombe's niece, Mary Browne, daughter of Ursula Duncombe and Thomas Browne, of St. Margaret's, Westminster. Duncombe was elected Lord Mayor in 1700, and was the richest commoner in England.
6 The Rev. Dillon Ashe (see Letter 12, note 23).
7 John, fourth Baron Poulett, was created Earl Poulett in 17O6, after serving as one of the Commissioners for the Treaty of Union with Scotland. From August 1710 to May 1711 he was First Lord of the Treasury, and from June 1711 to August 1714 he was Lord Steward of the Household.
8 Lost or stupid person.
9 Sir William Read, a quack who advertised largely in the Tatler and other papers. He was satirised in No. 547 of the Spectator. In 17O5 he was knighted for his services in curing many seamen and soldiers of blindness gratis, and he was appointed Oculist in Ordinary to the Queen. Read died in 1715, but his business was continued by his widow.
10 General John Webb was not on good terms with Marlborough. He was a Tory, and had gained distinction in the war at Wynendale (17O8), though the Duke's secretary gave the credit, in the despatch, to Cadogan. There is a well-known account of Webb in Thackeray's Esmond. He was severely wounded at Malplaquet in 17O9, and in 1710 was given the governorship of the Isle of Wight. He died in 1724.
11 Henry Campion, M.P. for Penryn, is mentioned in the Political State for February 1712 as one of the leading men of the October Club. Campion seems to have been Member, not for Penryn, but for Bossiney.
12 See Letter 3, note 32.
13 Sir George Beaumont, Bart., M.P. for Leicester, and an acquaintance of Swift's mother, was made a Commissioner of the Privy Seal in 1712, and one of the Lords of the Admiralty in 1714. He died in 1737.
14 Heneage Finch, afterwards second Earl of Aylesford, was the son of Heneage Finch, the chief counsel for the seven bishops, who was created Baron Guernsey in 1703, and Earl of Aylesford in 1714.
15 James, Lord Compton, afterwards fifth Earl of Northampton, was the eldest son of George, the fourth Earl. He was summoned to the House of Lords in December 1711, and died in 1754.
16 See Letter 11, note 12.
Letter 21
1 In 1670 Temple thanked the Grand Duke of Tuscany for "an entire vintage of the finest wines of Italy" (Temple's Works, 1814, ii. 155-56).
2 Mrs. Manley (see Letter 17, note 22).
3 Charles Caesar, M.P. for Hertford, was appointed Treasurer of the Navy in June 1711, in the room of Robert Walpole.
4 Joseph I. His successor was his brother Charles, the King of Spain recognised by England.
5 Simon Harcourt, M.P. for Wallingford. He married Elizabeth, sister of Sir John Evelyn, Bart., and died in 1720, aged thirty-five, before his father. He was secretary to the society of "Brothers," wrote verses, and was a friend of the poets. His son Simon was created Earl Harcourt in 1749, and was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
6 Doiley, a seventeenth-century linen-draper,--probably "Thomas Doyley, at the Nun, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden,"--invented stuffs which "might at once be cheap and genteel" (Spectator, No. 283).
7 A special envoy. The Resident from Venice in 1710 was Signor Bianchi.
8 See Letter 17, note 5.
9 Nanfan Coote, second Earl of Bellamont, who died in 1708, married, in 1705, Lucia Anna, daughter of Henry de Nassau, Lord of Auverquerque, and sister of Henry, first Earl of Grantham. She died in 1744.
10 "Farnese" (Deane Swift).
11 See Letter 20, note 3.
12 Swift's changes of residence during the period covered by the Journal were numerous. On Sept. 20, 1710, he moved from Pall Mall to Bury Street, "where I suppose I shall continue while in London." But on Dec. 28 he went to new lodgings in St. Albans Street, Haymarket. On April 26, 1711, he moved to Chelsea, and from there to Suffolk Street, to be near the Vanhomrighs. He next moved to St. Martins Street, Leicester Fields; and a month later to Panton Street, Haymarket. In 1712 he lodged for a time at Kensington Gravel Pits.
13 At raffling for books.
14 James Brydges, Paymaster-General, and afterwards Duke of Chandos (see Letter 3, note 31).
15 Thomas Foley, M.P. for Worcestershire, was created Baron Foley in December 1711, and died in 1733.
16 See 25th April, 1711 and Letter 20, note 3.
17 See Letter 19, note 3.
18 Charles Dering, second son of Sir Edward Dering, Bart., M.P. for Kent, was Auditor of the Exchequer in Ireland, and M.P. for Carlingford.
19 See Letter 11, note 44.
20 See Letter 17, note 4.
21 A Whig paper, for the most part by Mainwaring and Oldmixon, in opposition to the Examiner. It appeared weekly from October 1710 to August 1711.
22 See Letter 17, note 22.
23 See Spectator, No. 50, by Addison.
24 In all probability a mistake for "Wesley" (see Letter 1, note 12).
Letter 22
1 Lord Paisley (see Letter 17, note 7).
2 See Letter 11, note 5.
3 Sir Hovenden Walker. The "man midwife" was Sir Chamberlen Walker, his younger brother. The "secret expedition" against Quebec conveyed upwards of 5000 soldiers, under the command of General John Hill (see Letter 10, note 2), but owing to the want of due preparations and the severe weather encountered, the fleet was compelled to return to England without accomplishing anything.
4 Robert Freind, elder brother of John Freind, M.D. (see Letter 9, note 1), became headmaster of Westminster School in 1711, and held the appointment until 1733. He was Rector of Witney, and afterwards Canon of Windsor, Prebendary of Westminster, and Canon of Christ Church. He died in 1751, aged eighty-four.
5 Christopher Musgrave was Clerk of the Ordnance.
6 Atterbury's wife, Katherine Osborn, has been described as "the inspiration of his youth and the solace of his riper years."
7 The original Chelsea Bun House, in Jew's Row, was pulled down in 1839. Sir R. Philips, writing in 1817, said, "Those buns have afforded a competency, and even wealth, to four generations of the same family; and it is singular that their delicate flavour, lightness, and richness have never been successfully imitated."
8 See Letter 8, note 22. King wrote to Swift (May 15, 1711), "The death of the Earl of Rochester is a great blow to all good men, and even his enemies cannot but do justice to his character. What influence it will have on public affairs God only knows."
9 See Letter 11, note 11.
10 See Letter 17, note 6.
11 See Letter 18, note 4.
12 See Letter 20, note 13.
13 Swift's curate at Laracor.
14 Queen Anne was the last sovereign who exercised the supposed royal gift of healing by touch. Dr. Johnson was touched by her, but without effect.
15 Richard Thornhill was tried at the Old Bailey on May 18, 1711, for the murder of Sir Cholmley Dering, M.P. for Kent, and found guilty of manslaughter only; but he was shortly afterwards assassinated (see Journal for Aug. 21, 1711; Spectator, No. 84). The quarrel began on April 27, when they fell to blows, and Thornhill being knocked down, had some teeth struck out by Sir C. Dering stamping on him. The spectators then interfered, and Dering expressed himself as ready to beg pardon; but Thornhill not thinking this was sufficient satisfaction, gave Dering the lie, and on May 9 sent him a challenge.
16 Tothill Fields, Westminster, was a favourite place for duels in the seventeenth century.
17 See Letter 13, note 17.
18 Benjamin Burton, a Dublin banker, and brother-in-law of Swift's friend Stratford (see Letter 3, note 22). Swift says he hated this "rogue."
Letter 23
1 The day on which the Club met. See letter from Swift to St. John, May 11, 1711.
2 Henry Barry, fourth Lord Barry of Santry (1680-1734), was an Irish Privy Councillor, and Governor of Derry. In 1702 he married Bridget, daughter of Sir Thomas Domville, Bart., and in an undated letter (about 1735) to Lady Santry Swift spoke of his esteem for her, "although I had hardly the least acquaintance with your lord, nor was at all desirous to cultivate it, because I did not at all approve of his conduct." Lord Santry's only son and heir, who was born in 1710, was condemned to death for the murder of a footman in 1739, when the barony became extinct by forfeiture. See B. W. Adams's History of Santry.
3 Probably Captain Cammock, of the Speedwell, of 28 guns and 125 men (Luttrell, vi. 331), who met on July 13, 1708, off Scotland, two French privateers, one of 16, the other of 18 guns, and fought them several hours. The first privateer got off, much shattered; the other was brought into Carrickfergus.
4 See Letter 7, note 21.
5 See Letter 13, note 10.
6 This valuable pamphlet is signed "J.G.," and is believed to be by John Gay.
7 Edmund Curll's collection of Swift's Miscellanies, published in 1711, was an expansion of a pamphlet of 1710, "A Meditation upon a Broomstick, and somewhat beside, of the same Author's."
8 "In this passage DD signifies both Dingley and Stella" (Deane Swift).
9 Sir Henry Craik's reading. The old editions have, "It would do: DD goes as well as Presto," which is obviously corrupt.
10 Cf. Journal, June 17, 1712.
11 Cf. "old doings" (see Letter 9, note 19.)
12 See Letter 17, note 11.
13 Rymer's Foedera, in three volumes, which Swift obtained for Trinity College, Dublin.
14 See Letter 6, note 43 and 9th Feb. 1710-11.
15 Stephen Colledge, "the Protestant joiner," was hanged in 1681. He had published attacks on the Roman Catholics, and had advocated resistance to Charles II.
16 See Letter 3, note 39.
17 Mitford Crowe was appointed Governor of Barbados in 1706, and before his departure for that island went to Spain, "to settle the accounts of our army there, of which he is paymaster" (Luttrell, vi. 104). In 1710 charges of bribery brought against him by merchants were inquired into by the Privy Council, but he seems to have cleared himself, for in June 1711 Swift speaks of him as Governor of Jamaica. He died in 1719.
18 See Letter 8, note 21.
19 Swift's uncle Adam "lived and died in Ireland," and left no son. Another daughter of his became Mrs. Whiteway.
20 William Lowndes, M.P., secretary to the Treasury, whom Walpole called "as able and honest a servant as ever the Crown had."
21 The Lord Treasurer's staff: since the dismissal of Godolphin, the Treasurership had been held in commission.
22 "As I hope to be saved."
23 Stella's maid.
24 See letter from King to Swift, May 15, 1711. Alderman Constantine, a High Churchman, indignant at being passed over by a junior in the contest for the mayoralty, brought the matter before the Council Board, and produced an old by-law by which aldermen, according to their ancientry, were required to keep their mayoralty. King took the side of the city, but the majority was for the by-law, and disapproved of the election; whereupon the citizens repealed the by-law and re-elected the same alderman as before.
Letter 24
1 The Lord Treasurer's staff.
2 Swift's "little parson cousin," the resident chaplain at Moor Park. He pretended to have had some part in The Tale of a Tub, and Swift always professed great contempt for him. Thomas Swift was son of an Oxford uncle of Swift's, of the same name, and was at school and college with Swift. He became Rector of Puttenham, Surrey, and died in 1752, aged eighty-seven.
3 The Duke of Ormond's daughter, Lady Mary Butler (see Letter 7, notes 2 and 3.)
4 Thomas Harley, the Lord Treasurer's cousin, was secretary to the Treasury.
5 Lord Oxford's daughter Elizabeth married, in 1712, the Marquis of Caermarthen.
6 Henry Tenison, M.P. for County Louth, was one of the Commissioners of the Revenue in Ireland from 1704 until his death in 1709 (Luttrell, v. 381, vi. 523). Probably he was related to Dr. Tenison, Bishop of Meath, who died in 1705.
7 Anne Finch (died 1720), daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, and wife of Heneage Finch, who became fourth Earl of Winchelsea in 1712. Lady Winchelsea published a volume of poems in 1713, and was a friend of Pope and Rowe. Wordsworth recognised the advance in the growth of attention to "external nature" shown in her writings.
8 See Letter 23, not