The Journal to Stella / Jonathan Swift

Introduction.

When Swift began to write the letters known as the Journal to Stella, he was forty-two years of age, and Esther Johnson twenty-nine. Perhaps the most useful introduction to the correspondence will be a brief setting forth of what is known of their friendship from Stella’s childhood, the more specially as the question has been obscured by many assertions and theories resting on a very slender basis of fact.

Jonathan Swift, born in 1667 after his father’s death, was educated by his uncle Godwin, and after a not very successful career at Trinity College, Dublin, went to stay with his mother, Abigail Erick, at Leicester. Mrs. Swift feared that her son would fall in love with a girl named Betty Jones, but, as Swift told a friend, he had had experience enough “not to think of marriage till I settle my fortune in the world, which I am sure will not be in some years; and even then, I am so hard to please that I suppose I shall put it off to the other world.” Soon afterwards an opening for Swift presented itself. Sir William Temple, now living in retirement at Moor Park, near Farnham, had been, like his father, Master of the Irish Rolls, and had thus become acquainted with Swift’s uncle Godwin. Moreover, Lady Temple was related to Mrs. Swift, as Lord Orrery tells us. Thanks to these facts, the application to Sir William Temple was successful, and Swift went to live at Moor Park before the end of 1689. There he read to Temple, wrote for him, and kept his accounts, and growing into confidence with his employer, “was often trusted with matters of great importance.” The story—afterwards improved upon by Lord Macaulay—that Swift received only 20 pounds and his board, and was not allowed to sit at table with his master, is wholly untrustworthy. Within three years of their first intercourse, Temple had introduced his secretary to William the Third, and sent him to London to urge the King to consent to a bill for triennial Parliaments.

When Swift took up his residence at Moor Park he found there a little girl of eight, daughter of a merchant named Edward Johnson, who had died young. Swift says that Esther Johnson was born on March 18, 1681; in the parish register of Richmond,¹ which shows that she was baptized on March 20, 1680-81, her name is given as Hester; but she signed her will “Esther,” the name by which she was always known. Swift says, “Her father was a younger brother of a good family in Nottinghamshire, her mother of a lower degree; and indeed she had little to boast in her birth.” Mrs. Johnson had two children, Esther and Ann, and lived at Moor Park as companion to Lady Giffard, Temple’s widowed sister. Another member of the household, afterwards to be Esther’s constant companion, was Rebecca Dingley, a relative of the Temple family.² She was a year or two older than Swift.

The lonely young man of twenty-two was both playfellow and teacher of the delicate child of eight. How he taught her to write has been charmingly brought before us in the painting exhibited by Miss Dicksee at the Royal Academy a few years ago; he advised her what books to read, and instructed her, as he says, “in the principles of honour and virtue, from which she never swerved in any one action or moment of her life.”

By 1694 Swift had grown tired of his position, and finding that Temple, who valued his services, was slow in finding him preferment, he left Moor Park in order to carry out his resolve to go into the Church. He was ordained, and obtained the prebend of Kilroot, near Belfast, where he carried on a flirtation with a Miss Waring, whom he called Varina. But in May 1696 Temple made proposals which induced Swift to return to Moor Park, where he was employed in preparing Temple’s memoirs and correspondence for publication, and in supporting the side taken by Temple in the Letters of Phalaris controversy by writing The Battle of the Books, which was, however, not published until 1704. On his return to Temple’s house, Swift found his old playmate grown from a sickly child into a girl of fifteen, in perfect health. She came, he says, to be “looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection.”

On his death in January 1699, Temple left a will,³ dated 1694, directing the payment of 20 pounds each, with half a year’s wages, to Bridget Johnson “and all my other servants”; and leaving a lease of some land in Monistown, County Wicklow, to Esther Johnson, “servant to my sister Giffard.” By a codicil of February 1698, Temple left 100 pounds to “Mr. Jonathan Swift, now living with me.” It may be added that by her will of 1722, proved in the following year, Lady Giffard gave 20 pounds to Mrs. Moss—Mrs. Bridget Johnson, who had married Richard Mose or Moss, Lady Giffard’s steward. The will proceeds: “To Mrs. Hester (sic) Johnson I give 10 pounds, with the 100 pounds I put into the Exchequer for her life and my own, and declare the 100 pounds to be hers which I am told is there in my name upon the survivorship, and for which she has constantly sent over her certificate and received the interest. I give her besides my two little silver candlesticks.”

Temple left in Swift’s hands the task of publishing his posthumous works, a duty which afterwards led to a quarrel with Lady Giffard and other members of the family. Many years later Swift told Lord Palmerston that he stopped at Moor Park solely for the benefit of Temple’s conversation and advice, and the opportunity of pursuing his studies. At Temple’s death he was “as far to seek as ever.” In the summer of 1699, however, he was offered and accepted the post of secretary and chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, one of the Lords Justices, but when he reached Ireland he found that the secretaryship had been given to another. He soon, however, obtained the living of Laracor, Agher, and Rathbeggan, and the prebend of Dunlavin in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. The total value of these preferments was about 230 pounds a year, an income which Miss Waring seems to have thought enough to justify him in marrying. Swift’s reply to the lady whom he had “singled out at first from the rest of women” could only have been written with the intention of breaking off the connection, and accordingly we hear no more of poor Varina.

At Laracor, a mile or two from Trim, and twenty miles from Dublin, Swift ministered to a congregation of about fifteen persons, and had abundant leisure for cultivating his garden, making a canal (after the Dutch fashion of Moor Park), planting willows, and rebuilding the vicarage. As chaplain to Lord Berkeley, he spent much of his time in Dublin. He was on intimate terms with Lady Berkeley and her daughters, one of whom is best known by her married name of Lady Betty Germaine; and through them he had access to the fashionable society of Dublin. When Lord Berkeley returned to England in April 1701, Swift, after taking his Doctor’s degree at Dublin, went with him, and soon afterwards published, anonymously, a political pamphlet, A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome. When he returned to Ireland in September he was accompanied by Stella—to give Esther Johnson the name by which she is best known—and her friend Mrs. Dingley. Stella’s fortune was about 1500 pounds, and the property Temple had left her was in County Wicklow. Swift, very much for his “own satisfaction, who had few friends or acquaintance in Ireland,” persuaded Stella—now twenty years old—that living was cheaper there than in England, and that a better return was obtainable on money. The ladies took his advice, and made Ireland their home. At first they felt themselves strangers in Dublin; “the adventure looked so like a frolic,” Swift says, “the censure held for some time as if there were a secret history in such a removal: which however soon blew off by her excellent conduct.” Swift took every step that was possible to avoid scandal. When he was away, the ladies occupied his rooms; when he returned, they went into their own lodgings. When he was absent, they often stopped at the vicarage at Laracor, but if he were there, they moved to Trim, where they visited the vicar, Dr. Raymond, or lived in lodgings in the town or neighbourhood. Swift was never with Stella except in the presence of a third person, and in 1726 he said that he had not seen her in a morning “these dozen years, except once or twice in a journey.”

During a visit to England in the winter of 1703-4 we find Swift in correspondence with the Rev. William Tisdall, a Dublin incumbent whom he had formerly known at Belfast. Tisdall was on friendly terms with Stella and Mrs. Dingley, and Swift sent messages to them through him. “Pray put them upon reading,” he wrote, “and be always teaching something to Mrs. Johnson, because she is good at comprehending, remembering and retaining.” But the correspondence soon took a different turn. Tisdall paid his addresses to Stella, and charged Swift with opposing his suit. Tisdall’s letters are missing, but Swift’s reply of April 20, 1704, puts things sufficiently clearly. “My conjecture is,” he says, “that you think I obstructed your inclinations to please my own, and that my intentions were the same with yours. In answer to all which I will, upon my conscience and honour, tell you the naked truth. First, I think I have said to you before that, if my fortunes and humour served me to think of that state, I should certainly, among all persons upon earth, make your choice; because I never saw that person whose conversation I entirely valued but hers; this was the utmost I ever gave way to. And secondly, I must assure you sincerely that this regard of mine never once entered into my head to be an impediment to you.” He had thought Tisdall not rich enough to marry; “but the objection of your fortune being removed, I declare I have no other; nor shall any consideration of my own misfortune, in losing so good a friend and companion as her, prevail on me, against her interest and settlement in the world, since it is held so necessary and convenient a thing for ladies to marry, and that time takes off from the lustre of virgins in all other eyes but mine. I appeal to my letters to herself whether I was your friend or not in the whole concern, though the part I designed to act in it was purely passive.” He had even thought “it could not be decently broken,” without disadvantage to the lady’s credit, since he supposed it was known to the town; and he had always spoken of her in a manner far from discouraging. Though he knew many ladies of rank, he had “nowhere met with an humour, a wit, or conversation so agreeable, a better portion of good sense, or a truer judgment of men or things.” He envied Tisdall his prudence and temper, and love of peace and settlement, “the reverse of which has been the great uneasiness of my life, and is likely to continue so.”

This letter has been quoted at some length because of its great importance. It is obviously capable of various interpretations, and some, like Dr. Johnson, have concluded that Swift was resolved to keep Stella in his power, and therefore prevented an advantageous match by making unreasonable demands. I cannot see any ground for this interpretation, though it is probable that Tisdall’s appearance as a suitor was sufficiently annoying. There is no evidence that Stella viewed Tisdall’s proposal with any favour, unless it can be held to be furnished by Swift’s belief that the town thought—rightly or wrongly—that there was an engagement. In any case, there could be no mistake in future with regard to Swift’s attitude towards Stella. She was dearer to him than anyone else, and his feeling for her would not change, but for marriage he had neither fortune nor humour. Tisdall consoled himself by marrying another lady two years afterwards; and though for a long time Swift entertained for him feelings of dislike, in later life their relations improved, and Tisdall was one of the witnesses to Swift’s will.

The Tale of a Tub was published in 1704, and Swift was soon in constant intercourse with Addison and the other wits. While he was in England in 1705, Stella and Mrs. Dingley made a short visit to London. This and a similar visit in 1708 are the only occasions on which Stella is known to have left Ireland after taking up her residence in that country. Swift’s influence over women was always very striking. Most of the toasts of the day were his friends, and he insisted that any lady of wit and quality who desired his acquaintance should make the first advances. This, he says—writing in 1730— had been an established rule for over twenty years. In 1708 a dispute on this question with one toast, Mrs. Long, was referred for settlement to Ginckel Vanhomrigh, the son of the house where it was proposed that the meeting should take place; and by the decision—which was in Swift’s favour—“Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her fair daughter Hessy” were forbidden to aid Mrs. Long in her disobedience for the future. This is the first that we hear of Hester or Esther Vanhomrigh, who was afterwards to play so marked a part in the story of Swift’s life. Born on February 14, 1690, she was now eighteen. Her father, Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dublin merchant of Dutch origin, had died in 1703, leaving his wife a fortune of some sixteen thousand pounds. On the income from this money Mrs. Vanhomrigh, with her two daughters, Hester and Mary, were able to mix in fashionable society in London. Swift was introduced to them by Sir Andrew Fountaine early in 1708, but evidently Stella did not make their acquaintance, nor indeed hear much, if anything, of them until the time of the Journal.

Swift’s visit to London in 1707-9 had for its object the obtaining for the Irish Church of the surrender by the Crown of the First-Fruits and Twentieths, which brought in about 2500 pounds a year. Nothing came of Swift’s interviews with the Whig statesmen, and after many disappointments he returned to Laracor (June 1709), and conversed with none but Stella and her card-playing friends, and Addison, now secretary to Lord Wharton.⁴ Next year came the fall of the Whigs, and a request to Swift from the Irish bishops that he would renew the application for the First-Fruits, in the hope that there would be greater success with the Tories. Swift reached London in September 1710, and began the series of letters, giving details of the events of each day, which now form the Journal to Stella. “I will write something every day to MD,” he says, “and make it a sort of journal; and when it is full I will send it, whether MD writes or no; and so that will be pretty; and I shall always be in conversation with MD, and MD with Presto.” It is interesting to note that by way of caution these letters were usually addressed to Mrs. Dingley, and not to Stella.

The story of Swift’s growing intimacy with the Tory leaders, of the success of his mission, of the increasing coolness towards older acquaintances, and of his services to the Government, can best be read in the Journal itself. In the meantime the intimacy with the Vanhomrighs grew rapidly. They were near neighbours of Swift’s, and in a few weeks after his arrival in town we find frequent allusions to the dinners at their house (where he kept his best gown and periwig), sometimes with the explanation that he went there “out of mere listlessness,” or because it was wet, or because another engagement had broken down. Only thrice does he mention the “eldest daughter”: once on her birthday; once on the occasion of a trick played him, when he received a message that she was suddenly very ill (“I rattled off the daughter”); and once to state that she was come of age, and was going to Ireland to look after her fortune. There is evidence that “Miss Essy,” or Vanessa, to give her the name by which she will always be known, was in correspondence with Swift in July 1710—while he was still in Ireland—and in the spring of 1711;⁵ and early in 1711 Stella seems to have expressed surprise at Swift’s intimacy with the family, for in February he replied, “You say they are of no consequence; why, they keep as good female company as I do male; I see all the drabs of quality at this end of the town with them.” In the autumn Swift seems to have thought that Vanessa was keeping company with a certain Hatton, but Mrs. Long—possibly meaning to give him a warning hint—remarked that if this were so “she is not the girl I took her for; but to me she seems melancholy.”

In 1712 occasional letters took the place of the daily journal to “MD,” but there is no change in the affectionate style in which Swift wrote. In the spring he had a long illness, which affected him, indeed, throughout the year. Other reasons which he gives for the falling off in his correspondence are his numerous business engagements, and the hope of being able to send some good news of an appointment for himself. There is only one letter to Stella between July 19 and September 15, and Dr. Birkbeck Hill argues that the poem “Cadenus and Vanessa” was composed at that time.⁶ If this be so, it must have been altered next year, because it was not until 1713 that Swift was made a Dean. Writing on April 19, 1726, Swift said that the poem “was written at Windsor near fourteen years ago, and dated: it was a task performed on a frolic among some ladies, and she it was addressed to died some time ago in Dublin, and on her death the copy shewn by her executor.” Several copies were in circulation, and he was indifferent what was done with it; it was “only a cavalier business,” and if those who would not give allowances were malicious, it was only what he had long expected.

From this letter it would appear that this remarkable poem was written in the summer of 1712; whereas the title-page of the pamphlet says it was “written at Windsor, 1713.” Swift visited Windsor in both years, but he had more leisure in 1712, and we know that Vanessa was also at Windsor in that year. In that year, too, he was forty-four, the age mentioned in the poem. Neither Swift nor Vanessa forgot this intercourse: years afterwards Swift wrote to her, “Go over the scenes of Windsor. . . . Cad thinks often of these”; and again, “Remember the indisposition at Windsor.” We know that this poem was revised in 1719, when in all probability Swift added the lines to which most exception can be taken. Cadenus was to be Vanessa’s instructor:—

“His conduct might have made him styled
A father, and the nymph his child.”

He had “grown old in politics and wit,” and “in every scene had kept his heart,” so that he now “understood not what was love.” But he had written much, and Vanessa admired his wit. Cadenus found that her thoughts wandered—

“Though she seemed to listen more
To all he spoke than e’er before.”

When she confessed her love, he was filled with “shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise.” He had aimed only at cultivating the mind, and had hardly known whether she was young or old. But he was flattered, and though he could not give her love, he offered her friendship, “with gratitude, respect, esteem.” Vanessa took him at his word, and said she would now be tutor, though he was not apt to learn:—

“But what success Vanessa met
Is to the world a secret yet.
Whether the nymph to please her swain
Talks in a high romantic strain;
Or whether he at last descends
To act with less seraphic ends;
Or, to compound the business, whether
They temper love and books together,
Must never to mankind be told,
Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold.”

Such is the poem as we now have it, written, it must be remembered, for Vanessa’s private perusal. It is to be regretted, for her own sake, that she did not destroy it.

Swift received the reward of his services to the Government—the Deanery of St. Patrick’s, Dublin—in April 1713. Disappointed at what he regarded as exile, he left London in June. Vanessa immediately began to send him letters which brought home to him the extent of her passion; and she hinted at jealousy in the words, “If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to tell me so, except ’tis what is inconsistent with my own.” In his reply Swift dwelt upon the dreariness of his surroundings at Laracor, and reminded her that he had said he would endeavour to forget everything in England, and would write as seldom as he could.

Swift was back again in the political strife in London in September, taking Oxford’s part in the quarrel between that statesman and Bolingbroke. On the fall of the Tories at the death of Queen Anne, he saw that all was over, and retired to Ireland, not to return again for twelve years. In the meantime the intimacy with Vanessa had been renewed. Her mother had died, leaving debts, and she pressed Swift for advice in the management of her affairs. When she suggested coming to Ireland, where she had property, he told her that if she took this step he would “see her very seldom.” However, she took up her abode at Celbridge, only a few miles from Dublin. Swift gave her many cautions, out of “the perfect esteem and friendship” he felt for her, but he often visited her. She was dissatisfied, however, begging him to speak kindly, and at least to counterfeit his former indulgent friendship. “What can be wrong,” she wrote, “in seeing and advising an unhappy young woman? You cannot but know that your frowns make my life unsupportable.” Sometimes he treated the matter lightly; sometimes he showed annoyance; sometimes he assured her of his esteem and love, but urged her not to make herself or him “unhappy by imaginations.” He was uniformly unsuccessful in stopping Vanessa’s importunity. He endeavoured, she said, by severities to force her from him; she knew she was the cause of uneasy reflections to him; but nothing would lessen her “inexpressible passion.”

Unfortunately he failed—partly no doubt from mistaken considerations of kindness, partly because he shrank from losing her affection—to take effective steps to put an end to Vanessa’s hopes. It would have been better if he had unhesitatingly made it clear to her that he could not return her passion, and that if she could not be satisfied with friendship the intimacy must cease. To quote Sir Henry Craik, “The friendship had begun in literary guidance: it was strengthened by flattery: it lived on a cold and almost stern repression, fed by confidences as to literary schemes, and by occasional literary compliments: but it never came to have a real hold over Swift’s heart.”

With 1716 we come to the alleged marriage with Stella. In 1752, seven years after Swift’s death, Lord Orrery, in his Remarks on Swift, said that Stella was “the concealed, but undoubted, wife of Dr. Swift. . . . If my informations are right, she was married to Dr. Swift in the year 1716, by Dr. Ashe, then Bishop of Clogher.” Ten years earlier, in 1742, in a letter to Deane Swift which I have not seen quoted before, Orrery spoke of the advantage of a wife to a man in his declining years; “nor had the Dean felt a blow, or wanted a companion, had he been married, or, in other words, had Stella lived.” What this means is not at all clear. In 1754, Dr. Delany, an old friend of Swift’s, wrote, in comment upon Orrery’s Remarks, “Your account of his marriage is, I am satisfied, true.” In 1789, George Monck Berkeley, in his Literary Relics, said that Swift and Stella were married by Dr. Ashe, “who himself related the circumstances to Bishop Berkeley, by whose relict the story was communicated to me.” Dr. Ashe cannot have told Bishop Berkeley by word of mouth, because Ashe died in 1717, the year after the supposed marriage, and Berkeley was then still abroad. But Berkeley was at the time tutor to Ashe’s son, and may therefore have been informed by letter, though it is difficult to believe that Ashe would write about such a secret so soon after the event. Thomas Sheridan, on information received from his father, Dr. Sheridan, Swift’s friend, accepted the story of the marriage in his book (1784), adding particulars which are of very doubtful authenticity; and Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, says that Dr. Madden told him that Stella had related her “melancholy story” to Dr. Sheridan before her death. On the other hand, Dr. Lyon, Swift’s attendant in his later years, disbelieved the story of the marriage, which was, he said, “founded only on hearsay”; and Mrs. Dingley “laughed at it as an idle tale,” founded on suspicion.

Sir Henry Craik is satisfied with the evidence for the marriage. Mr. Leslie Stephen is of opinion that it is inconclusive, and Forster could find no evidence that is at all reasonably sufficient; while Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, Mr. Churton Collins, and others are strongly of opinion that no such marriage ever took place. A full discussion of the evidence would involve the consideration of the reliability of the witnesses, and the probability of their having authentic information, and would be out of place here. My own opinion is that the evidence for the marriage is very far from convincing, and this view seems to be confirmed by all that we know from his own letters of Swift’s relations with Stella. It has been suggested that she was pained by reports of Swift’s intercourse with Vanessa, and felt that his feelings towards herself were growing colder; but this is surmise, and no satisfactory explanation has been given to account for a form of marriage being gone through after so many years of the closest friendship. There is no reason to suppose that there was at the time any gossip in circulation about Stella, and if her reputation was in question, a marriage of which the secret was carefully kept would obviously be of no benefit to her. Moreover, we are told that there was no change in their mode of life; if they were married, what reason could there be for keeping it a secret, or for denying themselves the closer relationship of marriage? The only possible benefit to Stella was that Swift would be prevented marrying anyone else. It is impossible, of course, to disprove a marriage which we are told was secretly performed, without banns or licence or witnesses; but we may reasonably require strong evidence for so startling a step. If we reject the tale, the story of Swift’s connection with Stella is at least intelligible; while the acceptance of this marriage introduces many puzzling circumstances, and makes it necessary to believe that during the remainder of Stella’s life Swift repeatedly spoke of his wife as a friend, and of himself as one who had never married.⁷ What right have we to put aside Swift’s plain and repeated statements? Moreover, his attitude towards Vanessa for the remaining years of her life becomes much more culpable if we are to believe that he had given Stella the claim of a wife upon him.⁸

From 1719 onwards we have a series of poems to Stella, written chiefly in celebration of her birthday. She was now thirty-eight (Swift says, “Thirty-four—we shan’t dispute a year or more”), and the verses abound in laughing allusions to her advancing years and wasting form. Hers was “an angel’s face a little cracked,” but all men would crowd to her door when she was fourscore. His verses to her had always been

“Without one word of Cupid’s darts,
Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts;
With friendship and esteem possessed,
I ne’er admitted Love a guest.”

Her only fault was that she could not bear the lightest touch of blame. Her wit and sense, her loving care in illness—to which he owed that fact that he was alive to say it—made her the “best pattern of true friends.” She replied, in lines written on Swift’s birthday in 1721, that she was his pupil and humble friend. He had trained her judgment and refined her fancy and taste:—

“You taught how I might youth prolong
By knowing what was right and wrong;
How from my heart to bring supplies
Of lustre to my fading eyes;
How soon a beauteous mind repairs
The loss of changed or falling hairs;
How wit and virtue from within
Send out a smoothness o’er the skin
Your lectures could my fancy fix,
And I can please at thirty-six.”

In 1723 Vanessa is said to have written to Stella or to Swift—there are discrepancies in the versions given by Sheridan and Lord Orrery, both of whom are unreliable—asking whether the report that they were married was true. Swift, we are told, rode to Celbridge, threw down Vanessa’s letter in a great rage, and left without speaking a word.⁹ Vanessa, whose health had been failing for some time, died shortly afterwards, having cancelled a will in Swift’s favour. She left “Cadenus and Vanessa” for publication, and when someone said that she must have been a remarkable woman to inspire such a poem, Stella replied that it was well known that the Dean could write finely upon a broomstick.

Soon after this tragedy Swift became engrossed in the Irish agitation which led to the publication of the Drapier’s Letters, and in 1726 he paid a long-deferred visit to London, taking with him the manuscript of Gulliver’s Travels. While in England he was harassed by bad news of Stella, who had been in continued ill-health for some years. His letters to friends in Dublin show how greatly he suffered. To the Rev. John Worrall he wrote, in a letter which he begged him to burn, “What you tell me of Mrs. Johnson I have long expected with great oppression and heaviness of heart. We have been perfect friends these thirty-five years. Upon my advice they both came to Ireland, and have been ever since my constant companions; and the remainder of my life will be a very melancholy scene, when one of them is gone, whom I most esteemed, upon the score of every good quality that can possibly recommend a human creature.” He would not for the world be present at her death: “I should be a trouble to her, and a torment to myself.” If Stella came to Dublin, he begged that she might be lodged in some airy, healthy part, and not in the Deanery, where too it would be improper for her to die. “There is not a greater folly,” he thinks, “than to contract too great and intimate a friendship, which must always leave the survivor miserable.” To Dr. Stopford he wrote in similar terms of the “younger of the two” “oldest and dearest friends I have in the world.” “This was a person of my own rearing and instructing from childhood, who excelled in every good quality that can possibly accomplish a human creature. . . . I know not what I am saying; but believe me that violent friendship is much more lasting and as much engaging as violent love.” To Dr. Sheridan he said, “I look upon this to be the greatest event that can ever happen to me; but all my preparation will not suffice to make me bear it like a philosopher nor altogether like a Christian. There hath been the most intimate friendship between us from our childhood, and the greatest merit on her side that ever was in one human creature towards another.”¹⁰ Pope alludes in a letter to Sheridan to the illness of Swift’s “particular friend,” but with the exception of another reference by Pope, and of a curiously flippant remark by Bolingbroke, the subject is nowhere mentioned in Swift’s correspondence with his literary and fashionable friends in London.

Swift crossed to Ireland in August, fearing the worst; but Stella rallied, and in the spring of 1727 he returned to London. In August, however, there came alarming news, when Swift was himself suffering from giddiness and deafness. To Dr. Sheridan he wrote that the last act of life was always a tragedy at best: “it is a bitter aggravation to have one’s best friend go before one.” Life was indifferent to him; if he recovered from his disorder it would only be to feel the loss of “that person for whose sake only life was worth preserving. I brought both those friends over that we might be happy together as long as God should please; the knot is broken, and the remaining person you know has ill answered the end; and the other, who is now to be lost, is all that was valuable.” To Worrall he again wrote (in Latin) that Stella ought not to be lodged at the Deanery; he had enemies who would place a bad interpretation upon it if she died there.

Swift left London for Dublin in September; he was detained some days at Holyhead by stress of weather, and in the private journal which he kept during that time he speaks of the suspense he was in about his “dearest friend.”¹¹ In December Stella made a will—signed “Esther Johnson, spinster”—disposing of her property in the manner Swift had suggested. Her allusions to Swift are incompatible with any such feeling of resentment as is suggested by Sheridan. She died on January 28, 1728. Swift could not bear to be present, but on the night of her death he began to write his very interesting Character of Mrs. Johnson, from which passages have already been quoted. He there calls her “the truest, most virtuous and valuable friend that I, or perhaps any other person, was ever blessed with.” Combined with excellent gifts of the mind, “she had a gracefulness, somewhat more than human, in every motion, word, and action. Never was so happy a conjunction of civility, freedom, easiness, and sincerity.” Everyone treated her with marked respect, yet everyone was at ease in her society. She preserved her wit, judgment, and vivacity to the last, but often complained of her memory. She chose men rather than women for her companions, “the usual topic of ladies’ discourse being such as she had little knowledge of and less relish.” “Honour, truth, liberality, good nature, and modesty were the virtues she chiefly possessed, and most valued in her acquaintance.” In some Prayers used by Swift during her last sickness, he begged for pity for “the mournful friends of Thy distressed servant, who sink under the weight of her present condition, and the fear of losing the most valuable of our friends.” He was too ill to be present at the funeral at St. Patrick’s. Afterwards, we are told, a lock of her hair was found in his desk, wrapped in a paper bearing the words, “Only a woman’s hair.”

Swift continued to produce pamphlets manifesting growing misanthropy, though he showed many kindnesses to people who stood in need of help. He seems to have given Mrs. Dingley fifty guineas a year, pretending that it came from a fund for which he was trustee. The mental decay which he had always feared— “I shall be like that tree,” he once said, “I shall die at the top”—became marked about 1738. Paralysis was followed by aphasia, and after acute pain, followed by a long period of apathy, death relieved him in October 1745. He was buried by Stella’s side, in accordance with his wishes. The bulk of his fortune was left to found a hospital for idiots and lunatics.

There has been much rather fruitless discussion respecting the reason or reasons why Swift did not marry Stella; for if there was any marriage, it was nothing more than a form. Some have supposed that Swift resolved to remain unmarried because the insanity of an uncle and the fits and giddiness to which he was always subject led him to fear insanity in his own case. Others, looking rather to physical causes, have dwelt upon his coldness of temperament and indisposition to love; upon the repugnance he often showed towards marriage, and the tone of some of the verses on the subject written in his later years. Others, again, have found a cause in his parsimonious habits, in his dread of poverty, the effects of which he had himself felt, and in the smallness of his income, at least until he was middle-aged.¹² It may well be that one or all of these things influenced Swift’s action. We cannot say more. He himself, as we have seen, said, as early as 1704, that if his humour and means had permitted him to think of marriage, his choice would have been Stella. Perhaps, however, there is not much mystery in the matter. Swift seems to have been wanting in passion; probably he was satisfied with the affection which Stella gave him, and did not wish for more. Such an attachment as his usually results in marriage, but not necessarily. It is not sufficiently remembered that the affection began in Stella’s childhood. They were “perfect friends” for nearly forty years, and her advancing years in no way lessened his love, which was independent of beauty. Whether Stella was satisfied, who shall say? Mrs. Oliphant thought that few women would be disposed to pity Stella, or think her life one of blight or injury. Mr. Leslie Stephen says, “She might and probably did regard his friendship as a full equivalent for the sacrifice. . . . Is it better to be the most intimate friend of a man of genius or the wife of a commonplace Tisdall?” Whatever we may surmise, there is nothing to prove that she was disappointed. She was the one star which brightened Swift’s storm-tossed course; it is well that she was spared seeing the wreck at the end.

The Journal to Stella is interesting from many points of view: for its bearing upon Swift’s relations with Stella and upon his own character; for the light which it throws upon the history of the time and upon prominent men of the day; and for the illustrations it contains of the social life of people of various classes in London and elsewhere. The fact that it was written without any thought of publication is one of its greatest attractions. Swift jotted down his opinions, his hopes, his disappointments, without thought of their being seen by anybody but his correspondents. The letters are transparently natural. It has been said more than once that the Journal, by the nature of the case, contains no full-length portraits, and hardly any sketches. Swift mentions the people he met, but rarely stops to draw a picture of them. But though this is true, the casual remarks which he makes often give a vivid impression of what he thought of the person of whom he is speaking, and in many cases those few words form a chief part of our general estimate of the man. There are but few people of note at the time who are not mentioned in these pages. We see Queen Anne holding a Drawing-room in her bedroom: “she looked at us round with her fan in her mouth, and once a minute said about three words to some that were nearest her.” We see Harley, afterwards the Earl of Oxford, “a pure trifler,” who was always putting off important business; Bolingbroke, “a thorough rake”; the prudent Lord Dartmouth, the other Secretary of State, from whom Swift could never “work out a dinner.” There is Marlborough, “covetous as Hell, and ambitious as the prince of it,” yet a great general and unduly pressed by the Tories; and the volatile Earl of Peterborough, “above fifty, and as active as one of five-and-twenty”—“the ramblingest lying rogue on earth.” We meet poor Congreve, nearly blind, and in fear of losing his commissionership; the kindly Arbuthnot, the Queen’s physician; Addison, whom Swift met more and more rarely, busy with the preparation and production of Cato; Steele, careless as ever, neglecting important appointments, and “governed by his wife most abominably”; Prior, poet and diplomatist, with a “lean carcass”; and young Berkeley of Trinity College, Dublin, “a very ingenious man and great philosopher,” whom Swift determined to favour as much as he could. Mrs. Masham, the Duchess of Somerset, the Duchess of Shrewsbury, the Duchess of Hamilton, Lady Betty Germaine, and many other ladies appear with more or less distinctness; besides a host of people of less note, of whom we often know little but what Swift tells us.

Swift throws much light, too, on the daily life of his time. The bellman on his nightly rounds, calling “Paaast twelvvve o’clock”; the dinner at three, or at the latest, four; the meetings at coffee-houses; the book-sales; the visit to the London sights—the lions at the Tower, Bedlam, the tombs in Westminster Abbey, and the puppet-show; the terrible Mohocks, of whom Swift stood in so much fear; the polite “howdees” sent to friends by footmen; these and more are all described in the Journal. We read of curious habits and practices of fashionable ladies; of the snuff used by Mrs. Dingley and others; of the jokes—“bites,” puns, and the like—indulged in by polite persons. When Swift lodged at Chelsea, he reached London either by boat, or by coach,—which was sometimes full when he wanted it,—or by walking across the “Five Fields,” not without fear of robbers at night. The going to or from Ireland was a serious matter; after the long journey by road came the voyage (weather permitting) of some fifteen hours, with the risk of being seized or pursued by French privateers; and when Ireland was reached the roads were of the worst. We have glimpses of fashionable society in Dublin, of the quiet life at Laracor and Trim, and of the drinking of the waters at Wexford, where visitors had to put up with primitive arrangements: “Mrs. Dingley never saw such a place in her life.”

Swift’s own characteristics come out in the clearest manner in the Journal, which gives all his hopes and fears during three busy years. He was pleased to find on his arrival in London how great a value was set on his friendship by both political parties: “The Whigs were ravished to see me, and would lay hold on me as a twig while they are drowning;” but Godolphin’s coldness enraged him, so that he was “almost vowing vengeance.” Next day he talked treason heartily against the Whigs, their baseness and ingratitude, and went home full of schemes of revenge. “The Tories drily tell me I may make my fortune, if I please; but I do not understand them, or rather, I DO understand them.” He realised that the Tories might not be more grateful than others, but he thought they were pursuing the true interests of the public, and was glad to contribute what was in his power. His vanity was gratified by Harley inviting him to the private dinners with St. John and Harcourt which were given on Saturdays, and by their calling him Jonathan; but he did not hope too much from their friendship: “I said I believed they would leave me Jonathan, as they found me. . . but I care not.”

Of Swift’s frugal habits there is abundant evidence in the Journal. When he came to town he took rooms on a first floor, “a dining-room and bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week; plaguy dear, but I spend nothing for eating, never go to a tavern, and very seldom in a coach; yet after all it will be expensive.” In November he mentions that he had a fire: “I am spending my second half-bushel of coals.” In another place he says, “People have so left the town, that I am at a loss for a dinner. . . . It cost me eighteenpence in coach-hire before I could find a place to dine in.” Elsewhere we find: “This paper does not cost me a farthing: I have it from the Secretary’s office.” He often complains of having to take a coach owing to the dirty condition of the streets: “This rain ruins me in coach-hire; I walked away sixpennyworth, and came within a shilling length, and then took a coach, and got a lift back for nothing.”¹³

Swift’s arrogance—the arrogance, sometimes, of a man who is morbidly suspicious that he may be patronised—is shown in the manner in which he speaks of the grand ladies with whom he came in contact. He calls the Duke of Ormond’s daughters “insolent drabs,” and talks of his “mistress, Ophy Butler’s wife, who is grown a little charmless.” When the Duchess of Shrewsbury reproached him for not dining with her, Swift said that was not so soon done; he expected more advances from ladies, especially duchesses. On another occasion he was to have supped at Lady Ashburnham’s, “but the drab did not call for us in her coach, as she promised, but sent for us, and so I sent my excuses.” The arrogance was, however, often only on the surface. It is evident that Swift was very kind in many cases. He felt deeply for Mrs. Long in her misfortunes, living and dying in an obscure country town. On the last illness of the poet Harrison he says, “I am very much afflicted for him, as he is my own creature. . . . I was afraid to knock at the door; my mind misgave me.” He was “heartily sorry for poor Mrs. Parnell’s death; she seemed to be an excellent good-natured young woman, and I believe the poor lad is much afflicted; they appeared to live perfectly well together.” Afterwards he helped Parnell by introducing him to Bolingbroke and Oxford. He found kind words for Mrs. Manley in her illness, and Lady Ashburnham’s death was “extremely moving. . . . She was my greatest favourite, and I am in excessive concern for her loss.” Lastly, he was extraordinarily patient towards his servant Patrick, who drank, stopped out at night, and in many ways tried Swift’s temper. There were good points about Patrick, but no doubt the great consideration which Swift showed him was due in part to the fact that he was a favourite of the ladies in Dublin, and had Mrs. Vanhomrigh to intercede for him.

But for the best example of the kindly side of Swift’s nature, we must turn to what he tells us in the Journal about Stella herself. The “little language” which Swift used when writing to her was the language he employed when playing with Stella as a little child at Moor Park. Thackeray, who was not much in sympathy with Swift, said that he knew of “nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these notes.” Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they were no longer alone, but “a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD.” In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth “just as if he were speaking it.”¹⁴

Though Mrs. Dingley is constantly associated with Stella in the affectionate greetings in the Journal, she seems to have been included merely as a cloak to enable him to express the more freely his affection for her companion. Such phrases as “saucy girls,” “sirrahs,” “sauceboxes,” and the like, are often applied to both; and sometimes Swift certainly writes as if the one were as dear to him as the other; thus we find, “Farewell, my dearest lives and delights, I love you better than ever, if possible, as hope saved, I do, and ever will. . . . I can count upon nothing, nor will, but upon MD’s love and kindness. . . . And so farewell, dearest MD, Stella, Dingley, Presto, all together, now and for ever, all together.” But as a rule, notwithstanding Swift’s caution, the greetings intended for Stella alone are easily distinguishable in tone. He often refers to her weak eyes and delicate health. Thus he writes, “The chocolate is a present, madam, for Stella. Don’t read this, you little rogue, with your little eyes; but give it to Dingley, pray now; and I will write as plain as the skies.” And again, “God Almighty bless poor Stella, and her eyes and head: what shall we do to cure them, poor dear life?” Or, “Now to Stella’s little postscript; and I am almost crazed that you vex yourself for not writing. Can’t you dictate to Dingley, and not strain your dear little eyes? I am sure ’tis the grief of my soul to think you are out of order.” They had been keeping his birthday; Swift wished he had been with them, rather than in London, where he had no manner of pleasure: “I say Amen with all my heart and vitals, that we may never be asunder again ten days together while poor Presto lives.” A few days later he says, “I wish I were at Laracor, with dear charming MD,” and again, “Farewell, dearest beloved MD, and love poor poor Presto, who has not had one happy day since he left you.” “I will say no more, but beg you to be easy till Fortune takes his course, and to believe MD’s felicity is the great goal I aim at in all my pursuits.” “How does Stella look, Madam Dingley?” he asks; “pretty well, a handsome young woman still? Will she pass in a crowd? Will she make a figure in a country church?” Elsewhere he writes, on receipt of a letter, “God Almighty bless poor dear Stella, and send her a great many birthdays, all happy and healthy and wealthy, and with me ever together, and never asunder again, unless by chance. . . . I can hardly imagine you absent when I am reading your letter or writing to you. No, faith, you are just here upon this little paper, and therefore I see and talk with you every evening constantly, and sometimes in the morning.” The letters lay under Swift’s pillow, and he fondled them as if he were caressing Stella’s hand.

Of Stella herself we naturally have no direct account in the Journal, but we hear a good deal of her life in Ireland, and can picture what she was. Among her friends in and about Trim and Laracor were Dr. Raymond, the vicar of Trim, and his wife, the Garret Wesleys, the Percevals, and Mr. Warburton, Swift’s curate. At Dublin there were Archdeacon Walls and his family; Alderman Stoyte, his wife and sister-in-law; Dean Sterne and the Irish Postmaster-General, Isaac Manley. For years these friends formed a club which met in Dublin at each other’s houses, to sup and play cards (“ombre and claret, and toasted oranges”), and we have frequent allusions to Stella’s indifferent play, and the money which she lost, much to Mrs. Dingley’s chagrin: “Poor Dingley fretted to see Stella lose that four and elevenpence t’other night.” Mrs. Dingley herself could hardly play well enough to hold the cards while Stella went into the next room. If at dinner the mutton was underdone, and “poor Stella cannot eat, poor dear rogue,” then “Dingley is so vexed.” Swift was for ever urging Stella to walk and ride; she was “naturally a stout walker,” and “Dingley would do well enough if her petticoats were pinned up.” And we see Stella setting out on and returning from her ride, with her riband and mask: “Ah, that riding to Laracor gives me short sighs as well as you,” he says; “all the days I have passed here have been dirt to those.”

If the Journal shows us some of Swift’s less attractive qualities, it shows still more how great a store of humour, tenderness, and affection there was in him. In these letters we see his very soul; in his literary work we are seldom moved to anything but admiration of his wit and genius. Such daily outpourings could never have been written for publication, they were meant only for one who understood him perfectly; and everything that we know of Stella—her kindliness, her wit, her vivacity, her loyalty—shows that she was worthy of the confidence.

¹ Notes and Queries, Sixth Series, x. 287.

² See letter from Swift to John Temple, February 1737. She was then “quite sunk with years and unwieldliness.”

³ Athenaeum, Aug. 8, 1891.

⁴ Journal, May 4, 1711.

⁵ Craik’s Life of Swift, 269.

⁶ Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, pp. 189-96.

⁷ In 1730 he wrote, “Those who have been married may form juster ideas of that estate than I can pretend to do” (Dr. Birkbeck Hill’s Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, p. 237).

⁸ Scott added a new incident which has become incorporated in the popular conception of Swift’s story. Delany is said to have met Swift rushing out of Archbishop King’s study, with a countenance of distraction, immediately after the wedding. King, who was in tears, said, “You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must never ask a question.” Will it be believed that Scott—who rejects Delany’s inference from this alleged incident—had no better authority for it than “a friend of his (Delany’s) relict”?

⁹ This incident, for which there is probably some foundation of fact—we cannot say how much—has been greatly expanded by Mrs. Woods in her novel Esther Vanhomrigh. Unfortunately most of her readers cannot, of course, judge exactly how far her story is a work of imagination.

¹⁰ In October Swift explained that he had been in the country “partly to see a lady of my old acquaintance, who was extremely ill” (Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, p. 198).

¹¹ There is a story that shortly before her death Swift begged Stella to allow herself to be publicly announced as his wife, but that she replied that it was then too late. The versions given by Delany and Theophilus Swift differ considerably, while Sheridan alters the whole thing by representing Swift as brutally refusing to comply with Stella’s last wishes.

¹² There has also been the absurd suggestion that the impediment was Swift’s knowledge that both he and Stella were the illegitimate children of Sir William Temple—a theory which is absolutely disproved by known facts.

¹³ It is curious to note the intimate knowledge of some of Swift’s peculiarities which was possessed by the hostile writer of a pamphlet called A Hue and Cry after Dr. S—-t, published in 1714. That piece consists, for the most part, of extracts from a supposed Diary by Swift, and contains such passages as these: “Friday. Go to the Club . . . Am treated. Expenses one shilling.” “Saturday. Bid my servant get all things ready for a journey to the country: mend my breeches; hire a washerwoman, making her allow for old shirts, socks, dabbs and markees, which she bought of me . . . Six coaches of quality, and nine hacks, this day called at my lodgings.” “Thursday. The Earl looked queerly: left him in a huff. Bid him send for me when he was fit for company. . . Spent ten shillings.”

¹⁴ The “little language” is marked chiefly by such changes of letters (e.g., l for r, or r for l) as a child makes when learning to speak. The combinations of letters in which Swift indulges are not so easy of interpretation. For himself he uses Pdfr, and sometimes Podefar or FR (perhaps Poor dear foolish rogue). Stella is Ppt (Poor pretty thing). MD (my dears) usually stands for both Stella and Mrs. Dingley, but sometimes for Stella alone. Mrs. Dingley is indicated by ME (Madam Elderly), D, or DD (Dear Dingley). The letters FW may mean Farewell, or Foolish Wenches. Lele seems sometimes to be There, there, and sometimes Truly.

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).

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, 1710, 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, 1710. 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, 1710). Their quarrel arose, towards the close of 1709, 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 20 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 (1650-1729), 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 1709. 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 1704), 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 1706 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 1704. 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 1708 he was made Treasurer of the Stamp Office, or, according to Chamberlayne’s Mag. Brit. Notitia for 1710, 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 1708 to 1710, 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.

London, Sept. 9, 1710.

After seeing the Duke of Ormond, dining with Dr. Cockburn,¹ passing some part of the afternoon with Sir Matthew Dudley² and Will Frankland, the rest at St. James’s Coffee-house, I came home, and writ to the Archbishop of Dublin and MD, and am going to bed. I forgot to tell you, that I begged Will Frankland to stand Manley’s³ friend with his father in this shaking season for places. He told me, his father was in danger to be out; that several were now soliciting for Manley’s place; that he was accused of opening letters; that Sir Thomas Frankland⁴ would sacrifice everything to save himself; and in that, I fear, Manley is undone, etc.

l0. To-day I dined with Lord Mountjoy at Kensington; saw my mistress, Ophy Butler’s⁵ wife, who is grown a little charmless. I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and Steele: Steele will certainly lose his Gazetteer’s place, all the world detesting his engaging in parties.⁶ At ten I went to the Coffee-house, hoping to find Lord Radnor,⁷ whom I had not seen. He was there; and for an hour and a half we talked treason heartily against the Whigs, their baseness and ingratitude. And I am come home, rolling resentments in my mind, and framing schemes of revenge: full of which (having written down some hints) I go to bed. I am afraid MD dined at home, because it is Sunday; and there was the little half-pint of wine: for God’s sake, be good girls, and all will be well. Ben Tooke⁸ was with me this morning.

11. Seven, morning. I am rising to go to Jervas to finish my picture, and ’tis shaving-day, so good-morrow MD; but don’t keep me now, for I can’t stay; and pray dine with the Dean, but don’t lose your money. I long to hear from you, etc.—Ten at night. I sat four hours this morning to Jervas, who has given my picture quite another turn, and now approves it entirely; but we must have the approbation of the town. If I were rich enough, I would get a copy of it, and bring it over. Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat with him part of this evening; and I am now come home to write an hour. Patrick⁹ observes, that the rabble here are much more inquisitive in politics than in Ireland. Every day we expect changes, and the Parliament to be dissolved. Lord Wharton expects every day to be out: he is working like a horse for elections; and, in short, I never saw so great a ferment among all sorts of people. I had a miserable letter from Joe last Saturday, telling me Mr. Pratt¹⁰ refuses payment of his money. I have told it Mr. Addison, and will to Lord Wharton; but I fear with no success. However, I will do all I can.

12. To-day I presented Mr. Ford¹¹ to the Duke of Ormond; and paid my first visit to Lord President,¹² with whom I had much discourse; but put him always off when he began to talk of Lord Wharton in relation to me, till he urged it: then I said, he knew I never expected anything from Lord Wharton, and that Lord Wharton knew that I understood it so. He said that he had written twice to Lord Wharton about me, who both times said nothing at all to that part of his letter. I am advised not to meddle in the affair of the First-Fruits, till this hurry is a little over, which still depends, and we are all in the dark. Lord President told me he expects every day to be out, and has done so these two months. I protest, upon my life, I am heartily weary of this town, and wish I had never stirred.

13. I went this morning to the city, to see Mr. Stratford the Hamburg merchant, my old schoolfellow;¹³ but calling at Bull’s¹⁴ on Ludgate Hill, he forced me to his house at Hampstead to dinner among a great deal of ill company; among the rest Mr. Hoadley,¹⁵ the Whig clergyman, so famous for acting the contrary part to Sacheverell:¹⁶ but tomorrow I design again to see Stratford. I was glad, however, to be at Hampstead, where I saw Lady Lucy¹⁷ and Moll Stanhope. I hear very unfortunate news of Mrs. Long;¹⁸ she and her comrade¹⁹ have broke up house, and she is broke for good and all, and is gone to the country: I should be extremely sorry if this be true.

14. To-day, I saw Patty Rolt,²⁰ who heard I was in town; and I dined with Stratford at a merchant’s in the city, where I drank the first Tokay wine I ever saw; and it is admirable, yet not to the degree I expected. Stratford is worth a plum,²¹ and is now lending the Government forty thousand pounds; yet we were educated together at the same school and university.²² We hear the Chancellor²³ is to be suddenly out, and Sir Simon Harcourt²⁴ to succeed him: I am come early home, not caring for the Coffee-house.

15. To-day Mr. Addison, Colonel Freind,²⁵ and I, went to see the million lottery²⁶ drawn at Guildhall. The jackanapes of bluecoat boys gave themselves such airs in pulling out the tickets, and showed white hands open to the company, to let us see there was no cheat. We dined at a country-house near Chelsea, where Mr. Addison often retires; and to-night, at the Coffee-house, we hear Sir Simon Harcourt is made Lord Keeper; so that now we expect every moment the Parliament will be dissolved; but I forgot that this letter will not go in three or four days, and that my news will be stale, which I should therefore put in the last paragraph. Shall I send this letter before I hear from MD, or shall I keep it to lengthen? I have not yet seen Stella’s mother, because I will not see Lady Giffard; but I will contrive to go there when Lady Giffard is abroad. I forgot to mark my two former letters; but I remember this is Number 3, and I have not yet had Number 1 from MD; but I shall by Monday, which I reckon will be just a fortnight after you had my first. I am resolved to bring over a great deal of china. I loved it mightily to-day.²⁷ What shall I bring?

16. Morning. Sir John Holland,²⁸ Comptroller of the Household, has sent to desire my acquaintance: I have a mind to refuse him, because he is a Whig, and will, I suppose, be out among the rest; but he is a man of worth and learning. Tell me, do you like this journal way of writing? Is it not tedious and dull?

Night. I dined to-day with a cousin, a printer,²⁹ where Patty Rolt lodges, and then came home, after a visit or two; and it has been a very insipid day. Mrs. Long’s misfortune is confirmed to me; bailiffs were in her house; she retired to private lodgings; thence to the country, nobody knows where: her friends leave letters at some inn, and they are carried to her; and she writes answers without dating them from any place. I swear, it grieves me to the soul.

17. To-day I dined six miles out of town, with Will Pate,³⁰ the learned woollen-draper; Mr. Stratford went with me; six miles here is nothing: we left Pate after sunset, and were here before it was dark. This letter shall go on Tuesday, whether I hear from MD or no. My health continues pretty well; pray God Stella may give me a good account of hers! and I hope you are now at Trim, or soon designing it. I was disappointed to-night: the fellow gave me a letter, and I hoped to see little MD’s hand; and it was only to invite me to a venison pasty to-day: so I lost my pasty into the bargain. Pox on these declining courtiers! Here is Mr. Brydges,³¹ the Paymaster-General, desiring my acquaintance; but I hear the Queen sent Lord Shrewsbury³² to assure him he may keep his place; and he promises me great assistance in the affair of the First-Fruits. Well, I must turn over this leaf to-night, though the side would hold another line; but pray consider this is a whole sheet; it holds a plaguy deal, and you must be content to be weary; but I’ll do so no more. Sir Simon Harcourt is made Attorney-General, and not Lord Keeper.

18. To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison’s retirement near Chelsea; then came to town; got home early, and began a letter to the Tatler,³³ about the corruptions of style and writing, etc., and, having not heard from you, am resolved this letter shall go to-night. Lord Wharton was sent for to town in mighty haste, by the Duke of Devonshire:³⁴ they have some project in hand; but it will not do, for every hour we expect a thorough revolution, and that the Parliament will be dissolved. When you see Joe, tell him Lord Wharton is too busy to mind any of his affairs; but I will get what good offices I can from Mr. Addison, and will write to-day to Mr. Pratt; and bid Joe not to be discouraged, for I am confident he will get the money under any Government; but he must have patience.

19. I have been scribbling this morning, and I believe shall hardly fill this side to-day, but send it as it is; and it is good enough for naughty girls that won’t write to a body, and to a good boy like Presto. I thought to have sent this to-night, but was kept by company, and could not; and, to say the truth, I had a little mind to expect one post more for a letter from MD. Yesterday at noon died the Earl of Anglesea,³⁵ the great support of the Tories; so that employment of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland is again vacant. We were to have been great friends, and I could hardly have a loss that could grieve me more. The Bishop of Durham³⁶ died the same day. The Duke of Ormond’s daughter³⁷ was to visit me to-day at a third place by way of advance,³⁸ and I am to return it to-morrow. I have had a letter from Lady Berkeley, begging me for charity to come to Berkeley Castle, for company to my lord,³⁹ who has been ill of a dropsy; but I cannot go, and must send my excuse to-morrow. I am told that in a few hours there will be more removals.

20. To-day I returned my visits to the Duke’s daughters;⁴⁰ the insolent drabs came up to my very mouth to salute me. Then I heard the report confirmed of removals; my Lord President Somers; the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Steward; and Mr. Boyle,⁴¹ Secretary of State, are all turned out to-day. I never remember such bold steps taken by a Court: I am almost shocked at it, though I did not care if they were all hanged. We are astonished why the Parliament is not yet dissolved, and why they keep a matter of that importance to the last. We shall have a strange winter here, between the struggles of a cunning provoked discarded party, and the triumphs of one in power; of both which I shall be an indifferent spectator, and return very peaceably to Ireland, when I have done my part in the affair I am entrusted with, whether it succeeds or no. To-morrow I change my lodgings in Pall Mall for one in Bury Street,⁴² where I suppose I shall continue while I stay in London. If anything happens tomorrow, I will add it.—Robin’s Coffee-house.⁴³ We have great news just now from Spain; Madrid taken, and Pampeluna. I am here ever interrupted.

21. I have just received your letter, which I will not answer now; God be thanked all things are so well. I find you have not yet had my second: I had a letter from Parvisol, who tells me he gave Mrs. Walls a bill of twenty pounds for me, to be given to you; but you have not sent it. This night the Parliament is dissolved: great news from Spain; King Charles and Stanhope are at Madrid, and Count Staremberg has taken Pampeluna. Farewell. This is from St. James’s Coffee-house. I will begin my answer to your letter to-night, but not send it this week. Pray tell me whether you like this journal way of writing.—I don’t like your reasons for not going to Trim. Parvisol tells me he can sell your horse. Sell it, with a pox? Pray let him know that he shall sell his soul as soon. What? sell anything that Stella loves, and may sometimes ride? It is hers, and let her do as she pleases: pray let him know this by the first that you know goes to Trim. Let him sell my grey, and be hanged.

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 1730, 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 1706 to 1712, and again under George I., until his death in 1721.

³. Isaac Manley, who was appointed Postmaster-General in Ireland in 1703 (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 1703, and for Belturbet (as “the Right Hon. Theophilus Butler”) in 1713. On May 3, 1710, 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. 30, 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 1706. In 1702 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 1740, 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, 1710, 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, 1710). No officer named Freind or Friend is mentioned in Dalton’s English Army Lists.

²⁶. See the Tatler, Nos. 124, 203. There are various allusions in the “Wentworth Papers” to this, the first State Lottery of 1710; 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 1710.

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 1707. 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. 230.

³⁴. William Cavendish, second Duke of Devonshire (1673-1729), who was Lord Steward from 1707 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, 1710, 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. 630, 633.

³⁷. Lady Elizabeth (“Betty”) Butler, who died unmarried in 1750.

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 (1649-1710), married Elizabeth, daughter of Baptist Noel, Viscount Campden. The Earl died on Sept. 24, 1710, 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 1702 to 1708, was Secretary of State from 1708 to 1710, 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 1707 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.

London, Sept. 21, 1710.

Here must I begin another letter, on a whole sheet, for fear saucy little MD should be angry, and think MUCH that the paper is too LITTLE. I had your letter this night, as told you just and no more in my last; for this must be taken up in answering yours, saucebox. I believe I told you where I dined to-day; and to-morrow I go out of town for two days to dine with the same company on Sunday; Molesworth¹ the Florence Envoy, Stratford, and some others. I heard to-day that a gentlewoman from Lady Giffard’s house had been at the Coffee-house to inquire for me. It was Stella’s mother, I suppose. I shall send her a penny-post letter² to-morrow, and contrive to see her without hazarding seeing Lady Giffard, which I will not do until she begs my pardon.

22. I dined to-day at Hampstead with Lady Lucy, etc., and when I got home found a letter from Joe, with one enclosed to Lord Wharton, which I will send to his Excellency, and second it as well as I can; but to talk of getting the Queen’s order is a jest. Things are in such a combustion here, that I am advised not to meddle yet in the affair I am upon, which concerns the clergy of a whole kingdom; and does he think anybody will trouble the Queen about Joe? We shall, I hope, get a recommendation from the Lord Lieutenant to the trustees for the linen business, and I hope that will do; and so I will write to him in a few days, and he must have patience. This is an answer to part of your letter as well as his. I lied; it is to-morrow I go to the country, and I won’t answer a bit more of your letter yet.

23. Here is such a stir and bustle with this little MD of ours; I must be writing every night; I can’t go to bed without a word to them; I can’t put out my candle till I have bid them good-night: O Lord, O Lord! Well, I dined the first time to-day, with Will Frankland and his fortune: she is not very handsome. Did I not say I would go out of town to-day? I hate lying abroad and clutter; I go tomorrow in Frankland’s chariot, and come back at night. Lady Berkeley has invited me to Berkeley Castle, and Lady Betty Germaine³ to Drayton in Northamptonshire; and I’ll go to neither. Let me alone, I must finish my pamphlet. I have sent a long letter to Bickerstaff:⁴ let the Bishop of Clogher smoke⁵ it if he can. Well, I’ll write to the Bishop of Killala; but you might have told him how sudden and unexpected my journey was though. Deuce take Lady S—-; and if I know D—-y, he is a rawboned-faced fellow, not handsome, nor visibly so young as you say: she sacrifices two thousand pounds a year, and keeps only six hundred. Well, you have had all my land journey in my second letter, and so much for that. So, you have got into Presto’s lodgings; very fine, truly! We have had a fortnight of the most glorious weather on earth, and still continues: I hope you have made the best of it. Ballygall⁶ will be a pure⁷ good place for air, if Mrs. Ashe makes good her promise. Stella writes like an emperor: I am afraid it hurts your eyes; take care of that pray, pray, Mrs. Stella. Can’t you do what you will with your own horse? Pray don’t let that puppy Parvisol sell him. Patrick is drunk about three times a week, and I bear it, and he has got the better of me; but one of these days I will positively turn him off to the wide world, when none of you are by to intercede for him.—Stuff—how can I get her husband into the Charter-house? get a —— into the Charter-house.—Write constantly! Why, sirrah, don’t I write every day, and sometimes twice a day to MD? Now I have answered all your letter, and the rest must be as it can be: send me my bill. Tell Mrs. Brent what I say of the Charter-house. I think this enough for one night; and so farewell till this time to-morrow.

24. To-day I dined six miles out of town at Will Pate’s, with Stratford, Frankland, and the Molesworths,⁸ and came home at night, and was weary and lazy. I can say no more now, but good-night.

25. I was so lazy to-day that I dined at next door,⁹ and have sat at home since six, writing to the Bishop of Clogher, Dean Sterne, and Mr. Manley: the last, because I am in fear for him about his place, and have sent him my opinion, what I and his other friends here think he ought to do. I hope he will take it well. My advice was, to keep as much in favour as possible with Sir Thomas Frankland, his master here.

26. Smoke how I widen the margin by lying in bed when I write. My bed lies on the wrong side for me, so that I am forced often to write when I am up. Manley, you must know, has had people putting in for his place already; and has been complained of for opening letters. Remember that last Sunday, September 24, 1710, was as hot as midsummer. This was written in the morning; it is now night, and Presto in bed. Here’s a clutter, I have gotten MD’s second letter, and I must answer it here. I gave the bill to Tooke, and so— Well, I dined to-day with Sir John Holland the Comptroller, and sat with him till eight; then came home, and sent my letters, and writ part of a lampoon,¹⁰ which goes on very slow: and now I am writing to saucy MD; no wonder, indeed, good boys must write to naughty girls. I have not seen your mother yet; my penny-post letter, I suppose, miscarried: I will write another. Mr. S—— came to see me; and said M—— was going to the country next morning with her husband (who I find is a surly brute); so I could only desire my service to her.

27. To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland’s, with Steele and Addison too. This is the first rainy day since I came to town; I cannot afford to answer your letter yet. Morgan,¹¹ the puppy, writ me a long letter, to desire I would recommend him for purse-bearer or secretary to the next Lord Chancellor that would come with the next Governor. I will not answer him; but beg you will say these words to his father Raymond,¹² or anybody that will tell him: That Dr. Swift has received his letter; and would be very ready to serve him, but cannot do it in what he desires, because he has no sort of interest in the persons to be applied to. These words you may write, and let Joe, or Mr. Warburton,¹³ give them to him: a pox on him! However, it is by these sort of ways that fools get preferment. I must not end yet, because I cannot say good-night without losing a line, and then MD would scold; but now, good-night.

28. I have the finest piece of Brazil tobacco for Dingley that ever was born.¹⁴ You talk of Leigh; why, he won’t be in Dublin these two months: he goes to the country, then returns to London, to see how the world goes here in Parliament. Good-night, sirrahs; no, no, not night; I writ this in the morning, and looking carelessly I thought it had been of last night. I dined to-day with Mrs. Barton¹⁵ alone at her lodgings; where she told me for certain, that Lady S—— was with child when she was last in England, and pretended a tympany, and saw everybody; then disappeared for three weeks, her tympany was gone, and she looked like a ghost, etc. No wonder she married when she was so ill at containing. Connolly¹⁶ is out; and Mr. Roberts in his place, who loses a better here, but was formerly a Commissioner in Ireland. That employment cost Connolly three thousand pounds to Lord Wharton; so he has made one ill bargain in his life.

29. I wish MD a merry Michaelmas. I dined with Mr. Addison, and Jervas the painter, at Addison’s country place; and then came home, and writ more to my lampoon. I made a Tatler since I came: guess which it is, and whether the Bishop of Clogher smokes it. I saw Mr. Sterne¹⁷ to-day: he will do as you order, and I will give him chocolate for Stella’s health. He goes not these three weeks. I wish I could send it some other way. So now to your letter, brave boys. I don’t like your way of saving shillings: nothing vexes me but that it does not make Stella a coward in a coach.¹⁸ I don’t think any lady’s advice about my ear signifies twopence: however I will, in compliance to you, ask Dr. Cockburn. Radcliffe¹⁹ I know not, and Barnard²⁰ I never see. Walls will certainly be stingier for seven years, upon pretence of his robbery. So Stella puns again; why, ’tis well enough; but I’ll not second it, though I could make a dozen: I never thought of a pun since I left Ireland.— Bishop of Clogher’s bill? Why, he paid it to me; do you think I was such a fool to go without it? As for the four shillings, I will give you a bill on Parvisol for it on t’other side of this paper; and pray tear off the two letters I shall write to him and Joe, or let Dingley transcribe and send them; though that to Parvisol, I believe, he must have my hand for. No, no, I’ll eat no grapes; I ate about six the other day at Sir John Holland’s; but would not give sixpence for a thousand, they are so bad this year. Yes, faith, I hope in God Presto and MD will be together this time twelvemonth. What then? Last year I suppose I was at Laracor; but next I hope to eat my Michaelmas goose at my two little gooses’ lodgings. I drink no aile (I suppose you mean ale); but yet good wine every day, of five and six shillings a bottle. O Lord, how much Stella writes! pray don’t carry that too far, young women, but be temperate, to hold out. To-morrow I go to Mr. Harley.²¹ Why, small hopes from the Duke of Ormond: he loves me very well, I believe, and would, in my turn, give me something to make me easy; and I have good interest among his best friends. But I don’t think of anything further than the business I am upon. You see I writ to Manley before I had your letter, and I fear he will be out. Yes, Mrs. Owl, Bligh’s corpse²² came to Chester when I was there; and I told you so in my letter, or forgot it. I lodge in Bury Street, where I removed a week ago. I have the first floor, a dining-room, and bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week; plaguy deep, but I spend nothing for eating, never go to a tavern, and very seldom in a coach; yet after all it will be expensive. Why do you trouble yourself, Mistress Stella, about my instrument? I have the same the Archbishop gave me; and it is as good now the bishops are away. The Dean friendly! the Dean be poxed: a great piece of friendship indeed, what you heard him tell the Bishop of Clogher; I wonder he had the face to talk so: but he lent me money, and that’s enough. Faith, I would not send this these four days, only for writing to Joe and Parvisol. Tell the Dean that when the bishops send me any packets, they must not write to me at Mr. Steele’s; but direct for Mr. Steele, at his office at the Cockpit, and let the enclosed be directed for me: that mistake cost me eighteenpence the other day.

30. I dined with Stratford to-day, but am not to see Mr. Harley till Wednesday: it is late, and I send this before there is occasion for the bell; because I would have Joe have his letter, and Parvisol too; which you must so contrive as not to cost them double postage. I can say no more, but that I am, etc.

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. (1650-1718), 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. 280 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 1710, 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 1710, 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 (1650-1714), 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, 1710.

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.

London, Sept. 30, 1710.

Han’t I brought myself into a fine praemunire,¹ to begin writing letters in whole sheets? and now I dare not leave it off. I cannot tell whether you like these journal letters: I believe they would be dull to me to read them over; but, perhaps, little MD is pleased to know how Presto passes his time in her absence. I always begin my last the same day I ended my former. I told you where I dined to-day at a tavern with Stratford: Lewis,² who is a great favourite of Harley’s, was to have been with us; but he was hurried to Hampton Court, and sent his excuse; and that next Wednesday he would introduce me to Harley. ’Tis good to see what a lamentable confession the Whigs all make me of my ill usage: but I mind them not. I am already represented to Harley as a discontented person, that was used ill for not being Whig enough; and I hope for good usage from him. The Tories drily tell me, I may make my fortune, if I please; but I do not understand them—or rather, I do understand them.

Oct. 1. To-day I dined at Molesworth’s, the Florence Envoy; and sat this evening with my friend Darteneuf,³ whom you have heard me talk of; the greatest punner of this town next myself. Have you smoked the Tatler that I writ?⁴ It is much liked here, and I think it a pure⁵ one. To-morrow I go with Delaval,⁶ the Portugal Envoy, to dine with Lord Halifax near Hampton Court.⁷ Your Manley’s brother, a Parliament-man here, has gotten an employment;⁸ and I am informed uses much interest to preserve his brother: and, to-day, I spoke to the elder Frankland to engage his father (Postmaster here); and I hope he will be safe, although he is cruelly hated by all the Tories of Ireland. I have almost finished my lampoon, and will print it for revenge on a certain great person.⁹ It has cost me but three shillings in meat and drink since I came here, as thin as the town is. I laugh to see myself so disengaged in these revolutions. Well, I must leave off, and go write to Sir John Stanley,¹⁰ to desire him to engage Lady Hyde as my mistress to engage Lord Hyde¹¹ in favour of Mr. Pratt.¹²

2. Lord Halifax was at Hampton Court at his lodgings, and I dined with him there with Methuen,¹³ and Delaval, and the late Attorney-General.¹⁴ I went to the Drawing-room before dinner (for the Queen was at Hampton Court), and expected to see nobody; but I met acquaintance enough. I walked in the gardens, saw the cartoons of Raphael, and other things; and with great difficulty got from Lord Halifax, who would have kept me to-morrow to show me his house and park, and improvements. We left Hampton Court at sunset, and got here in a chariot and two horses time enough by starlight. That’s something charms me mightily about London; that you go dine a dozen miles off in October, stay all day, and return so quickly: you cannot do anything like this in Dublin.¹⁵ I writ a second penny post letter to your mother, and hear nothing of her. Did I tell you that Earl Berkeley died last Sunday was se’nnight, at Berkeley Castle, of a dropsy? Lord Halifax began a health to me to-day; it was the Resurrection of the Whigs, which I refused unless he would add their Reformation too and I told him he was the only Whig in England I loved, or had any good opinion of.

3. This morning Stella’s sister¹⁶ came to me with a letter from her mother, who is at Sheen; but will soon be in town, and will call to see me: she gave me a bottle of palsy water,¹⁷ a small one, and desired I would send it you by the first convenience, as I will; and she promises a quart bottle of the same: your sister looked very well, and seems a good modest sort of girl. I went then to Mr. Lewis, first secretary to Lord Dartmouth,¹⁸ and favourite to Mr. Harley, who is to introduce me to-morrow morning. Lewis had with him one Mr. Dyot,¹⁹ a Justice of Peace, worth twenty thousand pounds, a Commissioner of the Stamp Office, and married to a sister of Sir Philip Meadows,²⁰ Envoy to the Emperor. I tell you this, because it is odds but this Mr. Dyot will be hanged; for he is discovered to have counterfeited stamped paper, in which he was a Commissioner; and, with his accomplices, has cheated the Queen of a hundred thousand pounds. You will hear of it before this come to you, but may be not so particularly; and it is a very odd accident in such a man. Smoke Presto writing news to MD. I dined to-day with Lord Mountjoy at Kensington, and walked from thence this evening to town like an emperor. Remember that yesterday, October 2, was a cruel hard frost, with ice; and six days ago I was dying with heat. As thin as the town is, I have more dinners than ever; and am asked this month by some people, without being able to come for pre-engagements. Well, but I should write plainer, when I consider Stella cannot read,²¹ and Dingley is not so skilful at my ugly hand. I had tonight a letter from Mr. Pratt, who tells me Joe will have his money when there are trustees appointed by the Lord Lieutenant for receiving and disposing the linen fund; and whenever those trustees are appointed, I will solicit whoever is Lord Lieutenant, and am in no fear of succeeding. So pray tell or write him word, and bid him not be cast down; for Ned Southwell²² and Mr. Addison both think Pratt in the right. Don’t lose your money at Manley’s to-night, sirrahs.

4. After I had put out my candle last night, my landlady came into my room, with a servant of Lord Halifax, to desire I would go dine with him at his house near Hampton Court; but I sent him word, I had business of great importance that hindered me, etc. And to-day I was brought privately to Mr. Harley, who received me with the greatest respect and kindness imaginable: he has appointed me an hour on Saturday at four, afternoon, when I will open my business to him; which expression I would not use if I were a woman. I know you smoked it; but I did not till I writ it. I dined to-day at Mr. Delaval’s, the Envoy for Portugal, with Nic Rowe²³ the poet, and other friends; and I gave my lampoon to be printed. I have more mischief in my heart; and I think it shall go round with them all, as this hits, and I can find hints. I am certain I answered your 2d letter, and yet I do not find it here. I suppose it was in my 4th: and why N. 2d, 3d; is it not enough to say, as I do, 1, 2, 3? etc. I am going to work at another Tatler:²⁴ I’ll be far enough but I say the same thing over two or three times, just as I do when I am talking to little MD; but what care I? they can read it as easily as I can write it: I think I have brought these lines pretty straight again. I fear it will be long before I finish two sides at this rate. Pray, dear MD, when I occasionally give you any little commission mixed with my letters, don’t forget it, as that to Morgan and Joe, etc., for I write just as I can remember, otherwise I would put them all together. I was to visit Mr. Sterne to-day, and give him your commission about handkerchiefs: that of chocolate I will do myself, and send it him when he goes, and you’ll pay me when the GIVER’S BREAD,²⁵ etc. To-night I will read a pamphlet, to amuse myself. God preserve your dear healths!

5. This morning Delaval came to see me, and we went together to Kneller’s,²⁶ who was not in town. In the way we met the electors for Parliament-men:²⁷ and the rabble came about our coach, crying, “A Colt, a Stanhope,” etc. We were afraid of a dead cat, or our glasses broken, and so were always of their side. I dined again at Delaval’s; and in the evening, at the Coffee-house, heard Sir Andrew Fountaine²⁸ was come to town. This has been but an insipid sort of day, and I have nothing to remark upon it worth threepence: I hope MD had a better, with the Dean, the Bishop, or Mrs. Walls.²⁹ Why, the reason you lost four and eightpence last night but one at Manley’s was, because you played bad games: I took notice of six that you had ten to one against you: Would any but a mad lady go out twice upon Manilio; Basto, and two small diamonds?³⁰ Then in that game of spades, you blundered when you had ten-ace; I never saw the like of you: and now you are in a huff because I tell you this. Well, here’s two and eightpence halfpenny towards your loss.

6. Sir Andrew Fountaine came this morning, and caught me writing in bed. I went into the city with him; and we dined at the Chop-house with Will Pate,³¹ the learned woollen-draper: then we sauntered at China-shops³² and booksellers; went to the tavern, drank two pints of white wine, and never parted till ten: and now I am come home, and must copy out some papers I intend for Mr. Harley, whom I am to see, as I told you, to-morrow afternoon; so that this night I shall say little to MD, but that I heartily wish myself with them, and will come as soon as I either fail, or compass my business. We now hear daily of elections; and, in a list I saw yesterday of about twenty, there are seven or eight more Tories than in the last Parliament; so that I believe they need not fear a majority, with the help of those who will vote as the Court pleases. But I have been told that Mr. Harley himself would not let the Tories be too numerous, for fear they should be insolent, and kick against him; and for that reason they have kept several Whigs in employments, who expected to be turned out every day; as Sir John Holland the Comptroller, and many others. And so get you gone to your cards, and your claret and orange, at the Dean’s; and I’ll go write.

7. I wonder when this letter will be finished: it must go by Tuesday, that’s certain; and if I have one from MD before, I will not answer it, that’s as certain too. ’Tis now morning, and I did not finish my papers for Mr. Harley last night; for you must understand Presto was sleepy, and made blunders and blots. Very pretty that I must be writing to young women in a morning fresh and fasting, faith. Well, good-morrow to you; and so I go to business, and lay aside this paper till night, sirrahs.—At night. Jack How³³ told Harley that if there were a lower place in hell than another, it was reserved for his porter, who tells lies so gravely, and with so civil a manner. This porter I have had to deal with, going this evening at four to visit Mr. Harley, by his own appointment. But the fellow told me no lie, though I suspected every word he said. He told me his master was just gone to dinner, with much company, and desired I would come an hour hence: which I did, expecting to hear Mr. Harley was gone out; but they had just done dinner. Mr. Harley came out to me, brought me in, and presented to me his son-in-law Lord Doblane³⁴ (or some such name) and his own son,³⁵ and, among others, Will Penn³⁶ the Quaker: we sat two hours drinking as good wine as you do; and two hours more he and I alone; where he heard me tell my business; entered into it with all kindness; asked for my powers, and read them; and read likewise a memorial³⁷ I had drawn up, and put it in his pocket to show the Queen; told me the measures he would take; and, in short, said everything I could wish: told me, he must bring Mr. St. John³⁸ (Secretary of State) and me acquainted; and spoke so many things of personal kindness and esteem for me, that I am inclined half to believe what some friends have told me, that he would do everything to bring me over. He has desired to dine with me (what a comical mistake was that!). I mean he has desired me to dine with him on Tuesday; and after four hours being with him, set me down at St. James’s Coffee-house in a hackney-coach. All this is odd and comical, if you consider him and me. He knew my Christian name very well. I could not forbear saying thus much upon this matter, although you will think it tedious. But I’ll tell you; you must know, ’tis fatal³⁹ to me to be a scoundrel and a prince the same day: for, being to see him at four, I could not engage myself to dine at any friend’s; so I went to Tooke,⁴⁰ to give him a ballad, and dine with him; but he was not at home: so I was forced to go to a blind⁴¹ chop-house, and dine for tenpence upon gill-ale,⁴² bad broth, and three chops of mutton; and then go reeking from thence to the First Minister of State. And now I am going in charity to send Steele a Tatler, who is very low of late. I think I am civiller than I used to be; and have not used the expression of “you in Ireland” and “we in England” as I did when I was here before, to your great indignation.—They may talk of the you know what;⁴³ but, gad, if it had not been for that, I should never have been able to get the access I have had; and if that helps me to succeed, then that same thing will be serviceable to the Church. But how far we must depend upon new friends, I have learnt by long practice, though I think among great Ministers, they are just as good as old ones. And so I think this important day has made a great hole in this side of the paper; and the fiddle-faddles of tomorrow and Monday will make up the rest; and, besides, I shall see Harley on Tuesday before this letter goes.

8. I must tell you a great piece of refinement⁴⁴ of Harley. He charged me to come to him often: I told him I was loth to trouble him in so much business as he had, and desired I might have leave to come at his levee; which he immediately refused, and said, that was not a place for friends to come to. ’Tis now but morning; and I have got a foolish trick, I must say something to MD when I wake, and wish them a good-morrow; for this is not a shaving-day, Sunday, so I have time enough: but get you gone, you rogues, I must go write: Yes, ’twill vex me to the blood if any of these long letters should miscarry: if they do, I will shrink to half-sheets again; but then what will you do to make up the journal? there will be ten days of Presto’s life lost; and that will be a sad thing, faith and troth.—At night. I was at a loss today for a dinner, unless I would have gone a great way, so I dined with some friends that board hereabout,⁴⁵ as a spunger;⁴⁶ and this evening Sir Andrew Fountaine would needs have me go to the tavern; where, for two bottles of wine, Portugal and Florence, among three of us, we had sixteen shillings to pay; but if ever he catches me so again, I’ll spend as many pounds: and therefore I have it among my extraordinaries but we had a neck of mutton dressed a la Maintenon, that the dog could not eat: and it is now twelve o’clock, and I must go sleep. I hope this letter will go before I have MD’s third. Do you believe me? and yet, faith, I long for MD’s third too and yet I would have it to say, that I writ five for two. I am not fond at all of St. James’s Coffee-house,⁴⁷ as I used to be. I hope it will mend in winter; but now they are all out of town at elections, or not come from their country houses. Yesterday I was going with Dr. Garth⁴⁸ to dine with Charles Main,⁴⁹ near the Tower, who has an employment there: he is of Ireland; the Bishop of Clogher knows him well: an honest, good-natured fellow, a thorough hearty laugher, mightily beloved by the men of wit: his mistress is never above a cook-maid. And so, good-night, etc.

9. I dined to-day at Sir John Stanley’s; my Lady Stanley⁵⁰ is one of my favourites: I have as many here as the Bishop of Killala has in Ireland. I am thinking what scurvy company I shall be to MD when I come back: they know everything of me already: I will tell you no more, or I shall have nothing to say, no story to tell, nor any kind of thing. I was very uneasy last night with ugly, nasty, filthy wine, that turned sour on my stomach. I must go to the tavern: oh, but I told you that before. To-morrow I dine at Harley’s, and will finish this letter at my return; but I can write no more now, because of the Archbishop: faith, ’tis true; for I am going now to write to him an account of what I have done in the business with Harley:⁵¹ and, faith, young women, I’ll tell you what you must count upon, that I never will write one word on the third side in these long letters.

10. Poor MD’s letter was lying so huddled up among papers, I could not find it: I mean poor Presto’s letter. Well, I dined with Mr. Harley to-day, and hope some things will be done; but I must say no more: and this letter must be sent to the post-house, and not by the bellman.⁵² I am to dine again there on Sunday next; I hope to some good issue. And so now, soon as ever I can in bed, I must begin my 6th to MD as gravely as if I had not written a word this month: fine doings, faith! Methinks I don’t write as I should, because I am not in bed: see the ugly wide lines. God Almighty ever bless you, etc.

Faith, this is a whole treatise; I’ll go reckon the lines on the other sides. I’ve reckoned them.⁵³

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. 230.

⁵ Good, excellent.

⁶ Captain George Delaval, appointed Envoy Extraordinary to the King of Portugal in Oct, 1710, 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. 30, 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 1710; 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 1710, 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. 1710, 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 (1672-1750), 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, 1710-11, 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 1700, 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 (1671-1730) 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 1710 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 1706. 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, 1710.

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.

London, Oct. 10, 1710.

So, as I told you just now in the letter I sent half an hour ago, I dined with Mr. Harley to-day, who presented me to the Attorney-General, Sir Simon Harcourt, with much compliment on all sides, etc. Harley told me he had shown my memorial to the Queen, and seconded it very heartily; and he desires me to dine with him again on Sunday, when he promises to settle it with Her Majesty, before she names a Governor:¹ and I protest I am in hopes it will be done, all but the forms, by that time; for he loves the Church. This is a popular thing, and he would not have a Governor share in it; and, besides, I am told by all hands, he has a mind to gain me over. But in the letter I writ last post (yesterday) to the Archbishop, I did not tell him a syllable of what Mr. Harley said to me last night, because he charged me to keep it secret; so I would not tell it to you, but that, before this goes, I hope the secret will be over. I am now writing my poetical “Description of a Shower in London,” and will send it to the Tatler.² This is the last sheet of a whole quire I have written since I came to town. Pray, now it comes into my head, will you, when you go to Mrs. Walls, contrive to know whether Mrs. Wesley³ be in town, and still at her brother’s, and how she is in health, and whether she stays in town. I writ to her from Chester, to know what I should do with her note; and I believe the poor woman is afraid to write to me: so I must go to my business, etc.

11. To-day at last I dined with Lord Mountrath,⁴ and carried Lord Mountjoy, and Sir Andrew Fountaine with me; and was looking over them at ombre till eleven this evening like a fool: they played running ombre half-crowns; and Sir Andrew Fountaine won eight guineas of Mr. Coote;⁵ so I am come home late, and will say but little to MD this night. I have gotten half a bushel of coals, and Patrick, the extravagant whelp, had a fire ready for me; but I picked off the coals before I went to bed. It is a sign London is now an empty place, when it will not furnish me with matter for above five or six lines in a day. Did you smoke in my last how I told you the very day and the place you were playing at ombre? But I interlined and altered a little, after I had received a letter from Mr. Manley, that said you were at it in his house, while he was writing to me; but without his help I guessed within one day. Your town is certainly much more sociable than ours. I have not seen your mother yet, etc.

12. I dined to-day with Dr. Garth and Mr. Addison, at the Devil Tavern⁶ by Temple Bar, and Garth treated; and ’tis well I dine every day, else I should be longer making out my letters: for we are yet in a very dull state, only inquiring every day after new elections, where the Tories carry it among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison’s election⁷ has passed easy and undisputed; and I believe if he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be refused. An odd accident has happened at Colchester: one Captain Lavallin,⁸ coming from Flanders or Spain, found his wife with child by a clerk of Doctors’ Commons, whose trade, you know, it is to prevent fornications: and this clerk was the very same fellow that made the discovery of Dyot’s⁹ counterfeiting the stamp-paper. Lavallin has been this fortnight hunting after the clerk, to kill him; but the fellow was constantly employed at the Treasury, about the discovery he made: the wife had made a shift to patch up the business, alleging that the clerk had told her her husband was dead and other excuses; but t’other day somebody told Lavallin his wife had intrigues before he married her: upon which he goes down in a rage, shoots his wife through the head, then falls on his sword; and, to make the matter sure, at the same time discharges a pistol through his own head, and died on the spot, his wife surviving him about two hours, but in what circumstances of mind and body is terrible to imagine. I have finished my poem on the “Shower,” all but the beginning; and am going on with my Tatler. They have fixed about fifty things on me since I came: I have printed but three.¹⁰ One advantage I get by writing to you daily, or rather you get, is, that I shall remember not to write the same things twice; and yet, I fear, I have done it often already: but I will mind and confine myself to the accidents of the day; and so get you gone to ombre, and be good girls, and save your money, and be rich against Presto comes, and write to me now and then: I am thinking it would be a pretty thing to hear sometimes from saucy MD; but do not hurt your eyes, Stella, I charge you.

13. O Lord, here is but a trifle of my letter written yet; what shall Presto do for prattle-prattle, to entertain MD? The talk now grows fresher of the Duke of Ormond for Ireland; though Mr. Addison says he hears it will be in commission, and Lord Galway¹¹ one. These letters of mine are a sort of journal, where matters open by degrees; and, as I tell true or false, you will find by the event whether my intelligence be good; but I do not care twopence whether it be or no.—At night. To-day I was all about St. Paul’s, and up at the top like a fool, with Sir Andrew Fountaine and two more; and spent seven shillings for my dinner like a puppy: this is the second time he has served me so; but I will never do it again, though all mankind should persuade me, unconsidering puppies! There is a young fellow here in town we are all fond of, and about a year or two come from the University, one Harrison,¹² a little pretty fellow, with a great deal of wit, good sense, and good nature; has written some mighty pretty things; that in your 6th Miscellanea,¹³ about the Sprig of an Orange, is his: he has nothing to live on but being governor to one of the Duke of Queensberry’s¹⁴ sons for forty pounds a year. The fine fellows are always inviting him to the tavern, and make him pay his club. Henley¹⁵ is a great crony of his: they are often at the tavern at six or seven shillings reckoning, and he always makes the poor lad pay his full share. A colonel and a lord were at him and me the same way to-night: I absolutely refused, and made Harrison lag behind, and persuaded him not to go to them. I tell you this, because I find all rich fellows have that humour of using all people without any consideration of their fortunes; but I will see them rot before they shall serve me so. Lord Halifax is always teasing me to go down to his country house, which will cost me a guinea to his servants, and twelve shillings coach-hire; and he shall be hanged first. Is not this a plaguy silly story? But I am vexed at the heart; for I love the young fellow, and am resolved to stir up people to do something for him: he is a Whig, and I will put him upon some of my cast Whigs; for I have done with them; and they have, I hope, done with this kingdom for our time. They were sure of the four members for London above all places, and they have lost three in the four.¹⁶ Sir Richard Onslow,¹⁷ we hear, has lost for Surrey; and they are overthrown in most places. Lookee, gentlewomen, if I write long letters, I must write you news and stuff, unless I send you my verses; and some I dare not; and those on the “Shower in London” I have sent to the Tatler, and you may see them in Ireland. I fancy you will smoke me in the Tatler I am going to write; for I believe I have told you the hint. I had a letter sent me tonight from Sir Matthew Dudley, and found it on my table when I came in. Because it is extraordinary, I will transcribe it from beginning to end. It is as follows: “Is the Devil in you? Oct. 13, 1710.” I would have answered every particular passage in it, only I wanted time. Here is enough for to-night, such as it is, etc.

14. Is that tobacco at the top of the paper,¹⁸ or what? I do not remember I slobbered. Lord, I dreamt of Stella, etc., so confusedly last night, and that we saw Dean Bolton¹⁹ and Sterne²⁰ go into a shop: and she bid me call them to her, and they proved to be two parsons I know not; and I walked without till she was shifting, and such stuff, mixed with much melancholy and uneasiness, and things not as they should be, and I know not how: and it is now an ugly gloomy morning.—At night. Mr. Addison and I dined with Ned Southwell, and walked in the Park; and at the Coffee-house I found a letter from the Bishop of Clogher, and a packet from MD. I opened the Bishop’s letter; but put up MD’s, and visited a lady just come to town; and am now got into bed, and going to open your little letter: and God send I may find MD well, and happy, and merry, and that they love Presto as they do fires. Oh, I will not open it yet! yes I will! no I will not! I am going; I cannot stay till I turn over.²¹ What shall I do? My fingers itch; and now I have it in my left hand; and now I will open it this very moment.—I have just got it, and am cracking the seal, and cannot imagine what is in it; I fear only some letter from a bishop, and it comes too late; I shall employ nobody’s credit but my own. Well, I see though— Pshaw, ’tis from Sir Andrew Fountaine. What, another! I fancy that’s from Mrs. Barton;²² she told me she would write to me; but she writes a better hand than this: I wish you would inquire; it must be at Dawson’s²³ office at the Castle. I fear this is from Patty Rolt, by the scrawl. Well, I will read MD’s letter. Ah, no; it is from poor Lady Berkeley, to invite me to Berkeley Castle this winter; and now it grieves my heart: she says, she hopes my lord is in a fair way of recovery;²⁴ poor lady! Well, now I go to MD’s letter: faith, it is all right; I hoped it was wrong. Your letter, N.3, that I have now received, is dated Sept. 26; and Manley’s letter, that I had five days ago, was dated Oct. 3, that’s a fortnight difference: I doubt it has lain in Steele’s office, and he forgot. Well, there’s an end of that: he is turned out of his place;²⁵ and you must desire those who send me packets, to enclose them in a paper directed to Mr. Addison, at St. James’s Coffee-house: not common letters, but packets: the Bishop of Clogher may mention it to the Archbishop when he sees him. As for your letter, it makes me mad: slidikins, I have been the best boy in Christendom, and you come with your two eggs a penny.—Well; but stay, I will look over my book: adad, I think there was a chasm between my N.2 and N.3. Faith, I will not promise to write to you every week; but I will write every night, and when it is full I will send it; that will be once in ten days, and that will be often enough: and if you begin to take up the way of writing to Presto, only because it is Tuesday, a Monday bedad it will grow a task; but write when you have a mind.—No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—Agad, agad, agad, agad, agad, agad; no, poor Stellakins.²⁶ Slids, I would the horse were in your—chamber! Have not I ordered Parvisol to obey your directions about him? And han’t I said in my former letters that you may pickle him, and boil him, if you will? What do you trouble me about your horses for? Have I anything to do with them?—Revolutions a hindrance to me in my business? Revolutions to me in my business? If it were not for the revolutions, I could do nothing at all; and now I have all hopes possible, though one is certain of nothing; but to-morrow I am to have an answer, and am promised an effectual one. I suppose I have said enough in this and a former letter how I stand with new people; ten times better than ever I did with the old; forty times more caressed. I am to dine to-morrow at Mr. Harley’s; and if he continues as he has begun, no man has been ever better treated by another. What you say about Stella’s mother, I have spoken enough to it already. I believe she is not in town; for I have not yet seen her. My lampoon is cried up to the skies; but nobody suspects me for it, except Sir Andrew Fountaine: at least they say nothing of it to me. Did not I tell you of a great man who received me very coldly?²⁷ That’s he; but say nothing; ’twas only a little revenge. I will remember to bring it over. The Bishop of Clogher has smoked my Tatler,²⁸ about shortening of words, etc. But, God So!²⁹ etc.

15. I will write plainer if I can remember it; for Stella must not spoil her eyes, and Dingley can’t read my hand very well; and I am afraid my letters are too long: then you must suppose one to be two, and read them at twice. I dined to-day with Mr. Harley: Mr. Prior³⁰ dined with us. He has left my memorial with the Queen, who has consented to give the First-Fruits and Twentieth Parts,³¹ and will, we hope, declare it to-morrow in the Cabinet. But I beg you to tell it to no person alive; for so I am ordered, till in public: and I hope to get something of greater value. After dinner came in Lord Peterborow:³² we renewed our acquaintance, and he grew mightily fond of me. They began to talk of a paper of verses called “Sid Hamet.” Mr. Harley repeated part, and then pulled them out, and gave them to a gentleman at the table to read, though they had all read them often. Lord Peterborow would let nobody read them but himself: so he did; and Mr. Harley bobbed³³ me at every line, to take notice of the beauties. Prior rallied Lord Peterborow for author of them; and Lord Peterborow said he knew them to be his; and Prior then turned it upon me, and I on him. I am not guessed at all in town to be the author; yet so it is: but that is a secret only to you.³⁴ Ten to one whether you see them in Ireland; yet here they run prodigiously. Harley presented me to Lord President of Scotland,³⁵ and Mr. Benson,³⁶ Lord of the Treasury. Prior and I came away at nine, and sat at the Smyrna³⁷ till eleven, receiving acquaintance.

16. This morning early I went in a chair, and Patrick before it, to Mr. Harley, to give him another copy of my memorial, as he desired; but he was full of business, going to the Queen, and I could not see him; but he desired I would send up the paper, and excused himself upon his hurry. I was a little baulked; but they tell me it is nothing. I shall judge by next visit. I tipped his porter with half a crown; and so I am well there for a time at least. I dined at Stratford’s in the City, and had Burgundy and Tokay: came back afoot like a scoundrel: then went with Mr. Addison and supped with Lord Mountjoy, which made me sick all night. I forgot that I bought six pounds of chocolate for Stella, and a little wooden box; and I have a great piece of Brazil tobacco for Dingley,³⁸ and a bottle of palsy-water³⁹ for Stella: all which, with the two handkerchiefs that Mr. Sterne has bought, and you must pay him for, will be put in the box, directed to Mrs. Curry’s, and sent by Dr. Hawkshaw,⁴⁰ whom I have not seen; but Sterne has undertaken it. The chocolate is a present, madam, for Stella. Don’t read this, you little rogue, with your little eyes; but give it to Dingley, pray now; and I will write as plain as the skies: and let Dingley write Stella’s part, and Stella dictate to her, when she apprehends her eyes, etc.

17. This letter should have gone this post, if I had not been taken up with business, and two nights being late out; so it must stay till Thursday. I dined to-day with your Mr. Sterne,⁴¹ by invitation, and drank Irish wine;⁴² but, before we parted, there came in the prince of puppies, Colonel Edgworth;⁴³ so I went away. This day came out the Tatler, made up wholly of my “Shower,” and a preface to it. They say it is the best thing I ever writ, and I think so too. I suppose the Bishop of Clogher will show it you. Pray tell me how you like it. Tooke is going on with my Miscellany.⁴⁴ I’d give a penny the letter to the Bishop of Killaloe⁴⁵ was in it: ‘twould do him honour. Could not you contrive to say, you hear they are printing my things together; and that you with the bookseller had that letter among the rest: but don’t say anything of it as from me. I forget whether it was good or no; but only having heard it much commended, perhaps it may deserve it. Well, I have to-morrow to finish this letter in, and then I will send it next day. I am so vexed that you should write your third to me, when you had but my second, and I had written five, which now I hope you have all: and so I tell you, you are saucy, little, pretty, dear rogues, etc.

18. To-day I dined, by invitation, with Stratford and others, at a young merchant’s in the City, with Hermitage and Tokay, and stayed till nine, and am now come home. And that dog Patrick is abroad, and drinking, and I cannot I get my night-gown. I have a mind to turn that puppy away: he has been drunk ten times in three weeks. But I han’t time to say more; so good-night, etc.

19. I am come home from dining in the city with Mr. Addison, at a merchant’s; and just now, at the Coffee-house, we have notice that the Duke of Ormond was this day declared Lord Lieutenant at Hampton Court, in Council. I have not seen Mr. Harley since; but hope the affair is done about First-Fruits. I will see him, if possible, to-morrow morning; but this goes to-night. I have sent a box to Mr. Sterne, to send to you by some friend: I have directed it for Mr. Curry, at his house; so you have warning when it comes, as I hope it will soon. The handkerchiefs will be put in some friend’s pocket, not to pay custom. And so here ends my sixth, sent when I had but three of MD’s: now I am beforehand, and will keep so; and God Almighty bless dearest MD, etc.

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 1720.

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. 1710, 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. 640; Dalton’s English Army Lists, iv. 126).

⁹ See Letter 5.

¹⁰ The Tatler, No. 230, Sid Hamet’s Rod, and the ballad (now lost) on the Westminster Election.

¹¹ The Earl of Galway (1648-1720), 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. 230.

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 1708, 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 1707.

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.

London, Oct. 19, 1710.

Faith, I am undone! this paper is larger than the other, and yet I am condemned to a sheet; but, since it is MD, I did not value though I were condemned to a pair. I told you in my letter to-day where I had been, and how the day passed; and so, etc.

20. To-day I went to Mr. Lewis, at the Secretary’s office, to know when I might see Mr. Harley; and by and by comes up Mr. Harley himself, and appoints me to dine with him to-morrow. I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh,¹ and went to wait on the two Lady Butlers;² but the porter answered they were not at home: the meaning was, the youngest, Lady Mary, is to be married to-morrow to Lord Ashburnham,³ the best match now in England, twelve thousand pounds a year, and abundance of money. Tell me how my “Shower” is liked in Ireland: I never knew anything pass better here. I spent the evening with Wortley Montagu⁴ and Mr. Addison, over a bottle of Irish wine. Do they know anything in Ireland of my greatness among the Tories? Everybody reproaches me of it here; but I value them not. Have you heard of the verses about the “Rod of Sid Hamet”? Say nothing of them for your life. Hardly anybody suspects me for them; only they think nobody but Prior or I could write them. But I doubt they have not reached you. There is likewise a ballad full of puns on the Westminster Election,⁵ that cost me half an hour: it runs, though it be good for nothing. But this is likewise a secret to all but MD. If you have them not, I will bring them over.

21. I got MD’s fourth to-day at the Coffee-house. God Almighty bless poor, dear Stella, and her eyes and head! What shall we do to cure them? poor, dear life! Your disorders are a pull-back for your good qualities. Would to Heaven I were this minute shaving your poor, dear head, either here or there! Pray do not write, nor read this letter, nor anything else; and I will write plainer for Dingley to read from henceforward, though my pen is apt to ramble when I think whom I am writing to. I will not answer your letter until I tell you that I dined this day with Mr. Harley, who presented me to the Earl of Stirling,⁶ a Scotch lord; and in the evening came in Lord Peterborow. I stayed till nine before Mr. Harley would let me go, or tell me anything of my affair. He says the Queen has now granted the First-Fruits and Twentieth Parts; but he will not give me leave to write to the Archbishop, because the Queen designs to signify it to the Bishops in Ireland in form; and to take notice, that it was done upon a memorial from me; which, Mr. Harley tells me he does to make it look more respectful to me, etc.; and I am to see him on Tuesday. I know not whether I told you that, in my memorial which was given to the Queen, I begged for two thousand pounds a year more, though it was not in my commission; but that, Mr. Harley says, cannot yet be done, and that he and I must talk of it further: however, I have started it, and it may follow in time. Pray say nothing of the First-Fruits being granted, unless I give leave at the bottom of this. I believe never anything was compassed so soon, and purely done by my personal credit with Mr. Harley, who is so excessively obliging, that I know not what to make of it, unless to show the rascals of the other party that they used a man unworthily who had deserved better. The memorial given to the Queen from me speaks with great plainness of Lord Wharton. I believe this business is as important to you as the Convocation disputes from Tisdall.⁷ I hope in a month or two all the forms of settling this matter will be over; and then I shall have nothing to do here. I will only add one foolish thing more, because it is just come into my head. When this thing is made known, tell me impartially whether they give any of the merit to me, or no; for I am sure I have so much, that I will never take it upon me.—Insolent sluts! because I say Dublin, Ireland, therefore you must say London, England: that is Stella’s malice.—Well, for that I will not answer your letter till to-morrow-day, and so and so: I will go write something else, and it will not be much; for ’tis late.

22. I was this morning with Mr. Lewis, the under-secretary to Lord Dartmouth, two hours, talking politics, and contriving to keep Steele in his office of stamped paper: he has lost his place of Gazetteer, three hundred pounds a year, for writing a Tatler,⁸ some months ago, against Mr. Harley, who gave it him at first, and raised the salary from sixty to three hundred pounds. This was devilish ungrateful; and Lewis was telling me the particulars: but I had a hint given me, that I might save him in the other employment: and leave was given me to clear matters with Steele. Well, I dined with Sir Matthew Dudley, and in the evening went to sit with Mr. Addison, and offer the matter at distance to him, as the discreeter person; but found party had so possessed him, that he talked as if he suspected me, and would not fall in with anything I said. So I stopped short in my overture, and we parted very drily; and I shall say nothing to Steele, and let them do as they will; but, if things stand as they are, he will certainly lose it, unless I save him; and therefore I will not speak to him, that I may not report to his disadvantage. Is not this vexatious? and is there so much in the proverb of proffered service? When shall I grow wise? I endeavour to act in the most exact points of honour and conscience; and my nearest friends will not understand it so. What must a man expect from his enemies? This would vex me, but it shall not; and so I bid you good-night, etc.

23. I know ’tis neither wit nor diversion to tell you every day where I dine; neither do I write it to fill my letter; but I fancy I shall, some time or other, have the curiosity of seeing some particulars how I passed my life when I was absent from MD this time; and so I tell you now that I dined to-day at Molesworth’s, the Florence Envoy, then went to the Coffee-house, where I behaved myself coldly enough to Mr. Addison, and so came home to scribble. We dine together to-morrow and next day by invitation; but I shall alter my behaviour to him, till he begs my pardon, or else we shall grow bare acquaintance. I am weary of friends; and friendships are all monsters, but MD’s.

24. I forgot to tell you, that last night I went to Mr. Harley’s, hoping— faith, I am blundering, for it was this very night at six; and I hoped he would have told me all things were done and granted: but he was abroad, and came home ill, and was gone to bed, much out of order, unless the porter lied. I dined to-day at Sir Matthew Dudley’s, with Mr. Addison, etc.

25. I was to-day to see the Duke of Ormond; and, coming out, met Lord Berkeley of Stratton,⁹ who told me that Mrs. Temple,¹⁰ the widow, died last Saturday, which, I suppose, is much to the outward grief and inward joy of the family. I dined to-day with Addison and Steele, and a sister of Mr. Addison, who is married to one Mons. Sartre,¹¹ a Frenchman, prebendary of Westminster, who has a delicious house and garden; yet I thought it was a sort of monastic life in those cloisters, and I liked Laracor better. Addison’s sister is a sort of a wit, very like him. I am not fond of her, etc.

26. I was to-day to see Mr. Congreve,¹² who is almost blind with cataracts growing on his eyes; and his case is, that he must wait two or three years, until the cataracts are riper, and till he is quite blind, and then he must have them couched; and, besides, he is never rid of the gout, yet he looks young and fresh, and is as cheerful as ever. He is younger by three years or more than I; and I am twenty years younger than he. He gave me a pain in the great toe, by mentioning the gout. I find such suspicions frequently, but they go off again. I had a second letter from Mr. Morgan,¹³ for which I thank you: I wish you were whipped, for forgetting to send him that answer I desired you in one of my former, that I could do nothing for him of what he desired, having no credit at all, etc. Go, be far enough, you negligent baggages. I have had also a letter from Parvisol, with an account how my livings are set; and that they are fallen, since last year, sixty pounds. A comfortable piece of news! He tells me plainly that he finds you have no mind to part with the horse, because you sent for him at the same time you sent him my letter; so that I know not what must be done. It is a sad thing that Stella must have her own horse, whether Parvisol will or no. So now to answer your letter that I had three or four days ago. I am not now in bed, but am come home by eight; and, it being warm, I write up. I never writ to the Bishop of Killala, which, I suppose, was the reason he had not my letter. I have not time, there is the short of it.—As fond as the Dean¹⁴ is of my letter, he has not written to me. I would only know whether Dean Bolton¹⁵ paid him the twenty pounds; and for the rest, he may kiss—And that you may ask him, because I am in pain about it, that Dean Bolton is such a whipster. ’Tis the most obliging thing in the world in Dean Sterne to be so kind to you. I believe he knows it will please me, and makes up, that way, his other usage.¹⁶ No, we have had none of your snow, but a little one morning; yet I think it was great snow for an hour or so, but no longer. I had heard of Will Crowe’s¹⁷ death before, but not the foolish circumstance that hastened his end. No, I have taken care that Captain Pratt¹⁸ shall not suffer by Lord Anglesea’s death.¹⁹ I will try some contrivance to get a copy of my picture from Jervas. I will make Sir Andrew Fountaine buy one as for himself, and I will pay him again, and take it, that is, provided I have money to spare when I leave this.—Poor John! is he gone? and Madam Parvisol²⁰ has been in town! Humm. Why, Tighe²¹ and I, when he comes, shall not take any notice of each other; I would not do it much in this town, though we had not fallen out.—I was to-day at Mr. Sterne’s lodging: he was not within; and Mr. Leigh is not come to town; but I will do Dingley’s errand when I see him. What do I know whether china be dear or no? I once took a fancy of resolving to grow mad for it, but now it is off; I suppose I told you in some former letter. And so you only want some salad-dishes, and plates, and etc. Yes, yes, you shall. I suppose you have named as much as will cost five pounds.—Now to Stella’s little postscript; and I am almost crazed that you vex yourself for not writing. Cannot you dictate to Dingley, and not strain your little, dear eyes? I am sure it is the grief of my soul to think you are out of order. Pray be quiet; and, if you will write, shut your eyes, and write just a line, and no more, thus, “How do you do, Mrs. Stella?” That was written with my eyes shut. Faith, I think it is better than when they are open: and then Dingley may stand by, and tell you when you go too high or too low.—My letters of business, with packets, if there be any more occasion for such, must be enclosed to Mr. Addison, at St. James’s Coffee-house: but I hope to hear, as soon as I see Mr. Harley, that the main difficulties are over, and that the rest will be but form.—Take two or three nutgalls, take two or three —-galls, stop your receipt in your—I have no need on’t. Here is a clutter! Well, so much for your letter, which I will now put up in my letter-partition in my cabinet, as I always do every letter as soon as I answer it. Method is good in all things. Order governs the world. The Devil is the author of confusion. A general of an army, a minister of state; to descend lower, a gardener, a weaver, etc. That may make a fine observation, if you think it worth finishing; but I have not time. Is not this a terrible long piece for one evening? I dined to-day with Patty Rolt at my cousin Leach’s,²² with a pox, in the City: he is a printer, and prints the Postman, oh hoo, and is my cousin, God knows how, and he married Mrs. Baby Aires of Leicester; and my cousin Thomson was with us: and my cousin Leach offers to bring me acquainted with the author of the Postman;²³ and says he does not doubt but the gentleman will be glad of my acquaintance; and that he is a very ingenious man, and a great scholar, and has been beyond sea. But I was modest and said, may be the gentleman was shy, and not fond of new acquaintance; and so put it off: and I wish you could hear me repeating all I have said of this in its proper tone, just as I am writing it. It is all with the same cadence with “Oh hoo,” or as when little girls say, “I have got an apple, miss, and I won’t give you some.” It is plaguy twelvepenny weather this last week, and has cost me ten shillings in coach and chair hire. If the fellow that has your money will pay it, let me beg you to buy Bank Stock with it, which is fallen near thirty per cent. and pays eight pounds per cent. and you have the principal when you please: it will certainly soon rise. I would to God Lady Giffard would put in the four hundred pounds she owes you,²⁴ and take the five per cent. common interest, and give you the remainder. I will speak to your mother about it when I see her. I am resolved to buy three hundred pounds of it for myself, and take up what I have in Ireland; and I have a contrivance for it, that I hope will do, by making a friend of mine buy it as for himself, and I will pay him when I can get in my money. I hope Stratford will do me that kindness. I’ll ask him tomorrow or next day.

27. Mr. Rowe²⁵ the poet desired me to dine with him to-day. I went to his office (he is under-secretary in Mr. Addison’s place that he had in England), and there was Mr. Prior; and they both fell commending my “Shower” beyond anything that has been written of the kind: there never was such a “Shower” since Danae’s, etc. You must tell me how it is liked among you. I dined with Rowe; Prior could not come: and after dinner we went to a blind tavern,²⁶ where Congreve, Sir Richard Temple,²⁷ Estcourt,²⁸ and Charles Main,²⁹ were over a bowl of bad punch. The knight sent for six flasks of his own wine for me, and we stayed till twelve. But now my head continues pretty well; I have left off my drinking, and only take a spoonful mixed with water, for fear of the gout, or some ugly distemper; and now, because it is late, I will, etc.

28. Garth and Addison and I dined to-day at a hedge³⁰ tavern; then I went to Mr. Harley, but he was denied, or not at home: so I fear I shall not hear my business is done before this goes. Then I visited Lord Pembroke,³¹ who is just come to town; and we were very merry talking of old things; and I hit him with one pun. Then I went to see the Ladies Butler, and the son of a whore of a porter denied them: so I sent them a threatening message by another lady, for not excepting me always to the porter. I was weary of the Coffee-house, and Ford³² desired me to sit with him at next door; which I did, like a fool, chatting till twelve, and now am got into bed. I am afraid the new Ministry is at a terrible loss about money: the Whigs talk so, it would give one the spleen; and I am afraid of meeting Mr. Harley out of humour. They think he will never carry through this undertaking. God knows what will come of it. I should be terribly vexed to see things come round again: it will ruin the Church and clergy for ever; but I hope for better. I will send this on Tuesday, whether I hear any further news of my affair or not.

29. Mr. Addison and I dined to-day with Lord Mountjoy; which is all the adventures of this day.—I chatted a while to-night in the Coffee-house, this being a full night; and now am come home, to write some business.

30. I dined to-day at Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s, and sent a letter to poor Mrs. Long,³³ who writes to us, but is God knows where, and will not tell anybody the place of her residence. I came home early, and must go write.

31. The month ends with a fine day; and I have been walking, and visiting Lewis, and concerting where to see Mr. Harley. I have no news to send you. Aire,³⁴ they say, is taken, though the Whitehall letters this morning say quite the contrary: ’tis good, if it be true. I dined with Mr. Addison and Dick Stewart, Lord Mountjoy’s brother;³⁵ a treat of Addison’s. They were half-fuddled, but not I; for I mixed water with my wine, and left them together between nine and ten; and I must send this by the bellman, which vexes me, but I will put it off no longer. Pray God it does not miscarry. I seldom do so; but I can put off little MD no longer. Pray give the under note to Mrs. Brent.

I am a pretty gentleman; and you lose all your money at cards, sirrah Stella. I found you out; I did so.

I am staying before I can fold up this letter, till that ugly D is dry in the last line but one. Do not you see it? O Lord, I am loth to leave you, faith—but it must be so, till the next time. Pox take that D; I will blot it, to dry it.

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 1704, paid his addresses to Mrs. Johnson” (Deane Swift). The Rev. William Tisdall was made D.D. in 1707. Swift never forgave Tisdall’s proposal to marry Esther Johnson in 1704, 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 1740.

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 1750.

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 1706, 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, 1709, 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 1707 to December 1708. 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.

London, Oct. 31, 1710.

So, now I have sent my seventh to your fourth, young women; and now I will tell you what I would not in my last, that this morning, sitting in my bed, I had a fit of giddiness: the room turned round for about a minute, and then it went off, leaving me sickish, but not very: and so I passed the day as I told you; but I would not end a letter with telling you this, because it might vex you: and I hope in God I shall have no more of it. I saw Dr. Cockburn¹ to-day, and he promises to send me the pills that did me good last year; and likewise has promised me an oil for my ear, that he has been making for that ailment for somebody else.

Nov. 1. I wish MD a merry new year. You know this is the first day of it with us.² I had no giddiness to-day; but I drank brandy, and have bought a pint for two shillings. I sat up the night before my giddiness pretty late, and writ very much; so I will impute it to that. But I never eat fruit, nor drink ale; but drink better wine than you do, as I did to-day with Mr. Addison at Lord Mountjoy’s: then went at five to see Mr. Harley, who could not see me for much company; but sent me his excuse, and desired I would dine with him on Friday; and then I expect some answer to this business, which must either be soon done, or begun again; and then the Duke of Ormond and his people will interfere for their honour, and do nothing. I came home at six, and spent my time in my chamber, without going to the Coffee-house, which I grow weary of; and I studied at leisure, writ not above forty lines, some inventions of my own, and some hints, and read not at all, and this because I would take care of Presto, for fear little MD should be angry.

2. I took my four pills last night, and they lay an hour in my throat, and so they will do to-night. I suppose I could swallow four affronts as easily. I dined with Dr. Cockburn to-day, and came home at seven; but Mr. Ford has been with me till just now, and it is near eleven. I have had no giddiness to-day. Mr. Dopping³ I have seen; and he tells me coldly, my “Shower” is liked well enough; there’s your Irish judgment! I writ this post to the Bishop of Clogher. It is now just a fortnight since I heard from you. I must have you write once a fortnight, and then I will allow for wind and weather. How goes ombre? Does Mrs. Walls⁴ win constantly, as she used to do? And Mrs. Stoyte;⁵ I have not thought of her this long time: how does she? I find we have a cargo of Irish coming for London: I am sorry for it; but I never go near them. And Tighe is landed; but Mrs. Wesley,⁶ they say, is going home to her husband, like a fool. Well, little monkeys mine, I must go write; and so goodnight.

3. I ought to read these letters I write, after I have done; for, looking over thus much, I found two or three literal mistakes, which should not be when the hand is so bad. But I hope it does not puzzle little Dingley to read, for I think I mend: but methinks, when I write plain, I do not know how, but we are not alone, all the world can see us. A bad scrawl is so snug, it looks like a PMD.⁷ We have scurvy Tatlers of late: so pray do not suspect me. I have one or two hints I design to send him, and never any more: he does not deserve it. He is governed by his wife most abominably,⁸ as bad as ——. I never saw her since I came; nor has he ever made me an invitation: either he dares not, or is such a thoughtless Tisdall⁹ fellow, that he never minds¹⁰ it. So what care I for his wit? for he is the worst company in the world, till he has a bottle of wine in his head. I cannot write straighter in bed, so you must be content.—At night in bed. Stay, let me see where’s this letter to MD among these papers? Oh! here. Well, I will go on now; but I am very busy (smoke the new pen.) I dined with Mr. Harley to-day, and am invited there again on Sunday. I have now leave to write to the Primate and Archbishop of Dublin, that the Queen has granted the First-Fruits; but they are to take no notice of it, till a letter is sent them by the Queen’s orders from Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State, to signify it. The bishops are to be made a corporation, to dispose of the revenue, etc.; and I shall write to the Archbishop of Dublin to-morrow (I have had no giddiness to-day). I know not whether they will have any occasion for me longer to be here; nor can I judge till I see what letter the Queen sends to the bishops, and what they will do upon it. If despatch be used, it may be done in six weeks; but I cannot judge. They sent me to-day a new Commission, signed by the Primate and Archbishop of Dublin,¹¹ and promise me letters to the two archbishops here; but mine a —— for it all. The thing is done, and has been so these ten days; though I had only leave to tell it to-day. I had this day likewise a letter from the Bishop of Clogher, who complains of my not writing; and, what vexes me, says he knows you have long letters from me every week. Why do you tell him so? ’Tis not right, faith: but I won’t be angry with MD at distance. I writ to him last post, before I had his; and will write again soon, since I see he expects it, and that Lord and Lady Mountjoy¹² put him off upon me, to give themselves ease. Lastly, I had this day a letter from a certain naughty rogue called MD, and it was N. 5; which I shall not answer to-night, I thank you. No, faith, I have other fish to fry; but to-morrow or next day will be time enough. I have put MD’s commissions in a memorandum paper. I think I have done all before, and remember nothing but this to-day about glasses and spectacles and spectacle cases. I have no commission from Stella, but the chocolate and handkerchiefs; and those are bought, and I expect they will be soon sent. I have been with, and sent to, Mr. Sterne, two or three times to know; but he was not within. Odds my life, what am I doing? I must go write and do business.

4. I dined to-day at Kensington, with Addison, Steele, etc., came home, and writ a short letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, to let him know the Queen has granted the thing, etc. I writ in the Coffee-house, for I stayed at Kensington till nine, and am plaguy weary; for Colonel Proud¹³ was very ill company, and I will never be of a party with him again; and I drank punch, and that and ill company has made me hot.

5. I was with Mr. Harley from dinner to seven this night, and went to the Coffee-house, where Dr. Davenant¹⁴ would fain have had me gone and drink a bottle of wine at his house hard by, with Dr. Chamberlen,¹⁵ but the puppy used so many words, that I was afraid of his company; and though we promised to come at eight, I sent a messenger to him, that Chamberlen was going to a patient, and therefore we would put it off till another time: so he, and the Comptroller,¹⁶ and I, were prevailed on by Sir Matthew Dudley to go to his house, where I stayed till twelve, and left them. Davenant has been teasing me to look over some of his writings that he is going to publish; but the rogue is so fond of his own productions, that I hear he will not part with a syllable; and he has lately put out a foolish pamphlet, called The Third Part of Tom Double; to make his court to the Tories, whom he had left.

6. I was to-day gambling¹⁷ in the City to see Patty Rolt, who is going to Kingston, where she lodges; but, to say the truth, I had a mind for a walk to exercise myself, and happened to be disengaged: for dinners are ten times more plentiful with me here than ever, or than in Dublin. I won’t answer your letter yet, because I am busy. I hope to send this before I have another from MD: it would be a sad thing to answer two letters together, as MD does from Presto. But when the two sides are full, away the letter shall go, that is certain, like it or not like it; and that will be about three days hence, for the answering-night will be a long one.

7. I dined to-day at Sir Richard Temple’s, with Congreve, Vanbrugh, Lieutenant-General Farrington,¹⁸ etc. Vanbrugh, I believe I told you, had a long quarrel with me about those verses on his house;¹⁹ but we were very civil and cold. Lady Marlborough used to tease him with them, which had made him angry, though he be a good-natured fellow. It was a Thanksgiving-day,²⁰ and I was at Court, where the Queen passed us by with all Tories about her; not one Whig: Buckingham,²¹ Rochester,²² Leeds,²³ Shrewsbury, Berkeley of Stratton, Lord Keeper Harcourt, Mr. Harley, Lord Pembroke, etc.; and I have seen her without one Tory. The Queen made me a curtsey, and said, in a sort of familiar way to Presto, “How does MD?” I considered she was a Queen, and so excused her.²⁴ I do not miss the Whigs at Court; but have as many acquaintance there as formerly.

8. Here’s ado and a clutter! I must now answer MD’s fifth; but first you must know I dined at the Portugal Envoy’s²⁵ to-day, with Addison, Vanbrugh, Admiral Wager,²⁶ Sir Richard Temple,²⁷ Methuen,²⁸ etc. I was weary of their company, and stole away at five, and came home like a good boy, and studied till ten, and had a fire, O ho! and now am in bed. I have no fireplace in my bed-chamber; but ’tis very warm weather when one’s in bed. Your fine cap,²⁹ Madam Dingley, is too little, and too hot: I will have that fur taken off; I wish it were far enough; and my old velvet cap is good for nothing. Is it velvet under the fur? I was feeling, but cannot find: if it be, ’twill do without it else I will face it; but then I must buy new velvet: but may be I may beg a piece. What shall I do? Well, now to rogue MD’s letter. God be thanked for Stella’s eyes mending; and God send it holds; but faith you writ too much at a time: better write less, or write it at ten times. Yes, faith, a long letter in a morning from a dear friend is a dear thing. I smoke a compliment, little mischievous girls, I do so. But who are those WIGGS that think I am turned Tory? Do you mean Whigs? Which WIGGS and WAT do you mean? I know nothing of Raymond, and only had one letter from him a little after I came here.[Pray remember Morgan.) Raymond is indeed like to have much influence over me in London, and to share much of my conversation. I shall, no doubt, introduce him to Harley, and Lord Keeper, and the Secretary of State. The Tatler upon Ithuriel’s spear³⁰ is not mine, madam. What a puzzle there is betwixt you and your judgment! In general you may be sometimes sure of things, as that about STYLE,³¹ because it is what I have frequently spoken of; but guessing is mine a——, and I defy mankind, if I please. Why, I writ a pamphlet when I was last in London, that you and a thousand have seen, and never guessed it to be mine. Could you have guessed the “Shower in Town” to be mine? How chance you did not see that before your last letter went? but I suppose you in Ireland did not think it worth mentioning. Nor am I suspected for the lampoon; only Harley said he smoked me; (have I told you so before?) and some others knew it. ’Tis called “The Rod of Sid Hamet.” And I have written several other things that I hear commended, and nobody suspects me for them; nor you shall not know till I see you again. What do you mean, “That boards near me, that I dine with now and then?” I know no such person: I do not dine with boarders. What the pox! You know whom I have dined with every day since I left you, better than I do. What do you mean, sirrah? Slids, my ailment has been over these two months almost. Impudence, if you vex me, I will give ten shillings a week for my lodging; for I am almost st—k out of this with the sink, and it helps me to verses in my “Shower.”³² Well, Madam Dingley, what say you to the world to come? What ballad? Why go look, it was not good for much: have patience till I come back: patience is a gay thing as, etc. I hear nothing of Lord Mountjoy’s coming for Ireland. When is Stella’s birthday? in March? Lord bless me, my turn at Christ Church;³³ it is so natural to hear you write about that, I believe you have done it a hundred times; it is as fresh in my mind, the verger coming to you; and why to you? Would he have you preach for me? O, pox on your spelling of Latin, Johnsonibus atque, that is the way. How did the Dean get that name by the end? ’Twas you betrayed me: not I, faith; I’ll not break his head. Your mother is still in the country, I suppose; for she promised to see me when she came to town. I writ to her four days ago, to desire her to break it to Lady Giffard, to put some money for you in the Bank, which was then fallen thirty per cent. Would to God mine had been here, I should have gained one hundred pounds, and got as good interest as in Ireland, and much securer. I would fain have borrowed three hundred pounds; but money is so scarce here, there is no borrowing, by this fall of stocks. ’Tis rising now, and I knew it would: it fell from one hundred and twenty-nine to ninety-six. I have not heard since from your mother. Do you think I would be so unkind not to see her, that you desire me in a style so melancholy? Mrs. Raymond,³⁴ you say, is with child: I am sorry for it; and so is, I believe, her husband. Mr. Harley speaks all the kind things to me in the world; and, I believe, would serve me, if I were to stay here; but I reckon in time the Duke of Ormond may give me some addition to Laracor. Why should the Whigs think I came to England to leave them? Sure my journey was no secret. I protest sincerely, I did all I could to hinder it, as the Dean can tell you, although now I do not repent it. But who the Devil cares what they think? Am I under obligations in the least to any of them all? Rot ’em, for ungrateful dogs; I will make them repent their usage before I leave this place. They say here the same thing of my leaving the Whigs; but they own they cannot blame me, considering the treatment I have had. I will take care of your spectacles, as I told you before, and of the Bishop of Killala’s; but I will not write to him, I have not time. What do you mean by my fourth, Madam Dinglibus? Does not Stella say you have had my fifth, Goody Blunder? You frighted me till I looked back. Well, this is enough for one night. Pray give my humble service to Mrs. Stoyte and her sister, Kate is it, or Sarah?³⁵ I have forgot her name, faith. I think I will even (and to Mrs. Walls and the Archdeacon) send this to-morrow: no, faith, that will be in ten days from the last. I will keep it till Saturday, though I write no more. But what if a letter from MD should come in the meantime? Why then I would only say, “Madam, I have received your sixth letter; your most humble servant to command, Presto”; and so conclude. Well, now I will write and think a little, and so to bed, and dream of MD.

9. I have my mouth full of water, and was going to spit it out, because I reasoned with myself, how could I write when my mouth was full? Han’t you done things like that, reasoned wrong at first thinking? Well, I was to see Mr. Lewis this morning, and am to dine a few days hence, as he tells me, with Mr. Secretary St. John; and I must contrive to see Harley soon again, to hasten this business from the Queen. I dined to-day at Lord Mountrath’s,³⁶ with Lord Mountjoy,³⁷ etc.; but the wine was not good, so I came away, stayed at the Coffee-house till seven, then came home to my fire, the maidenhead of my second half-bushel, and am now in bed at eleven, as usual. ’Tis mighty warm; yet I fear I should catch cold this wet weather, if I sat an evening in my room after coming from warm places: and I must make much of myself, because MD is not here to take care of Presto; and I am full of business, writing, etc., and do not care for the Coffee-house; and so this serves for all together, not to tell it you over and over, as silly people do; but Presto is a wiser man, faith, than so, let me tell you, gentlewomen. See, I am got to the third side; but, faith, I will not do that often; but I must say something early to-day, till the letter is done, and on Saturday it shall go; so I must leave something till to-morrow, till to-morrow and next day.

10. O Lord, I would this letter was with you with all my heart! If it should miscarry, what a deal would be lost! I forgot to leave a gap in the last line but one for the seal, like a puppy; but I should have allowed for night, goodnight; but when I am taking leave, I cannot leave a bit, faith; but I fancy the seal will not come there. I dined to-day at Lady Lucy’s, where they ran down my “Shower”; and said, “Sid Hamet” was the silliest poem they ever read; and told Prior so, whom they thought to be author of it. Don’t you wonder I never dined there before? But I am too busy, and they live too far off; and, besides, I do not like women so much as I did. (MD, you must know, are not women.) I supped to-night at Addison’s, with Garth, Steele, and Mr. Dopping; and am come home late. Lewis has sent to me to desire I will dine with some company I shall like. I suppose it is Mr. Secretary St. John’s appointment. I had a letter just now from Raymond, who is at Bristol, and says he will be at London in a fortnight, and leave his wife behind him; and desires any lodging in the house where I am: but that must not be. I shall not know what to do with him in town: to be sure, I will not present him to any acquaintance of mine; and he will live a delicate life, a parson and a perfect stranger! Paaast twelvvve o’clock,³⁸ and so good-night, etc. Oh! but I forgot, Jemmy Leigh is come to town; says he has brought Dingley’s things, and will send them with the first convenience. My parcel, I hear, is not sent yet. He thinks of going for Ireland in a month, etc. I cannot write tomorrow, because—what, because of the Archbishop; because I will seal my letter early; because I am engaged from noon till night; because of many kind of things; and yet I will write one or two words to-morrow morning, to keep up my journal constant, and at night I will begin my ninth.

11. Morning by candlelight. You must know that I am in my nightgown every morning between six and seven, and Patrick is forced to ply me fifty times before I can get on my nightgown; and so now I will take my leave of my own dear MD for this letter, and begin my next when I come home at night. God Almighty bless and protect dearest MD. Farewell, etc.

This letter’s as long as a sermon, faith.

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 1707, 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 1702, and he was in this latter regiment in 1704. 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 1705, “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 1703, he was made secretary to the Commissioners appointed to treat for a union with Scotland. To this post was added, in 1705, 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 1704. 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 1701-2; in 1707 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 1707, 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 1702. He was a subscriber for a copy of the Tatler on royal paper (Aitken, Life of Steele, i. 329, 330).

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 1703, 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 1703; 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 1707 to 1709, 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. 230.

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.

London, Nov. 11, 1710.

I dined to-day, by invitation, with the Secretary of State, Mr. St. John. Mr. Harley came in to us before dinner, and made me his excuses for not dining with us, because he was to receive people who came to propose advancing money to the Government: there dined with us only Mr. Lewis, and Dr. Freind¹ (that writ “Lord Peterborow’s Actions in Spain”). I stayed with them till just now between ten and eleven, and was forced again to give my eighth to the bellman, which I did with my own hands, rather than keep it till next post. The Secretary used me with all the kindness in the world. Prior came in after dinner; and, upon an occasion, he (the Secretary) said, “The best thing I ever read is not yours, but Dr. Swift’s on Vanbrugh”; which I do not reckon so very good neither.² But Prior was damped, until I stuffed him with two or three compliments. I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple, because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty; and here is a young fellow, hardly thirty, in that employment.³ His father is a man of pleasure,⁴ that walks the Mall, and frequents St. James’s Coffee-house, and the chocolate-houses; and the young son is principal Secretary of State. Is there not something very odd in that? He told me, among other things, that Mr. Harley complained he could keep nothing from me, I had the way so much of getting into him. I knew that was a refinement; and so I told him, and it was so: indeed, it is hard to see these great men use me like one who was their betters, and the puppies with you in Ireland hardly regarding me: but there are some reasons for all this, which I will tell you when we meet. At coming home, I saw a letter from your mother, in answer to one I sent her two days ago. It seems she is in town; but cannot come out in a morning, just as you said; and God knows when I shall be at leisure in an afternoon: for if I should send her a penny-post letter, and afterwards not be able to meet her, it would vex me; and, besides, the days are short, and why she cannot come early in a morning, before she is wanted, I cannot imagine. I will desire her to let Lady Giffard know that she hears I am in town; and that she would go to see me, to inquire after you. I wonder she will confine herself so much to that old beast’s humour. You know I cannot in honour see Lady Giffard, and consequently not go into her house. This I think is enough for the first time.

12. And how could you write with such thin paper? (I forgot to say this in my former.) Cannot you get thicker? Why, that’s a common caution that writing-masters give their scholars; you must have heard it a hundred times. ’Tis this:

“If paper be thin,
Ink will slip in;
But, if it be thick,
You may write with a stick.”⁵

I had a letter to-day from poor Mrs. Long,⁶ giving me an account of her present life, obscure in a remote country town, and how easy she is under it. Poor creature! ’tis just such an alteration in life, as if Presto should be banished from MD, and condemned to converse with Mrs. Raymond. I dined to-day with Ford, Sir Richard Levinge,⁷ etc., at a place where they board, hard by. I was lazy, and not very well, sitting so long with company yesterday. I have been very busy writing this evening at home, and had a fire: I am spending my second half-bushel of coals; and now am in bed, and ’tis late.

13. I dined to-day in the City, and then went to christen Will Frankland’s⁸ child; and Lady Falconbridge⁹ was one of the godmothers: this is a daughter of Oliver Cromwell, and extremely like him by his pictures that I have seen. I stayed till almost eleven, and am now come home and gone to bed. My business in the City was, to thank Stratford for a kindness he has done me, which now I will tell you. I found Bank Stock was fallen thirty-four in the hundred, and was mighty desirous to buy it; but I was a little too late for the cheapest time, being hindered by business here; for I was so wise to guess to a day when it would fall. My project was this: I had three hundred pounds in Ireland; and so I writ to Mr. Stratford in the City, to desire he would buy me three hundred pounds in Bank Stock, and that he should keep the papers, and that I would be bound to pay him for them; and, if it should rise or fall, I would take my chance, and pay him interest in the meantime. I showed my letter to one or two people who understand those things; and they said money was so hard to be got here, that no man would do it for me. However, Stratford, who is the most generous man alive, has done it: but it costs one hundred pounds and a half, that is, ten shillings; so that three hundred pounds cost me three hundred pounds and thirty shillings. This was done about a week ago, and I can have five pounds for my bargain already. Before it fell, it was one hundred and thirty pounds; and we are sure it will be the same again. I told you I writ to your mother, to desire that Lady Giffard would do the same with what she owes you; but she tells your mother she has no money. I would to God all you had in the world was there. Whenever you lend money, take this rule, to have two people bound, who have both visible fortunes; for they will hardly die together; and, when one dies, you fall upon the other, and make him add another security: and if Rathburn (now I have his name) pays you in your money, let me know, and I will direct Parvisol accordingly: however, he shall wait on you and know. So, ladies, enough of business for one night. Paaaaast twelvvve o’clock. I must only add, that, after a long fit of rainy weather, it has been fair two or three days, and is this day grown cold and frosty; so that you must give poor little Presto leave to have a fire in his chamber morning and evening too; and he will do as much for you.

14. What, has your Chancellor¹⁰ lost his senses, like Will Crowe?¹¹ I forgot to tell Dingley that I was yesterday at Ludgate, bespeaking the spectacles at the great shop there, and shall have them in a day or two. This has been an insipid day. I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, and came gravely home, after just visiting the Coffee-house. Sir Richard Cox,¹² they say, is sure of going over Lord Chancellor, who is as arrant a puppy as ever ate bread: but the Duke of Ormond has a natural affection to puppies; which is a thousand pities, being none himself. I have been amusing myself at home till now, and in bed bid you good-night.

15. I have been visiting this morning, but nobody was at home, Secretary St. John, Sir Thomas Hanmer,¹³ Sir Chancellor Cox-comb, etc. I attended the Duke of Ormond with about fifty other Irish gentlemen at Skinners’ Hall, where the Londonderry Society laid out three hundred pounds to treat us and his Grace with a dinner. Three great tables with the dessert laid in mighty figure. Sir Richard Levinge and I got discreetly to the head of the second table, to avoid the crowd at the first: but it was so cold, and so confounded a noise with the trumpets and hautboys, that I grew weary, and stole away before the second course came on; so I can give you no account of it, which is a thousand pities. I called at Ludgate for Dingley’s glasses, and shall have them in a day or two; and I doubt it will cost me thirty shillings for a microscope, but not without Stella’s permission; for I remember she is a virtuoso. Shall I buy it or no? ’Tis not the great bulky ones, nor the common little ones, to impale a louse (saving your presence) upon a needle’s point; but of a more exact sort, and clearer to the sight, with all its equipage in a little trunk that you may carry in your pocket. Tell me, sirrah, shall I buy it or not for you? I came home straight, etc.

16. I dined to-day in the city with Mr. Manley,¹⁴ who invited Mr. Addison and me, and some other friends, to his lodging, and entertained us very handsomely. I returned with Mr. Addison, and loitered till nine in the Coffee-house, where I am hardly known, by going so seldom. I am here soliciting for Trounce; you know him: he was gunner in the former yacht, and would fain be so in the present one if you remember him, a good, lusty, fresh-coloured fellow. Shall I stay till I get another letter from MD before I close up this? Mr. Addison and I meet a little seldomer than formerly, although we are still at bottom as good friends as ever, but differ a little about party.

17. To-day I went to Lewis at the Secretary’s office; where I saw and spoke to Mr. Harley, who promised, in a few days, to finish the rest of my business. I reproached him for putting me on the necessity of minding him of it, and rallied him, etc., which he took very well. I dined to-day with one Mr. Gore, elder brother to a young merchant of my acquaintance; and Stratford and my other friend merchants dined with us, where I stayed late, drinking claret and burgundy; and am just got to bed, and will say no more, but that it now begins to be time to have a letter from my own little MD; for the last I had above a fortnight ago, and the date was old too.

18. To-day I dined with Lewis and Prior at an eating-house, but with Lewis’s wine. Lewis went away, and Prior and I sat on, where we complimented one another for an hour or two upon our mutual wit and poetry. Coming home at seven, a gentleman unknown stopped me in the Pall Mall, and asked my advice; said he had been to see the Queen (who was just come to town, and the people in waiting would not let him see her; that he had two hundred thousand men ready to serve her in the war; that he knew the Queen perfectly well, and had an apartment at Court, and if she heard he was there, she would send for him immediately; that she owed him two hundred thousand pounds, etc., and he desired my opinion, whether he should go try again whether he could see her; or because, perhaps, she was weary after her journey, whether he had not better stay till to-morrow. I had a mind to get rid of my companion, and begged him of all love to go and wait on her immediately; for that, to my knowledge, the Queen would admit him; that this was an affair of great importance, and required despatch: and I instructed him to let me know the success of his business, and come to the Smyrna Coffee-house, where I would wait for him till midnight; and so ended this adventure. I would have fain given the man half a crown; but was afraid to offer it him, lest he should be offended; for, beside his money, he said he had a thousand pounds a year. I came home not early; and so, madams both, goodnight, etc.

19. I dined to-day with poor Lord Mountjoy, who is ill of the gout; and this evening I christened our coffee-man Elliot’s¹⁵ child, where the rogue had a most noble supper, and Steele and I sat among some scurvy company over a bowl of punch; so that I am come home late, young women, and can’t stay to write to little rogues.

20. I loitered at home, and dined with Sir Andrew Fountaine at his lodging, and then came home: a silly day.

21. I was visiting all this morning, and then went to the Secretary’s office, and found Mr. Harley, with whom I dined; and Secretary St. John, etc., and Harley promised in a very few days to finish what remains of my business. Prior was of the company, and we all dine at the Secretary’s to-morrow. I saw Stella’s mother this morning: she came early, and we talked an hour. I wish you would propose to Lady Giffard to take the three hundred pounds out of her hands, and give her common interest for life, and security that you will pay her: the Bishop of Clogher, or any friend, would be security for you, if you gave them counter-security; and it may be argued that it will pass better to be in your hands than hers, in case of mortality, etc. Your mother says, if you write, she will second it; and you may write to your mother, and then it will come from her. She tells me Lady Giffard has a mind to see me, by her discourse; but I told her what to say, with a vengeance. She told Lady Giffard she was going to see me: she looks extremely well. I am writing¹⁶ in my bed like a tiger; and so good-night, etc.

22. I dined with Secretary St. John; and Lord Dartmouth, who is t’other Secretary, dined with us, and Lord Orrery¹⁷ and Prior, etc. Harley called, but could not dine with us, and would have had me away while I was at dinner; but I did not like the company he was to have. We stayed till eight, and I called at the Coffee-house, and looked where the letters lie; but no letter directed for Mr. Presto: at last I saw a letter to Mr. Addison, and it looked like a rogue’s hand; so I made the fellow give it me, and opened it before him, and saw three letters all for myself: so, truly, I put them in my pocket, and came home to my lodging. Well, and so you shall hear: well, and so I found one of them in Dingley’s hand, and t’other in Stella’s, and the third in Domville’s.¹⁸ Well, so you shall hear; so, said I to myself, What now, two letters from MD together? But I thought there was something in the wind; so I opened one, and I opened t’other; and so you shall hear, one was from Walls. Well, but t’other was from our own dear MD; yes it was. O faith, have you received my seventh, young women, already? Then I must send this to-morrow, else there will be old¹⁹ doings at our house, faith.—Well, I won’t answer your letter in this: no, faith, catch me at that, and I never saw the like. Well; but as to Walls, tell him (with service to him and wife, etc.) that I have no imagination of Mr. Pratt’s²⁰ losing his place: and while Pratt continues, Clements is in no danger; and I have already engaged Lord Hyde²¹ he speaks of, for Pratt and twenty others; but, if such a thing should happen, I will do what I can. I have above ten businesses of other people’s now on my hands, and, I believe, shall miscarry in half. It is your sixth I now have received. I writ last post to the Bishop of Clogher again. Shall I send this to-morrow? Well, I will, to oblige MD. Which would you rather, a short letter every week, or a long one every fortnight? A long one; well, it shall be done, and so good-night. Well, but is this a long one? No, I warrant you: too long for naughty girls.

23. I only ask, have you got both the ten pounds, or only the first; I hope you mean both. Pray be good housewives; and I beg you to walk when you can, for health. Have you the horse in town? and do you ever ride him? how often? Confess. Ahhh, sirrah, have I caught you? Can you contrive to let Mrs. Fenton²² know, that the request she has made me in her letter I will use what credit I have to bring about, although I hear it is very difficult, and I doubt I shall not succeed? Cox is not to be your Chancellor: all joined against him. I have been supping with Lord Peterborow at his house, with Prior, Lewis, and Dr. Freind. ’Tis the ramblingest lying rogue on earth. Dr. Raymond is come to town: ’tis late, and so I bid you good-night.

24. I tell you, pretty management! Ned Southwell told me the other day he had a letter from the bishops of Ireland, with an address to the Duke of Ormond, to intercede with the Queen to take off the First-Fruits. I dined with him to-day, and saw it, with another letter to him from the Bishop of Kildare,²³ to call upon me for the papers, etc.; and I had last post one from the Archbishop of Dublin, telling me the reason of this proceeding; that, upon hearing the Duke of Ormond was declared Lord Lieutenant, they met; and the bishops were for this project, and talked coldly of my being solicitor, as one that was favoured by t’other party, etc., but desired that I would still solicit.²⁴ Now the wisdom of this is admirable; for I had given the Archbishop an account of my reception from Mr. Harley, and how he had spoken to the Queen, and promised it should be done; but Mr. Harley ordered me to tell no person alive. Some time after, he gave me leave to let the Primate and Archbishop know that the Queen had remitted the First-Fruits; and that in a short time they should have an account of it in form from Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State. So while their letter was on the road to the Duke of Ormond and Southwell, mine was going to them with an account of the thing being done. I writ a very warm answer²⁵ to the Archbishop immediately; and showed my resentments, as I ought, against the bishops; only, in good manners, excepting himself. I wonder what they will say when they hear the thing is done. I was yesterday forced to tell Southwell so, that the Queen had done it, etc.; for he said, my Lord Duke would think of it some months hence, when he was going for Ireland; and he had it three years in doing formerly, without any success. I give you free leave to say, on occasion, that it is done; and that Mr. Harley prevailed on the Queen to do it, etc., as you please. As I hope to live, I despise the credit of it, out of an excess of pride; and desire you will not give me the least merit when you talk of it; but I would vex the bishops, and have it spread that Mr. Harley had done it: pray do so. Your mother sent me last night a parcel of wax candles, and a bandbox full of small plumcakes. I thought it had been something for you; and, without opening them, sent answer by the maid that brought them, that I would take care to send the things, etc.; but I will write her thanks. Is this a long letter, sirrahs? Now, are you satisfied? I have had no fit since the first: I drink brandy every morning, and take pills every night. Never fear, I an’t vexed at this puppy business of the bishops, although I was a little at first. I will tell you my reward: Mr. Harley will think he has done me a favour; the Duke of Ormond, perhaps, that I have put a neglect on him; and the bishops in Ireland, that I have done nothing at all. So goes the world. But I have got above all this, and, perhaps, I have better reason for it than they know: and so you shall hear no more of First-Fruits, dukes, Harleys, archbishops, and Southwells.

I have slipped off Raymond upon some of his countrymen, to show him the town, etc., and I lend him Patrick. He desires to sit with me in the evenings; upon which I have given Patrick positive orders that I am not within at evenings.

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.

London, Nov. 25, 1710.

I will tell you something that’s plaguy silly: I had forgot to say on the 23d in my last, where I dined; and because I had done it constantly, I thought it was a great omission, and was going to interline it; but at last the silliness of it made me cry, Pshah, and I let it alone. I was to-day to see the Parliament meet; but only saw a great crowd; and Ford and I went to see the tombs at Westminster, and sauntered so long I was forced to go to an eating-house for my dinner. Bromley¹ is chosen Speaker, nemine contradicente: Do you understand those two words? And Pompey, Colonel Hill’s² black, designs to stand Speaker for the footmen.³ I am engaged to use my interest for him, and have spoken to Patrick to get him some votes. We are now all impatient for the Queen’s speech, what she will say about removing the Ministry, etc. I have got a cold, and I don’t know how; but got it I have, and am hoarse: I don’t know whether it will grow better or worse. What’s that to you? I won’t answer your letter to-night. I’ll keep you a little longer in suspense: I can’t send it. Your mother’s cakes are very good, and one of them serves me for a breakfast, and so I’ll go sleep like a good boy.

26. I have got a cruel cold, and stayed within all this day in my nightgown, and dined on sixpennyworth of victuals, and read and writ, and was denied to everybody. Dr. Raymond⁴ called often, and I was denied; and at last, when I was weary, I let him come up, and asked him, without consequence, how Patrick denied me, and whether he had the art of it? So by this means he shall be used to have me denied to him; otherwise he would be a plaguy trouble and hindrance to me: he has sat with me two hours, and drank a pint of ale cost me fivepence, and smoked his pipe, and it is now past eleven that he is just gone. Well, my eighth is with you now, young women; and your seventh to me is somewhere in a post-boy’s bag; and so go to your gang of deans, and Stoytes, and Walls, and lose your money; go, sauceboxes: and so good-night, and be happy, dear rogues. Oh, but your box was sent to Dr. Hawkshaw by Sterne, and you will have it with Hawkshaw, and spectacles, etc., etc.

27. To-day Mr. Harley met me in the Court of Requests,⁵ and whispered me to dine with him. At dinner I told him what those bishops had done, and the difficulty I was under. He bid me never trouble myself; he would tell the Duke of Ormond the business was done, and that he need not concern himself about it. So now I am easy, and they may hang themselves for a parcel of insolent, ungrateful rascals. I suppose I told you in my last, how they sent an address to the Duke of Ormond, and a letter to Southwell, to call on me for the papers, after the thing was over; but they had not received my letter, though the Archbishop might, by what I writ to him, have expected it would be done. Well, there is an end of that; and in a little time the Queen will send them notice, etc. And so the methods will be settled; and then I shall think of returning, although the baseness of those bishops makes me love Ireland less than I did.

28. Lord Halifax sent to invite me to dinner; where I stayed till six, and crossed him in all his Whig talk, and made him often come over to me. I know he makes court to the new men, although he affects to talk like a Whig. I had a letter to-day from the Bishop of Clogher; but I writ to him lately, that I would obey his commands to the Duke of Ormond. He says I bid him read the London “Shaver,” and that you both swore it was “Shaver,” and not “Shower.”⁶ You all lie, and you are puppies, and can’t read Presto’s hand. The Bishop is out entirely in his conjectures of my share in the Tatlers.—I have other things to mind, and of much greater importance;⁷ else I have little to do to be acquainted with a new Ministry, who consider me a little more than Irish bishops do.

29. Now for your saucy, good dear letter: let me see, what does it say? come then. I dined to-day with Ford, and went home early; he debauched⁸ me to his chamber again with a bottle of wine till twelve: so good-night. I cannot write an answer now, you rogues.

30. To-day I have been visiting, which I had long neglected; and I dined with Mrs. Barton alone; and sauntered at the Coffee-house till past eight, and have been busy till eleven, and now I’ll answer your letter, saucebox. Well, let me see now again. My wax candle’s almost out, but however I’ll begin. Well then, do not be so tedious, Mr. Presto; what can you say to MD’s letter? Make haste, have done with your preambles—Why, I say I am glad you are so often abroad; your mother thinks it is want of exercise hurts you, and so do I. (She called here to-night, but I was not within, that’s by the bye.) Sure you do not deceive me, Stella, when you say you are in better health than you were these three weeks; for Dr. Raymond told me yesterday, that Smyth of the Blind Quay had been telling Mr. Leigh that he left you extremely ill; and in short, spoke so, that he almost put poor Leigh into tears, and would have made me run distracted; though your letter is dated the 11th instant, and I saw Smyth in the city above a fortnight ago, as I passed by in a coach. Pray, pray, don’t write, Stella, until you are mighty, mighty, mighty, mighty well in your eyes, and are sure it won’t do you the least hurt. Or come, I’ll tell you what; you, Mistress Stella, shall write your share at five or six sittings, one sitting a day; and then comes Dingley all together, and then Stella a little crumb towards the end, to let us see she remembers Presto; and then conclude with something handsome and genteel, as your most humblecumdumble, or, etc. O Lord! does Patrick write word of my not coming till spring? Insolent man! he know my secrets? No; as my Lord Mayor said, No; if I thought my shirt knew, etc. Faith, I will come as soon as it is any way proper for me to come; but, to say the truth, I am at present a little involved with the present Ministry in some certain things (which I tell you as a secret); and soon as ever I can clear my hands, I will stay no longer; for I hope the First-Fruit business will be soon over in all its forms. But, to say the truth, the present Ministry have a difficult task, and want me, etc. Perhaps they may be just as grateful as others: but, according to the best judgment I have, they are pursuing the true interest of the public; and therefore I am glad to contribute what is in my power. For God’s sake, not a word of this to any alive.—Your Chancellor?⁹ Why, madam, I can tell you he has been dead this fortnight. Faith, I could hardly forbear our little language about a nasty dead Chancellor, as you may see by the blot.¹⁰ Ploughing? A pox plough them; they’ll plough me to nothing. But have you got your money, both the ten pounds? How durst he pay you the second so soon? Pray be good huswifes. Ay, well, and Joe, why, I had a letter lately from Joe, desiring I would take some care of their poor town,¹¹ who, he says, will lose their liberties. To which I desired Dr. Raymond would return answer, that the town had behaved themselves so ill to me, so little regarded the advice I gave them, and disagreed so much among themselves, that I was resolved never to have more to do with them; but that whatever personal kindness I could do to Joe, should be done. Pray, when you happen to see Joe, tell him this, lest Raymond should have blundered or forgotten—Poor Mrs. Wesley!—Why these poligyes¹² for being abroad? Why should you be at home at all, until Stella is quite well?— So, here is Mistress Stella again, with her two eggs, etc. My “Shower” admired with you; why, the Bishop of Clogher says, he has seen something of mine of the same sort, better than the “Shower.” I suppose he means “The Morning”;¹³ but it is not half so good. I want your judgment of things, and not your country’s. How does MD like it? and do they taste it ALL? etc. I am glad Dean Bolton¹⁴ has paid the twenty pounds. Why should not I chide the Bishop of Clogher for writing to the Archbishop of Cashel,¹⁵ without sending the letter first to me? It does not signify a ——; for he has no credit at Court. Stuff—they are all puppies. I will break your head in good earnest, young woman, for your nasty jest about Mrs. Barton.¹⁶ Unlucky sluttikin, what a word is there! Faith, I was thinking yesterday, when I was with her, whether she could break them or no, and it quite spoilt my imagination. “Mrs. Walls, does Stella win as she pretends?” “No indeed, Doctor; she loses always, and will play so VENTERSOMELY, how can she win?” See here now; an’t you an impudent lying slut? Do, open Domville’s letter; what does it signify, if you have a mind? Yes, faith, you write smartly with your eyes shut; all was well but the n. See how I can do it; MADAM STELLA, YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT.¹⁷ O, but one may look whether one goes crooked or no, and so write on. I will tell you what you may do; you may write with your eyes half shut, just as when one is going to sleep: I have done so for two or three lines now; it is but just seeing enough to go straight.—Now, Madam Dingley, I think I bid you tell Mr. Walls that, in case there be occasion, I will serve his friend as far as I can; but I hope there will be none. Yet I believe you will have a new Parliament; but I care not whether you have or no a better. You are mistaken in all your conjectures about the Tatlers. I have given him one or two hints, and you have heard me talk about the Shilling.¹⁸ Faith, these answering letters are very long ones: you have taken up almost the room of a week in journals; and I will tell you what, I saw fellows wearing crosses to-day,¹⁹ and I wondered what was the matter; but just this minute I recollect it is little Presto’s birthday; and I was resolved these three days to remember it when it came, but could not. Pray, drink my health to-day at dinner; do, you rogues. Do you like “Sid Hamet’s Rod”? Do you understand it all? Well, now at last I have done with your letter, and so I will lay me down to sleep, and about, fair maids; and I hope merry maids all.

Dec. 1. Morning. I wish Smyth were hanged. I was dreaming the most melancholy things in the world of poor Stella, and was grieving and crying all night.—Pshah, it is foolish: I will rise and divert myself; so good-morrow; and God of His infinite mercy keep and protect you! The Bishop of Clogher’s letter is dated Nov. 21. He says you thought of going with him to Clogher. I am heartily glad of it, and wish you would ride there, and Dingley go in a coach. I have had no fit since my first, although sometimes my head is not quite in good order.—At night. I was this morning to visit Mr. Pratt, who is come over with poor, sick Lord Shelburne: they made me dine with them; and there I stayed, like a booby, till eight, looking over them at ombre, and then came home. Lord Shelburne’s giddiness is turned into a colic, and he looks miserably.

2. Steele, the rogue, has done the imprudentest thing in the world: he said something in a Tatler,²⁰ that we ought to use the word Great Britain, and not England, in common conversation, as, “The finest lady in Great Britain,” etc. Upon this, Rowe, Prior, and I sent him a letter, turning this into ridicule. He has to-day printed the letter,²¹ and signed it J.S., M.P., and N.R., the first letters of all our names. Congreve told me to-day, he smoked it immediately. Congreve and I, and Sir Charles Wager, dined to-day at Delaval’s, the Portugal Envoy; and I stayed there till eight, and came home, and am now writing to you before I do business, because that dog Patrick is not at home, and the fire is not made, and I am not in my gear. Pox take him!—I was looking by chance at the top of this side, and find I make plaguy mistakes in words; so that you must fence against that as well as bad writing. Faith, I can’t nor won’t read what I have written. (Pox of this puppy!) Well, I’ll leave you till I am got to bed, and then I will say a word or two.—Well, ’tis now almost twelve, and I have been busy ever since, by a fire too (I have my coals by half a bushel at a time, I’ll assure you), and now I am got to bed. Well, and what have you to say to Presto now he is abed? Come now, let us hear your speeches. No, ’tis a lie; I an’t sleepy yet. Let us sit up a little longer, and talk. Well, where have you been to-day, that you are but just this minute come home in a coach? What have you lost? Pay the coachman, Stella. No, faith, not I, he’ll grumble.—What new acquaintance have you got? come, let us hear. I have made Delaval promise to send me some Brazil tobacco from Portugal for you, Madam Dingley. I hope you will have your chocolate and spectacles before this comes to you.

3. Pshaw, I must be writing to these dear saucy brats every night, whether I will or no, let me have what business I will, or come home ever so late, or be ever so sleepy; but an old saying, and a true one,

“Be you lords, or be you earls,
You must write to naughty girls.”

I was to-day at Court, and saw Raymond among the Beefeaters, staying to see the Queen: so I put him in a better station, made two or three dozen of bows, and went to church, and then to Court again, to pick up a dinner, as I did with Sir John Stanley; and then we went to visit Lord Mountjoy, and just now left him; and ’tis near eleven at night, young women; and methinks this letter comes pretty near to the bottom, and ’tis but eight days since the date, and don’t think I’ll write on the other side, I thank you for nothing. Faith, if I would use you to letters on sheets as broad as this room, you would always expect them from me. O, faith, I know you well enough; but an old saying, etc.,

“Two sides in a sheet,
And one in a street.”

I think that’s but a silly old saying; and so I’ll go to sleep, and do you so too.

4. I dined to-day with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, and then came home, and studied till eleven. No adventure at all to-day.

5. So I went to the Court of Requests (we have had the Devil and all of rain by the bye) to pick up a dinner; and Henley made me go dine with him and one Colonel Bragg²² at a tavern; cost me money, faith. Congreve was to be there, but came not. I came with Henley to the Coffee-house, where Lord Salisbury²³ seemed mighty desirous to talk with me; and, while he was wriggling himself into my favour, that dog Henley asked me aloud, whether I would go to see Lord Somers as I had promised (which was a lie); and all to vex poor Lord Salisbury, who is a high Tory. He played two or three other such tricks; and I was forced to leave my lord, and I came home at seven, and have been writing ever since, and will now go to bed. The other day I saw Jack Temple²⁴ in the Court of Requests: it was the first time of seeing him; so we talked two or three careless words, and parted. Is it true that your Recorder and Mayor, and fanatic aldermen, a month or two ago, at a solemn feast, drank Mr. Harley’s, Lord Rochester’s,²⁵ and other Tory healths? Let me know; it was confidently said here.—The scoundrels! It shan’t do, Tom.

6. When is this letter to go, I wonder? harkee, young women, tell me that. Saturday next for certain, and not before: then it will be just a fortnight; time enough for naughty girls, and long enough for two letters, faith. Congreve and Delaval have at last prevailed on Sir Godfrey Kneller to entreat me to let him draw my picture for nothing; but I know not yet when I shall sit.²⁶—It is such monstrous rainy weather, that there is no doing with it. Secretary St. John sent to me this morning, that my dining with him to-day was put off till to-morrow; so I peaceably sat with my neighbour Ford, dined with him, and came home at six, and am now in bed as usual; and now it is time to have another letter from MD, yet I would not have it till this goes; for that would look like two letters for one. Is it not whimsical that the Dean has never once written to me? And I find the Archbishop very silent to that letter I sent him with an account that the business was done. I believe he knows not what to write or say; and I have since written twice to him, both times with a vengeance.²⁷ Well, go to bed, sirrahs, and so will I. But have you lost to-day? Three shillings! O fie, O fie!

7. No, I won’t send this letter to-day, nor till Saturday, faith; and I am so afraid of one from MD between this and that; if it comes, I will just say I received a letter, and that is all. I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St. John, where were Lord Anglesea,²⁸ Sir Thomas Hanmer, Prior, Freind, etc., and then made a debauch after nine at Prior’s house, and have eaten cold pie, and I hate the thoughts of it, and I am full, and I don’t like it, and I will go to bed, and it is late, and so good-night.

8. To-day I dined with Mr. Harley and Prior; but Mr. St. John did not come, though he promised: he chid me for not seeing him oftener. Here is a damned, libellous pamphlet come out against Lord Wharton, giving the character first, and then telling some of his actions: the character is very well, but the facts indifferent.²⁹ It has been sent by dozens to several gentlemen’s lodgings, and I had one or two of them; but nobody knows the author or printer. We are terribly afraid of the plague; they say it is at Newcastle.³⁰ I begged Mr. Harley for the love of God to take some care about it, or we are all ruined. There have been orders for all ships from the Baltic to pass their quarantine before they land; but they neglect it. You remember I have been afraid these two years.

9. O, faith, you are a saucy rogue. I have had your sixth letter just now, before this is gone; but I will not answer a word of it, only that I never was giddy since my first fit; but I have had a cold just a fortnight, and cough with it still morning and evening; but it will go off. It is, however, such abominable weather that no creature can walk. They say here three of your Commissioners will be turned out, Ogle, South, and St. Quintin;³¹ and that Dick Stewart³² and Ludlow will be two of the new ones. I am a little soliciting for another: it is poor Lord Abercorn,³³ but that is a secret; I mean, that I befriend him is a secret; but I believe it is too late, by his own fault and ill fortune. I dined with him to-day. I am heartily sorry you do not go to Clogher, faith, I am; and so God Almighty protect poor, dear, dear, dear, dearest MD. Farewell till to-night. I’ll begin my eleventh to-night; so I am always writing to little MD.

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.

London, Dec. 9, 1710.

So, young women, I have just sent my tenth to the post-office, and, as I told you, have received your seventh (faith, I am afraid I mistook, and said your sixth, and then we shall be all in confusion this month.) Well, I told you I dined with Lord Abercorn to-day; and that is enough till by and bye; for I must go write idle things, and twittle twattle.¹ What’s here to do with your little MD’s? and so I put this by for a while. ’Tis now late, and I can only say MD is a dear, saucy rogue, and what then? Presto loves them the better.

10. This son of a b—— Patrick is out of the way, and I can do nothing; am forced to borrow coals: ’tis now six o’clock, and I am come home after a pure walk in the park; delicate weather, begun only to-day. A terrible storm last night: we hear one of your packet-boats is cast away, and young Beau Swift² in it, and General Sankey:³ I know not the truth; you will before me. Raymond talks of leaving the town in a few days, and going in a month to Ireland, for fear his wife should be too far gone, and forced to be brought to bed here. I think he is in the right; but perhaps this packet-boat will fright him. He has no relish for London; and I do not wonder at it. He has got some Templars from Ireland that show him the town. I do not let him see me above twice a week, and that only while I am dressing in the morning.—So, now the puppy’s come in, and I have got my own ink, but a new pen; and so now you are rogues and sauceboxes till I go to bed; for I must go study, sirrahs. Now I think of it, tell the Bishop of Clogher, he shall not cheat me of one inch of my bell metal. You know it is nothing but to save the town money; and Enniskillen can afford it better than Laracor: he shall have but one thousand five hundred weight. I have been reading, etc., as usual, and am now going to bed; and I find this day’s article is long enough: so get you gone till to-morrow, and then. I dined with Sir Matthew Dudley.

11. I am come home again as yesterday, and the puppy had again locked up my ink, notwithstanding all I said to him yesterday; but he came home a little after me, so all is well: they are lighting my fire, and I’ll go study. The fair weather is gone again, and it has rained all day. I do not like this open weather, though some say it is healthy. They say it is a false report about the plague at Newcastle.⁴ I have no news to-day: I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, to desire them to buy me a scarf; and Lady Abercorn⁵ is to buy me another, to see who does best: mine is all in rags. I saw the Duke of Richmond⁶ yesterday at Court again, but would not speak to him: I believe we are fallen out. I am now in bed; and it has rained all this evening, like wildfire: have you so much rain in your town? Raymond was in a fright, as I expected, upon the news of this shipwreck; but I persuaded him, and he leaves this town in a week. I got him acquainted with Sir Robert Raymond,⁷ the Solicitor-General, who owns him to be of his family; and I believe it may do him a kindness, by being recommended to your new Lord Chancellor.—I had a letter from Mrs. Long, that has quite turned my stomach against her: no less than two nasty jests in it, with dashes to suppose them. She is corrupted in that country town⁸ with vile conversation.—I will not answer your letter till I have leisure: so let this go on as it will, what care I? what cares saucy Presto?

12. I was to-day at the Secretary’s office with Lewis, and in came Lord Rivers;⁹ who took Lewis out and whispered him; and then came up to me to desire my acquaintance, etc., so we bowed and complimented a while, and parted and I dined with Phil. Savage¹⁰ and his Irish Club, at their boarding-place; and, passing an evening scurvily enough, did not come home till eight. Mr. Addison and I hardly meet once a fortnight; his Parliament and my different friendships keep us asunder. Sir Matthew Dudley turned away his butler yesterday morning; and at night the poor fellow died suddenly in the streets: was not it an odd event? But what care you? But then I knew the butler.— Why, it seems your packet-boat is not lost: psha, how silly that is, when I had already gone through the forms, and said it was a sad thing, and that I was sorry for it! But when must I answer this letter of our MD’s? Here it is, it lies between this paper on t’other side of the leaf: one of these odd-come-shortly’s I’ll consider, and so good-night.

13. Morning. I am to go trapesing with Lady Kerry¹¹ and Mrs. Pratt¹² to see sights all this day: they engaged me yesterday morning at tea. You hear the havoc making in the army: Meredith, Maccartney, and Colonel Honeywood¹³ are obliged to sell their commands at half-value, and leave the army, for drinking destruction to the present Ministry, and dressing up a hat on a stick, and calling it Harley; then drinking a glass with one hand, and discharging a pistol with the other at the maukin,¹⁴ wishing it were Harley himself; and a hundred other such pretty tricks, as inflaming their soldiers, and foreign Ministers, against the late changes at Court. Cadogan¹⁵ has had a little paring: his mother¹⁶ told me yesterday he had lost the place of Envoy; but I hope they will go no further with him, for he was not at those mutinous meetings.—Well, these saucy jades take up so much of my time with writing to them in a morning; but, faith, I am glad to see you whenever I can: a little snap and away; and so hold your tongue, for I must rise: not a word, for your life. How nowww? So, very well; stay till I come home, and then, perhaps, you may hear further from me. And where will you go to-day, for I can’t be with you for these ladies? It is a rainy, ugly day. I’d have you send for Walls, and go to the Dean’s; but don’t play small games when you lose. You’ll be ruined by Manilio, Basto, the queen, and two small trumps, in red.¹⁷ I confess ’tis a good hand against the player: but then there are Spadilio, Punto, the king, strong trumps, against you, which, with one trump more, are three tricks ten ace: for, suppose you play your Manilio—Oh, silly, how I prate, and can’t get away from this MD in a morning! Go, get you gone, dear naughty girls, and let me rise. There, Patrick locked up my ink again the third time last night: the rogue gets the better of me; but I will rise in spite of you, sirrahs.—At night. Lady Kerry, Mrs. Pratt, Mrs. Cadogan,¹⁸ and I, in one coach; Lady Kerry’s son¹⁹ and his governor, and two gentlemen, in another; maids, and misses and little master (Lord Shelburne’s²⁰ children, in a third, all hackneys, set out at ten o’clock this morning from Lord Shelburne’s house in Piccadilly to the Tower, and saw all the sights, lions,²¹ etc.; then to Bedlam;²² then dined at the chop-house behind the Exchange; then to Gresham College²³ (but the keeper was not at home); and concluded the night at the Puppet-show,²⁴ whence we came home safe at eight, and I left them. The ladies were all in mobs²⁵ (how do you call it?), undrest; and it was the rainiest day that ever dripped; and I am weary; and it is now past eleven.

14. Stay, I’ll answer some of your letter this morning in bed: let me see; come and appear, little letter. Here I am, says he: and what say you to Mrs. MD this morning fresh and fasting? Who dares think MD negligent? I allow them a fortnight; and they give it me. I could fill a letter in a week; but it is longer every day; and so I keep it a fortnight, and then ’tis cheaper by one half. I have never been giddy, dear Stella, since that morning: I have taken a whole box of pills, and kecked²⁶ at them every night, and drank a pint of brandy at mornings.—Oh then, you kept Presto’s little birthday:²⁷ would to God I had been with you! I forgot it, as I told you before. REdiculous, madam? I suppose you mean rIdiculous: let me have no more of that; ’tis the author of the Atalantis’s²⁸ spelling. I have mended it in your letter. And can Stella read this writing without hurting her dear eyes? O, faith, I am afraid not. Have a care of those eyes, pray, pray, pretty Stella.—’Tis well enough what you observe, that, if I writ better, perhaps you would not read so well, being used to this manner; ’tis an alphabet you are used to: you know such a pot-hook makes a letter; and you know what letter, and so and so.—I’ll swear he told me so, and that they were long letters too; but I told him it was a gasconnade of yours, etc. I am talking of the Bishop of Clogher, how he forgot. Turn over.²⁹ I had not room on t’other side to say that, so I did it on this: I fancy that’s a good Irish blunder. Ah, why do not you go down to Clogher, nautinautinautideargirls; I dare not say nauti without dear: O, faith, you govern me. But, seriously, I’m sorry you don’t go, as far as I can judge at this distance. No, we would get you another horse; I will make Parvisol get you one. I always doubted that horse of yours: prythee sell him, and let it be a present to me. My heart aches when I think you ride him. Order Parvisol to sell him, and that you are to return me the money: I shall never be easy until he is out of your hands. Faith, I have dreamt five or six times of horses stumbling since I had your letter. If he can’t sell him, let him run this winter. Faith, if I was near you, I would whip your —— to some tune, for your grave, saucy answer about the Dean and Johnsonibus; I would, young women. And did the Dean preach for me?³⁰ Very well. Why, would they have me stand here and preach to them? No, the Tatler of the Shilling³¹ was not mine, more than the hint, and two or three general heads for it. I have much more important business on my hands; and, besides, the Ministry hate to think that I should help him, and have made reproaches on it; and I frankly told them I would do it no more. This is a secret though, Madam Stella. You win eight shillings? you win eight fiddlesticks. Faith, you say nothing of what you lose, young women.—I hope Manley is in no great danger; for Ned Southwell is his friend, and so is Sir Thomas Frankland; and his brother John Manley stands up heartily for him. On t’other side, all the gentlemen of Ireland here are furiously against him. Now, Mistress Dingley, an’t you an impudent slut, to expect a letter next packet from Presto, when you confess yourself that you had so lately two letters in four days? Unreasonable baggage! No, little Dingley, I am always in bed by twelve; I mean my candle is out by twelve, and I take great care of myself. Pray let everybody know, upon occasion, that Mr. Harley got the First-Fruits from the Queen for the clergy of Ireland, and that nothing remains but the forms, etc. So you say the Dean and you dined at Stoyte’s, and Mrs. Stoyte was in raptures that I remembered her. I must do it but seldom, or it will take off her rapture. But what now, you saucy sluts? all this written in a morning, and I must rise and go abroad. Pray stay till night: do not think I will squander mornings upon you, pray, good madam. Faith, if I go on longer in this trick of writing in the morning, I shall be afraid of leaving it off, and think you expect it, and be in awe. Good-morrow, sirrahs, I will rise.—At night. I went to-day to the Court of Requests (I will not answer the rest of your letter yet, that by the way, in hopes to dine with Mr. Harley: but Lord Dupplin,³² his son-in-law, told me he did not dine at home; so I was at a loss, until I met with Mr. Secretary St. John, and went home and dined with him, where he told me of a good bite.³³ Lord Rivers told me two days ago, that he was resolved to come Sunday fortnight next to hear me preach before the Queen. I assured him the day was not yet fixed, and I knew nothing of it. To-day the Secretary told me that his father, Sir Harry St. John,³⁴ and Lord Rivers were to be at St. James’s Church, to hear me preach there; and were assured I was to preach: so there will be another bite; for I know nothing of the matter, but that Mr. Harley and St. John are resolved I must preach before the Queen; and the Secretary of State has told me he will give me three weeks’ warning; but I desired to be excused, which he will not. St. John, “You shall not be excused”: however, I hope they will forget it; for if it should happen, all the puppies hereabouts will throng to hear me, and expect something wonderful, and be plaguily baulked; for I shall preach plain honest stuff. I stayed with St. John till eight, and then came home; and Patrick desired leave to go abroad, and by and by comes up the girl to tell me, a gentleman was below in a coach, who had a bill to pay me; so I let him come up, and who should it be but Mr. Addison and Sam Dopping, to haul me out to supper, where I stayed till twelve. If Patrick had been at home, I should have ‘scaped this; for I have taught him to deny me almost as well as Mr. Harley’s porter.—Where did I leave off in MD’s letter? let me see. So, now I have it. You are pleased to say, Madam Dingley, that those who go for England can never tell when to come back. Do you mean this as a reflection upon Presto, madam? Sauceboxes, I will come back as soon as I can, as hope saved,³⁵ and I hope with some advantage, unless all Ministries be alike, as perhaps they may. I hope Hawkshaw is in Dublin before now, and that you have your things, and like your spectacles: if you do not, you shall have better. I hope Dingley’s tobacco did not spoil Stella’s chocolate, and that all is safe: pray let me know. Mr. Addison and I are different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will go off, by this damned business of party: he cannot bear seeing me fall in so with this Ministry: but I love him still as well as ever, though we seldom meet.—Hussy, Stella, you jest about poor Congreve’s eyes;³⁶ you do so, hussy; but I’ll bang your bones, faith.—Yes, Steele was a little while in prison, or at least in a spunging-house, some time before I came, but not since.³⁷—Pox on your convocations, and your Lamberts;³⁸ they write with a vengeance! I suppose you think it a piece of affectation in me to wish your Irish folks would not like my “Shower,”; but you are mistaken. I should be glad to have the general applause there as I have here (though I say it); but I have only that of one or two, and therefore I would have none at all, but let you all be in the wrong. I don’t know, this is not what I would say; but I am so tosticated with supper and stuff, that I can’t express myself.—What you say of “Sid Hamet” is well enough; that an enemy should like it, and a friend not; and that telling the author would make both change their opinions. Why did you not tell Griffyth³⁹ that you fancied there was something in it of my manner; but first spur up his commendation to the height, as we served my poor uncle about the sconce that I mended? Well, I desired you to give what I intended for an answer to Mrs. Fenton,⁴⁰ to save her postage, and myself trouble; and I hope I have done it, if you han’t.

15. Lord, what a long day’s writing was yesterday’s answer to your letter, sirrahs! I dined to-day with Lewis and Ford, whom I have brought acquainted. Lewis told me a pure thing. I had been hankering with Mr. Harley to save Steele his other employment, and have a little mercy on him; and I had been saying the same thing to Lewis, who is Mr. Harley’s chief favourite. Lewis tells Mr. Harley how kindly I should take it, if he would be reconciled to Steele, etc. Mr. Harley, on my account, falls in with it, and appoints Steele a time to let him attend him, which Steele accepts with great submission, but never comes, nor sends any excuse. Whether it was blundering, sullenness, insolence, or rancour of party, I cannot tell; but I shall trouble myself no more about him. I believe Addison hindered him out of mere spite, being grated⁴¹ to the soul to think he should ever want my help to save his friend; yet now he is soliciting me to make another of his friends Queen’s Secretary at Geneva; and I’ll do it if I can; it is poor Pastoral Philips.⁴²

16. O, why did you leave my picture behind you at t’other lodgings? Forgot it? Well; but pray remember it now, and don’t roll it up, d’ye hear; but hang it carefully in some part of your room, where chairs and candles and mop-sticks won’t spoil it, sirrahs. No, truly, I will not be godfather to Goody Walls this bout, and I hope she will have no more. There will be no quiet nor cards for this child. I hope it will die the day after the christening. Mr. Harley gave me a paper, with an account of the sentence you speak of against the lads that defaced the statue,⁴³ and that Ingoldsby⁴⁴ reprieved that part of it of standing before the statue. I hope it was never executed. We have got your Broderick out;⁴⁵ Doyne⁴⁶ is to succeed him, and Cox⁴⁷ Doyne. And so there’s an end of your letter; ’tis all answered; and now I must go on upon my own stock. Go on, did I say? Why, I have written enough; but this is too soon to send it yet, young women; faith, I dare not use you to it, you’ll always expect it; what remains shall be only short journals of a day, and so I’ll rise for this morning.—At night. I dined with my opposite neighbour, Darteneuf; and I was soliciting this day to present the Bishop of Clogher Vice-Chancellor;⁴⁸ but it won’t do; they are all set against him, and the Duke of Ormond, they say, has resolved to dispose of it somewhere else. Well; little saucy rogues, do not stay out too late to-night, because it is Saturday night, and young women should come home soon then.

17. I went to Court to seek a dinner: but the Queen was not at church, she has got a touch of the gout; so the Court was thin, and I went to the Coffee-house; and Sir Thomas Frankland and his eldest son and I went and dined with his son William.⁴⁹ I talked a great deal to Sir Thomas about Manley; and find he is his good friend, and so has Ned Southwell been, and I hope he will be safe, though all the Irish folks here are his mortal enemies. There was a devilish bite to-day. They had it, I know not how, that I was to preach this morning at St. James’s Church; an abundance went, among the rest Lord Radnor, who never is abroad till three in the afternoon. I walked all the way home from Hatton Garden at six, by moonlight, a delicate night. Raymond called at nine, but I was denied; and now I am in bed between eleven and twelve, just going to sleep, and dream of my own dear roguish impudent pretty MD.

18. You will now have short days’ works, just a few lines to tell you where I am, and what I am doing; only I will keep room for the last day to tell you news, if there be any worth sending. I have been sometimes like to do it at the top of my letter, until I remark it would be old before it reached you. I was hunting to dine with Mr. Harley to-day, but could not find him; and so I dined with honest Dr. Cockburn, and came home at six, and was taken out to next door by Dopping and Ford, to drink bad claret and oranges; and we let Raymond come to us, who talks of leaving the town to-morrow, but I believe will stay a day or two longer. It is now late, and I will say no more, but end this line with bidding my own dear saucy MD goodnight, etc.

19. I am come down proud stomach in one instance, for I went to-day to see the Duke of Buckingham,⁵⁰ but came too late: then I visited Mrs. Barton,⁵¹ and thought to have dined with some of the Ministry; but it rained, and Mrs. Vanhomrigh was nigh, and I took the opportunity of paying her for a scarf she bought me, and dined there; at four I went to congratulate with Lord Shelburne, for the death of poor Lady Shelburne dowager;⁵² he was at his country house, and returned while I was there, and had not heard of it, and he took it very well. I am now come home before six, and find a packet from the Bishop of Clogher, with one enclosed to the Duke of Ormond, which is ten days earlier dated than another I had from Parvisol; however, ’tis no matter, for the Duke has already disposed of the Vice-Chancellorship to the Archbishop of Tuam,⁵³ and I could not help it, for it is a thing wholly you know in the Duke’s power; and I find the Bishop has enemies about the Duke. I write this while Patrick is folding up my scarf, and doing up the fire (for I keep a fire, it costs me twelvepence a week); and so be quiet till I am gone to bed, and then sit down by me a little, and we will talk a few words more. Well; now MD is at my bedside; and now what shall we say? How does Mrs. Stoyte? What had the Dean for supper? How much did Mrs. Walls win? Poor Lady Shelburne: well, go get you to bed, sirrahs.

20. Morning. I was up this morning early, and shaved by candlelight, and write this by the fireside. Poor Raymond just came in and took his leave of me; he is summoned by high order from his wife, but pretends he has had enough of London. I was a little melancholy to part with him; he goes to Bristol, where they are to be with his merchant brother, and now thinks of staying till May; so she must be brought to bed in England. He was so easy and manageable, that I almost repent I suffered him to see me so seldom. But he is gone, and will save Patrick some lies in a week: Patrick is grown admirable at it, and will make his fortune. How now, sirrah, must I write in a morning to your impudence?

Stay till night,
And then I’ll write,
In black and white,
By candlelight,
Of wax so bright,
It helps the sight—
A bite, a bite!

Marry come up, Mistress Boldface.—At night. Dr. Raymond came back, and goes to-morrow. I did not come home till eleven, and found him here to take leave of me. I went to the Court of Requests, thinking to find Mr. Harley and dine with him, and refused Henley, and everybody, and at last knew not where to go, and met Jemmy Leigh by chance, and he was just in the same way, so I dined at his lodgings on a beef-steak, and drank your health; then left him and went to the tavern with Ben Tooke and Portlack, the Duke of Ormond’s secretary, drinking nasty white wine till eleven. I am sick, and ashamed of it, etc.

21. I met that beast Ferris, Lord Berkeley’s⁵⁴ steward formerly; I walked with him a turn in the Park, and that scoundrel dog is as happy as an emperor, has married a wife with a considerable estate in land and houses about this town, and lives at his ease at Hammersmith. See your confounded sect!⁵⁵ Well; I had the same luck to-day with Mr. Harley; ’twas a lovely day, and went by water into the City, and dined with Stratford at a merchant’s house, and walked home with as great a dunce as Ferris, I mean honest Colonel Caulfeild,⁵⁶ and came home by eight, and now am in bed, and going to sleep for a wager, and will send this letter on Saturday, and so; but first I will wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and pray God we may never keep them asunder again.

22. Morning. I am going now to Mr. Harley’s levee on purpose to vex him; I will say I had no other way of seeing him, etc. Patrick says it is a dark morning, and that the Duke of Argyle⁵⁷ is to be knighted to-day; the booby means installed at Windsor. But I must rise, for this is a shaving-day, and Patrick says there is a good fire; I wish MD were by it, or I by MD’s.—At night. I forgot to tell you, Madam Dingley, that I paid nine shillings for your glass and spectacles, of which three were for the Bishop’s case: I am sorry I did not buy you such another case; but if you like it, I will bring one over with me; pray tell me: the glass to read was four shillings, the spectacles two. And have you had your chocolate? Leigh says he sent the petticoat by one Mr. Spencer. Pray have you no further commissions for me? I paid the glass-man but last night, and he would have made me a present of the microscope worth thirty shillings, and would have sent it home along with me; I thought the deuce was in the man: he said I could do him more service than that was worth, etc. I refused his present, but promised him all service I could do him; and so now I am obliged in honour to recommend him to everybody.—At night. I went to Mr. Harley’s levee; he came and asked me what I had to do there, and bid me come and dine with him on a family dinner; which I did, and it was the first time I ever saw his lady⁵⁸ and daughter;⁵⁹ at five my Lord Keeper⁶⁰ came in: I told Mr. Harley, he had formerly presented me to Sir Simon Harcourt, but now must to my Lord Keeper; so he laughed, etc.

23. Morning. This letter goes to-night without fail; I hope there is none from you yet at the Coffee-house; I will send and see by and by, and let you know, and so and so. Patrick goes to see for a letter: what will you lay, is there one from MD or no? No, I say; done for sixpence. Why has the Dean never once written to me? I won sixpence; I won sixpence; there is not one letter to Presto. Good-morrow, dear sirrahs: Stratford and I dine to-day with Lord Mountjoy. God Almighty preserve and bless you; farewell, etc.

I have been dining at Lord Mountjoy’s; and am come to study; our news from Spain this post takes off some of our fears. The Parliament is prorogued to-day, or adjourned rather till after the holidays. Bank Stock is 105, so I may get 12 shillings for my bargain already. Patrick, the puppy, is abroad, and how shall I send this letter? Good-night, little dears both, and be happy; and remember your poor Presto, that wants you sadly, as hope saved. Let me go study, naughty girls, and don’t keep me at the bottom of the paper. O, faith, if you knew what lies on my hands constantly, you would wonder to see how I could write such long letters; but we’ll talk of that some other time. Good-night again, and God bless dear MD with His best blessings, yes, yes, and Dingley and Stella and me too, etc.

Ask the Bishop of Clogher about the pun I sent him of Lord Stawel’s brother;⁶¹ it will be a pure bite. This letter has 199 lines in it, beside all postscripts; I had a curiosity to reckon.

There is a long letter for you.

It is longer than a sermon, faith.

I had another letter from Mrs. Fenton, who says you were with her; I hope you did not go on purpose. I will answer her letter soon; it is about some money in Lady Giffard’s hands.

They say you have had eight packets due to you; so pray, madams, do not blame Presto, but the wind.

My humble service to Mrs. Walls and Mrs. Stoyte; I missed the former a good while.

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.

London, Dec. 23, 1710.

I have sent my 11th to-night as usual, and begin the dozenth, and I told you I dined with Stratford at Lord Mountjoy’s, and I will tell you no more at present, guess for why; because I am going to mind things, and mighty affairs, not your nasty First-Fruits—I let them alone till Mr. Harley gets the Queen’s letter—but other things of greater moment, that you shall know one day, when the ducks have eaten up all the dirt. So sit still a while just by me, while I am studying, and don’t say a word, I charge you, and when I am going to bed, I will take you along, and talk with you a little while, so there, sit there.—Come then, let us see what we have to say to these saucy brats, that will not let us go sleep at past eleven. Why, I am a little impatient to know how you do; but that I take it for a standing maxim, that when you are silent, all is pretty well, because that is the way I will deal with you; and if there was anything you ought to know now, I would write by the first post, although I had written but the day before. Remember this, young women; and God Almighty preserve you both, and make us happy together; and tell me how accompts stand between us, that you may be paid long before it is due, not to want. I will return no more money while I stay, so that you need not be in pain to be paid; but let me know at least a month before you can want. Observe this, d’ye hear, little dear sirrahs, and love Presto, as Presto loves MD, etc.

24. You will have a merrier Christmas Eve than we here. I went up to Court before church; and in one of the rooms, there being but little company, a fellow in a red coat without a sword came up to me, and, after words of course, asked me how the ladies did? I asked, “What ladies?” He said, “Mrs. Dingley and Mrs. Johnson.” “Very well,” said I, “when I heard from them last: and pray when came you from thence, sir?” He said, “I never was in Ireland”; and just at that word Lord Winchelsea¹ comes up to me, and the man went off: as I went out I saw him again, and recollected him, it was Vedeau² with a pox: I then went and made my apologies, that my head was full of something I had to say to Lord Winchelsea, etc., and I asked after his wife, and so all was well; and he inquired after my lodging, because he had some favour to desire of me in Ireland, to recommend somebody to somebody, I know not what it is. When I came from church, I went up to Court again, where Sir Edmond Bacon³ told me the bad news from Spain,⁴ which you will hear before this reaches you; as we have it now, we are undone there, and it was odd to see the whole countenances of the Court changed so in two hours. Lady Mountjoy⁵ carried me home to dinner, where I stayed not long after, and came home early, and now am got into bed, for you must always write to your MD’s in bed, that is a maxim.

Mr. White and Mr. Red,
Write to MD when abed;
Mr. Black and Mr. Brown,
Write to MD when you’re down;
Mr. Oak and Mr. Willow,
Write to MD on your pillow.—

What is this? faith, I smell fire; what can it be? this house has a thousand stinks in it. I think to leave it on Thursday, and lodge over the way. Faith, I must rise, and look at my chimney, for the smell grows stronger, stay—I have been up, and in my room, and found all safe, only a mouse within the fender to warm himself, which I could not catch. I smelt nothing there, but now in my bed-chamber I smell it again; I believe I have singed the woollen curtain, and that is all, though I cannot smoke it. Presto is plaguy silly to-night, an’t he? Yes, and so he be. Ay, but if I should wake and see fire. Well; I will venture; so good-night, etc.

25. Pray, young women, if I write so much as this every day, how will this paper hold a fortnight’s work, and answer one of yours into the bargain? You never think of this, but let me go on like a simpleton. I wish you a merry Christmas, and many, many a one with poor Presto at some pretty place. I was at church to-day by eight, and received the Sacrament, and came home by ten; then went to Court at two: it was a Collar-day, that is, when the Knights of the Garter wear their collars; but the Queen stayed so late at Sacrament, that I came back, and dined with my neighbour Ford, because all people dine at home on this day. This is likewise a Collar-day all over England in every house, at least where there is BRAWN: that’s very well.—I tell you a good pun; a fellow hard by pretends to cure agues, and has set out a sign, and spells it EGOES; a gentleman and I observing it, he said, “How does that fellow pretend to cure AGUES?” I said I did not know; but I was sure it was not by a SPELL. That is admirable. And so you asked the Bishop about that pun of Lord Stawel’s brother. Bite! Have I caught you, young women? Must you pretend to ask after roguish puns, and Latin ones too? Oh but you smoked me, and did not ask the Bishop. Oh but you are a fool, and you did. I met Vedeau again at Court to-day, and I observed he had a sword on; I fancy he was broke, and has got a commission, but I never asked him. Vedeau I think his name is, yet Parvisol’s man is Vedel, that is true. Bank Stock will fall like stock-fish by this bad news, and two days ago I could have got twelve pounds by my bargain; but I do not intend to sell, and in time it will rise. It is odd that my Lord Peterborow foretold this loss two months ago, one night at Mr. Harley’s, when I was there; he bid us count upon it, that Stanhope would lose Spain before Christmas; that he would venture his head upon it, and gave us reasons; and though Mr. Harley argued the contrary, he still held to his opinion. I was telling my Lord Angelsea this at Court this morning; and a gentleman by said he had heard my Lord Peterborow affirm the same thing. I have heard wise folks say, “An ill tongue may do much.” And ’tis an odd saying,

“Once I guessed right,
And I got credit by’t;
Thrice I guessed wrong,
And I kept my credit on.”

No, it is you are sorry, not I.

26. By the Lord Harry, I shall be undone here with Christmas boxes. The rogues of the Coffee-house have raised their tax, everyone giving a crown; and I gave mine for shame, besides a great many half-crowns to great men’s porters, etc. I went to-day by water into the city, and dined with no less a man than the City Printer.⁶ There is an intimacy between us, built upon reasons that you shall know when I see you; but the rain caught me within twelvepenny length of home. I called at Mr. Harley’s, who was not within, dropped my half-crown with his porter, drove to the Coffee-house, where the rain kept me till nine. I had letters to-day from the Archbishop of Dublin and Mr. Bernage;⁷ the latter sends me a melancholy account of Lady Shelburne’s⁸ death, and his own disappointments, and would gladly be a captain; if I can help him, I will.

27. Morning. I bespoke a lodging over the way for tomorrow, and the dog let it yesterday to another; I gave him no earnest, so it seems he could do it; Patrick would have had me give him earnest to bind him; but I would not. So I must go saunter to-day for a lodging somewhere else. Did you ever see so open a winter in England? We have not had two frosty days; but it pays it off in rain: we have not had three fair days these six weeks. O, faith, I dreamt mightily of MD last night; but so confused, I cannot tell a word. I have made Ford acquainted with Lewis; and to-day we dined together: in the evening I called at one or two neighbours, hoping to spend a Christmas evening; but none were at home, they were all gone to be merry with others. I have often observed this, that in merry times everybody is abroad; where the deuce are they? So I went to the Coffee-house, and talked with Mr. Addison an hour, who at last remembered to give me two letters, which I cannot answer to-night, nor to-morrow neither, I can assure you, young women, count upon that. I have other things to do than to answer naughty girls, an old saying and true,

Letters from MD’s
Must not be answered in ten days:

it is but bad rhyme, etc.

28. To-day I had a message from Sir Thomas Hanmer, to dine with him; the famous Dr. Smalridge⁹ was of the company, and we sat till six; and I came home to my new lodgings in St. Albans Street,¹⁰ where I pay the same rent (eight shillings a week) for an apartment two pair of stairs; but I have the use of the parlour to receive persons of quality, and I am got into my new bed, etc.

29. Sir Andrew Fountaine has been very ill this week; and sent to me early this morning to have prayers, which you know is the last thing. I found the doctors and all in despair about him. I read prayers to him, found he had settled all things; and, when I came out, the nurse asked me whether I thought it possible he could live; for the doctors thought not. I said, I believed he would live; for I found the seeds of life in him, which I observe seldom fail (and I found them in poor, dearest Stella, when she was ill many years ago); and to-night I was with him again, and he was mightily recovered, and I hope he will do well, and the doctor approved my reasons; but, if he should die, I should come off scurvily. The Secretary of State (Mr. St. John) sent to me to dine with him; Mr. Harley and Lord Peterborow dined there too; and at night came Lord Rivers. Lord Peterborow goes to Vienna in a day or two: he has promised to make me write to him. Mr. Harley went away at six; but we stayed till seven. I took the Secretary aside, and complained to him of Mr. Harley, that he had got the Queen to grant the First-Fruits, promised to bring me to her, and get her letter to the bishops of Ireland; but the last part he had not done in six weeks, and I was in danger to lose reputation, etc. He took the matter right, desired me to be with him on Sunday morning, and promises me to finish the affair in four days; so I shall know in a little time what I have to trust to.—It is nine o’clock, and I must go study, you little rogues; and so good-night, etc.

30. Morning. The weather grows cold, you sauceboxes. Sir Andrew Fountaine, they bring me word, is better. I will go rise, for my hands are starving while I write in bed. Night. Now Sir Andrew Fountaine is recovering, he desires to be at ease; for I called in the morning to read prayers, but he had given orders not to be disturbed. I have lost a legacy by his living; for he told me he had left me a picture and some books, etc. I called to see my quondam neighbour Ford (do you know what quondam is, though?), and he engaged me to dine with him; for he always dines at home on Opera-days. I came home at six, writ to the Archbishop, then studied till past eleven, and stole to bed, to write to MD these few lines, to let you know I am in good health at the present writing hereof, and hope in God MD is so too. I wonder I never write politics to you: I could make you the profoundest politician in all the lane.—Well, but when shall we answer this letter, No. 8 of MD’s? Not till next year, faith. O Lord—bo—but that will be a Monday next. Cod’s-so, is it? and so it is: never saw the like.—I made a pun t’other day to Ben Portlack¹¹ about a pair of drawers. Poh, said he, that’s mine a—— all over. Pray, pray, Dingley, let me go sleep; pray, pray, Stella, let me go slumber; and put out my wax-candle.

31. Morning. It is now seven, and I have got a fire, but am writing abed in my bed-chamber. ’Tis not shaving-day, so I shall be ready early to go before church to Mr. St. John; and to-morrow I will answer our MD’s letter.

Would you answer MD’s letter,
On New Year’s Day you’ll do it better;
For, when the year with MD ‘gins,
It without MD never lins.

(These proverbs have always old words in them; lins is leave off.)

But, if on New Year you write nones,
MD then will bang your bones.

But Patrick says I must rise.—Night. I was early this morning with Secretary St. John, and gave him a memorial to get the Queen’s letter for the First-Fruits, who has promised to do it in a very few days. He told me he had been with the Duke of Marlborough, who was lamenting his former wrong steps in joining with the Whigs, and said he was worn out with age, fatigues, and misfortunes. I swear it pitied me; and I really think they will not do well in too much mortifying that man, although indeed it is his own fault. He is covetous as hell, and ambitious as the Prince of it: he would fain have been General for life, and has broken all endeavours for peace, to keep his greatness and get money. He told the Queen he was neither covetous nor ambitious. She said if she could have conveniently turned about, she would have laughed, and could hardly forbear it in his face. He fell in with all the abominable measures of the late Ministry, because they gratified him for their own designs. Yet he has been a successful General, and I hope he will continue his command. O Lord, smoke the politics to MD! Well; but, if you like them, I will scatter a little now and then, and mine are all fresh from the chief hands. Well, I dined with Mr. Harley, and came away at six: there was much company, and I was not merry at all. Mr. Harley made me read a paper of verses of Prior’s. I read them plain, without any fine manner; and Prior swore, I should never read any of his again; but he would be revenged, and read some of mine as bad. I excused myself, and said I was famous for reading verses the worst in the world; and that everybody snatched them from me when I offered to begin. So we laughed.—Sir Andrew Fountaine still continues ill. He is plagued with some sort of bile.

Jan. 1. Morning. I wish my dearest, pretty Dingley and Stella a happy New Year, and health, and mirth, and good stomachs, and Fr’s company. Faith, I did not know how to write Fr. I wondered what was the matter; but now I remember I always write Pdfr. Patrick wishes me a happy New Year, and desires I would rise, for it is a good fire, and faith ’tis cold. I was so politic last night with MD, never saw the like. Get the Examiners, and read them; the last nine or ten are full of the reasons for the late change, and of the abuses of the last Ministry; and the great men assure me they are all true. They are written by their encouragement and direction. I must rise and go see Sir Andrew Fountaine; but perhaps to-night I may answer MD’s letter: so good-morrow, my mistresses all, good-morrow.

I wish you both a merry New Year,
Roast beef, minced pies, and good strong beer,
And me a share of your good cheer,
That I was there, or you were here;
And you’re a little saucy dear.

Good-morrow again, dear sirrahs; one cannot rise for your play.—At night. I went this morning to visit Lady Kerry and Lord Shelburne; and they made me dine with them. Sir Andrew Fountaine is better. And now let us come and see what this saucy, dear letter of MD says. Come out, letter, come out from between the sheets; here it is underneath, and it will not come out. Come out again, I say: so there. Here it is. What says Presto to me, pray? says it. Come, and let me answer for you to your ladies. Hold up your head then, like a good letter. There. Pray, how have you got up with Presto, Madam Stella? You write your eighth when you receive mine: now I write my twelfth when I receive your eighth. Do not you allow for what are upon the road, simpleton? What say you to that? And so you kept Presto’s little birthday, I warrant: would to God I had been at the health rather than here, where I have no manner of pleasure, nothing but eternal business upon my hands. I shall grow wise in time; but no more of that: only I say Amen with my heart and vitals, that we may never be asunder again ten days together while poor Presto lives. ———— ———————————————————————— I can’t be merry so near any splenetic talk; so I made that long line, and now all’s well again. Yes, you are a pretending slut, indeed, with your fourth and fifth in the margin, and your journal, and everything. Wind—we saw no wind here, nothing at all extraordinary at any time. We had it once when you had it not. But an old saying and a true:

“I hate all wind,
Before and behind,
From cheeks with eyes,
Or from blind.——”

Your chimney fall down! God preserve you. I suppose you only mean a brick or two: but that’s a d—ned lie of your chimney being carried to the next house with the wind. Don’t put such things upon us; those matters will not pass here: keep a little to possibilities. My Lord Hertford¹² would have been ashamed of such a stretch. You should take care of what company you converse with: when one gets that faculty, ’tis hard to break one’s self of it. Jemmy Leigh talks of going over; but quando? I do not know when he will go. Oh, now you have had my ninth, now you are come up with me; marry come up with you, indeed. I know all that business of Lady S——.¹³ Will nobody cut that D—y’s throat? Five hundred pounds do you call poor pay for living three months the life of a king? They say she died with grief, partly, being forced to appear as a witness in court about some squabble among their servants.—The Bishop of Clogher showed you a pamphlet.¹⁴ Well, but you must not give your mind to believe those things; people will say anything. The Character is here reckoned admirable, but most of the facts are trifles. It was first printed privately here; and then some bold cur ventured to do it publicly, and sold two thousand in two days: who the author is must remain uncertain. Do you pretend to know, impudence? How durst you think so? Pox on your Parliaments: the Archbishop has told me of it; but we do not vouchsafe to know anything of it here. No, no, no more of your giddiness yet; thank you, Stella, for asking after it; thank you; God Almighty bless you for your kindness to poor Presto. You write to Lady Giffard and your mother upon what I advise when it is too late. But yet I fancy this bad news will bring down stocks so low, that one might buy to great advantage. I design to venture going to see your mother some day when Lady Giffard is abroad. Well, keep your Rathburn¹⁵ and stuff. I thought he was to pay in your money upon his houses to be flung down about the what do you call it.—Well, Madam Dingley, I sent your enclosed to Bristol, but have not heard from Raymond since he went. Come, come, young women, I keep a good fire; it costs me twelvepence a week, and I fear something more; vex me, and I will have one in my bed-chamber too. No, did not I tell you but just now, we have no high winds here? Have you forgot already?—Now you’re at it again, silly Stella; why does your mother say my candles are scandalous? They are good sixes in the pound, and she said I was extravagant enough to burn them by daylight. I never burn fewer at a time than one. What would people have? The D—— burst Hawkshaw. He told me he had not the box; and the next day Sterne told me he had sent it a fortnight ago. Patrick could not find him t’other day, but he shall to-morrow. Dear life and heart, do you tease me? does Stella tease Presto? That palsy-water was in the box; it was too big for a packet, and I was afraid of its breaking. Leigh was not in town then; or I would not have trusted it to Sterne, whom yet I have befriended enough to do me more kindness than that. I’ll never rest till you have it, or till it is in a way for you to have it. Poor dear rogue, naughty to think it teases me; how could I ever forgive myself for neglecting anything that related to your health? Sure I were a Devil if I did. ———— ——————————————————————— See how far I am forced to stand from Stella, because I am afraid she thinks poor Presto has not been careful about her little things; I am sure I bought them immediately according to order, and packed them up with my own hands, and sent them to Sterne, and was six times with him about sending them away. I am glad you are pleased with your glasses. I have got another velvet cap; a new one Lord Herbert¹⁶ bought and presented me one morning I was at breakfast with him, where he was as merry and easy as ever I saw him, yet had received a challenge half an hour before, and half an hour after fought a duel. It was about ten days ago. You are mistaken in your guesses about Tatlers: I did neither write that on Noses nor Religion,¹⁷ nor do I send him of late any hints at all.—Indeed, Stella, when I read your letter, I was not uneasy at all; but when I came to answer the particulars, and found that you had not received your box, it grated me to the heart, because I thought, through your little words, that you imagined I had not taken the care I ought. But there has been some blunder in this matter, which I will know to-morrow, and write to Sterne, for fear he should not be within.—And pray, pray, Presto, pray now do.—No, Raymond was not above four times with me while he stayed, and then only while I was dressing. Mrs. Fenton has written me another letter about some money of hers in Lady Giffard’s hands, that is entrusted to me by my mother, not to come to her husband. I send my letters constantly every fortnight, and, if you will have them oftener, you may, but then they will be the shorter. Pray, let Parvisol sell the horse. I think I spoke to you of it in a former letter: I am glad you are rid of him, and was in pain while I thought you rode him; but, if he would buy you another, or anybody else, and that you could be often able to ride, why do not you do it?

2. I went this morning early to the Secretary of State, Mr. St. John; and he told me from Mr. Harley that the warrant was now drawn, in order for a patent for the First-Fruits: it must pass through several offices, and take up some time, because in things the Queen gives they are always considerate; but that, he assures me, ’tis granted and done, and past all dispute, and desires I will not be in any pain at all. I will write again to the Archbishop to-morrow, and tell him this, and I desire you will say it on occasion. From the Secretary I went to Mr. Sterne, who said he would write to you to-night; and that the box must be at Chester; and that some friend of his goes very soon, and will carry it over. I dined with Mr. Secretary St. John, and at six went to Darteneufs house to drink punch with him, and Mr. Addison, and little Harrison,¹⁸ a young poet, whose fortune I am making. Steele was to have been there, but came not, nor never did twice, since I knew him, to any appointment. I stayed till past eleven, and am now in bed. Steele’s last Tatler came out to-day. You will see it before this comes to you, and how he takes leave of the world. He never told so much as Mr. Addison of it, who was surprised as much as I; but, to say the truth, it was time, for he grew cruel dull and dry. To my knowledge he had several good hints to go upon; but he was so lazy and weary of the work that he would not improve them. I think I will send this after¹⁹ to-morrow: shall I before ’tis full, Dingley?

3. Lord Peterborow yesterday called me into a barber’s shop, and there we talked deep politics: he desired me to dine with him to-day at the Globe in the Strand; he said he would show me so clearly how to get Spain, that I could not possibly doubt it. I went to-day accordingly, and saw him among half a dozen lawyers and attorneys and hang-dogs, signing of deeds and stuff before his journey; for he goes to-morrow to Vienna. I sat among that scurvy company till after four, but heard nothing of Spain; only I find, by what he told me before, that he fears he shall do no good in his present journey.²⁰ We are to be mighty constant correspondents. So I took my leave of him, and called at Sir Andrew Fountaine’s, who mends much. I came home, an’t please you, at six, and have been studying till now past eleven.

4. Morning. Morrow, little dears. O, faith, I have been dreaming; I was to be put in prison. I do not know why, and I was so afraid of a black dungeon; and then all I had been inquiring yesterday of Sir Andrew Fountaine’s sickness I thought was of poor Stella. The worst of dreams is, that one wakes just in the humour they leave one. Shall I send this to-day? With all my heart: it is two days within the fortnight; but may be MD are in haste to have a round dozen: and then how are you come up to me with your eighth, young women? But you indeed ought to write twice slower than I, because there are two of you; I own that. Well then, I will seal up this letter by my morning candle, and carry it into the city with me, where I go to dine, and put it into the post-office with my own fair hands. So, let me see whether I have any news to tell MD. They say they will very soon make some inquiries into the corruptions of the late Ministry; and they must do it, to justify their turning them out. Atterbury,²¹ we think, is to be Dean of Christ Church in Oxford; but the College would rather have Smalridge—What’s all this to you? What care you for Atterburys and Smalridges? No, you care for nothing but Presto, faith. So I will rise, and bid you farewell; yet I am loth to do so, because there is a great bit of paper yet to talk upon; but Dingley will have it so: “Yes,” says she, “make your journals shorter, and send them oftener;” and so I will. And I have cheated you another way too; for this is clipped paper, and holds at least six lines less than the former ones. I will tell you a good thing I said to my Lord Carteret.²² “So,” says he, “my Lord came up to me, and asked me,” etc. “No,” said I, “my Lord never did, nor ever can come up to you.” We all pun here sometimes. Lord Carteret set down Prior t’other day in his chariot; and Prior thanked him for his CHARITY; that was fit for Dilly.²³ I do not remember I heard one good one from the Ministry; which is really a shame. Henley is gone to the country for Christmas. The puppy comes here without his wife,²⁴ and keeps no house, and would have me dine with him at eating-houses; but I have only done it once, and will do it no more. He had not seen me for some time in the Coffee-house, and asking after me, desired Lord Herbert to tell me I was a beast for ever, after the order of Melchisedec. Did you ever read the Scripture?²⁵ It is only changing the word priest to beast.—I think I am bewitched, to write so much in a morning to you, little MD. Let me go, will you? and I’ll come again to-night in a fine clean sheet of paper; but I can nor will stay no longer now; no, I won’t, for all your wheedling: no, no, look off, do not smile at me, and say, “Pray, pray, Presto, write a little more.” Ah! you are a wheedling slut, you be so. Nay, but prithee turn about, and let me go, do; ’tis a good girl, and do. O, faith, my morning candle is just out, and I must go now in spite of my teeth; for my bed-chamber is dark with curtains, and I am at the wrong side. So farewell, etc. etc.

I am in the dark almost: I must have another candle, when I am up, to seal this; but I will fold it up in the dark, and make what you can of this, for I can only see this paper I am writing upon. Service to Mrs. Walls and Mrs. Stoyte.

God Almighty bless you, etc. What I am doing I can’t see; but I will fold it up, and not look on it again.

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.

London, Jan. 4, 1710-11.

I was going into the City (where I dined and put my 12th, with my own fair hands, into the post-office as I came back, which was not till nine this night. I dined with people that you never heard of, nor is it worth your while to know; an authoress and a printer.¹ I walked home for exercise, and at eleven got to bed; and, all the while I was undressing myself, there was I speaking monkey things in air, just as if MD had been by, and did not recollect myself till I got into bed. I writ last night to the Archbishop, and told him the warrant was drawn for the First-Fruits; and I told him Lord Peterborow was set out for his journey to Vienna; but it seems the Lords have addressed to have him stay, to be examined about Spanish affairs, upon this defeat there, and to know where the fault lay, etc. So I writ to the Archbishop a lie; but I think it was not a sin.

5. Mr. Secretary St. John sent for me this morning so early, that I was forced to go without shaving, which put me quite out of method. I called at Mr. Ford’s, and desired him to lend me a shaving; and so made a shift to get into order again. Lord! here is an impertinence: Sir Andrew Fountaine’s mother and sister² are come above a hundred miles, from Worcester, to see him before he died. They got here but yesterday; and he must have been past hopes, or past fears, before they could reach him. I fell a scolding when I heard they were coming; and the people about him wondered at me, and said what a mighty content it would be on both sides to die when they were with him! I knew the mother; she is the greatest Overdo³ upon earth; and the sister, they say, is worse; the poor man will relapse again among them. Here was the scoundrel brother always crying in the outer room till Sir Andrew was in danger; and the dog was to have all his estate if he died; and it is an ignorant, worthless, scoundrel-rake: and the nurses were comforting him, and desiring he would not take on so. I dined to-day the first time with Ophy Butler⁴ and his wife; and you supped with the Dean, and lost two-and-twenty pence at cards. And so Mrs. Walls is brought to bed of a girl, who died two days after it was christened; and, betwixt you and me, she is not very sorry: she loves her ease and diversions too well to be troubled with children. I will go to bed.

6. Morning. I went last night to put some coals on my fire after Patrick was gone to bed; and there I saw in a closet a poor linnet he has bought to bring over to Dingley: it cost him sixpence, and is as tame as a dormouse. I believe he does not know he is a bird: where you put him, there he stands, and seems to have neither hope nor fear; I suppose in a week he will die of the spleen. Patrick advised with me before he bought him. I laid fairly before him the greatness of the sum, and the rashness of the attempt; showed how impossible it was to carry him safe over the salt sea: but he would not take my counsel; and he will repent it. ’Tis very cold this morning in bed; and I hear there is a good fire in the room without (what do you call it?), the dining-room. I hope it will be good weather, and so let me rise, sirrahs, do so.—At night. I was this morning to visit the Dean,⁵ or Mr. Prolocutor, I think you call him, don’t you? Why should not I go to the Dean’s as well as you? A little, black man, of pretty near fifty? Ay, the same. A good, pleasant man? Ay, the same. Cunning enough? Yes. One that understands his own interests? As well as anybody. How comes it MD and I don’t meet there sometimes? A very good face, and abundance of wit? Do you know his lady? O Lord! whom do you mean?⁶ I mean Dr. Atterbury, Dean of Carlisle and Prolocutor. Pshaw, Presto, you are a fool: I thought you had meant our Dean of St. Patrick’s.—Silly, silly, silly, you are silly, both are silly, every kind of thing is silly. As I walked into the city I was stopped with clusters of boys and wenches buzzing about the cake-shops like flies.⁷ There had the fools let out their shops two yards forward into the streets, all spread with great cakes frothed with sugar, and stuck with streamers of tinsel. And then I went to Bateman’s the bookseller, and laid out eight-and-forty shillings for books. I bought three little volumes of Lucian in French for our Stella, and so and so. Then I went to Garraway’s⁸ to meet Stratford and dine with him; but it was an idle day with the merchants, and he was gone to our end of the town: so I dined with Sir Thomas Frankland at the Post Office, and we drank your Manley’s health. It was in a newspaper that he was turned out; but Secretary St. John told me it was false: only that newswriter is a plaguy Tory. I have not seen one bit of Christmas merriment.

7. Morning. Your new Lord Chancellor⁹ sets out to-morrow for Ireland: I never saw him. He carries over one Trapp¹⁰ a parson as his chaplain, a sort of pretender to wit, a second-rate pamphleteer for the cause, whom they pay by sending him to Ireland. I never saw Trapp neither. I met Tighe¹¹ and your Smyth of Lovet’s yesterday by the Exchange. Tighe and I took no notice of each other; but I stopped Smyth, and told him of the box that lies for you at Chester, because he says he goes very soon to Ireland, I think this week: and I will send this morning to Sterne, to take measures with Smyth; so good-morrow, sirrahs, and let me rise, pray. I took up this paper when I came in at evening, I mean this minute, and then said I, “No, no, indeed, MD, you must stay”; and then was laying it aside, but could not for my heart, though I am very busy, till I just ask you how you do since morning; by and by we shall talk more, so let me leave you: softly down, little paper, till then; so there—now to business; there, I say, get you gone; no, I will not push you neither, but hand you on one side—So—Now I am got into bed, I’ll talk with you. Mr. Secretary St. John sent for me this morning in all haste; but I would not lose my shaving, for fear of missing church. I went to Court, which is of late always very full; and young Manley and I dined at Sir Matthew Dudley’s.—I must talk politics. I protest I am afraid we shall all be embroiled with parties. The Whigs, now they are fallen, are the most malicious toads in the world. We have had now a second misfortune, the loss of several Virginia ships. I fear people will begin to think that nothing thrives under this Ministry: and if the Ministry can once be rendered odious to the people, the Parliament may be chosen Whig or Tory as the Queen pleases. Then I think our friends press a little too hard on the Duke of Marlborough. The country members¹² are violent to have past faults inquired into, and they have reason; but I do not observe the Ministry to be very fond of it. In my opinion we have nothing to save us but a Peace; and I am sure we cannot have such a one as we hoped; and then the Whigs will bawl what they would have done had they continued in power. I tell the Ministry this as much as I dare; and shall venture to say a little more to them, especially about the Duke of Marlborough, who, as the Whigs give out, will lay down his command; and I question whether ever any wise State laid aside a general who had been successful nine years together, whom the enemy so much dread, and his own soldiers cannot but believe must always conquer; and you know that in war opinion is nine parts in ten. The Ministry hear me always with appearance of regard, and much kindness; but I doubt they let personal quarrels mingle too much with their proceedings. Meantime, they seem to value all this as nothing, and are as easy and merry as if they had nothing in their hearts or upon their shoulders; like physicians, who endeavour to cure, but feel no grief, whatever the patient suffers.—Pshaw, what is all this? Do you know one thing, that I find I can write politics to you much easier than to anybody alive? But I swear my head is full; and I wish I were at Laracor, with dear, charming MD, etc.

8. Morning. Methinks, young women, I have made a great progress in four days, at the bottom of this side already, and no letter yet come from MD (that word interlined is morning). I find I have been writing State affairs to MD. How do they relish it? Why, anything that comes from Presto is welcome; though really, to confess the truth, if they had their choice, not to disguise the matter, they had rather, etc. Now, Presto, I must tell you, you grow silly, says Stella. That is but one body’s opinion, madam. I promised to be with Mr. Secretary St. John this morning; but I am lazy, and will not go, because I had a letter from him yesterday, to desire I would dine there to-day. I shall be chid; but what care I?—Here has been Mrs. South with me, just come from Sir Andrew Fountaine, and going to market. He is still in a fever, and may live or die. His mother and sister are now come up, and in the house; so there is a lurry.¹³ I gave Mrs. South half a pistole for a New Year’s gift. So good-morrow, dears both, till anon.—At night. Lord! I have been with Mr. Secretary from dinner till eight; and, though I drank wine and water, I am so hot! Lady Stanley¹⁴ came to visit Mrs. St. John,¹⁵ and sent up for me to make up a quarrel with Mrs. St. John, whom I never yet saw; and do you think that devil of a Secretary would let me go, but kept me by main force, though I told him I was in love with his lady, and it was a shame to keep back a lover, etc.? But all would not do; so at last I was forced to break away, but never went up, it was then too late; and here I am, and have a great deal to do to-night, though it be nine o’clock; but one must say something to these naughty MD’s, else there will be no quiet.

9. To-day Ford and I set apart to go into the City to buy books; but we only had a scurvy dinner at an alehouse; and he made me go to the tavern and drink Florence, four and sixpence a flask; damned wine! so I spent my money, which I seldom do, and passed an insipid day, and saw nobody, and it is now ten o’clock, and I have nothing to say, but that ’tis a fortnight to-morrow since I had a letter from MD; but if I have it time enough to answer here, ’tis well enough, otherwise woe betide you, faith. I will go to the toyman’s, here just in Pall Mall, and he sells great hugeous battoons;¹⁶ yes, faith, and so he does. Does not he, Dingley? Yes, faith. Don’t lose your money this Christmas.

10. I must go this morning to Mr. Secretary St. John. I promised yesterday, but failed, so can’t write any more till night to poor, dear MD.—At night. O, faith, Dingley. I had company in the morning, and could not go where I designed; and I had a basket from Raymond at Bristol, with six bottles of wine and a pound of chocolate, and some tobacco to snuff; and he writ under, the carriage was paid; but he lied, or I am cheated, or there is a mistake; and he has written to me so confusedly about some things, that Lucifer could not understand him. This wine is to be drunk with Harley’s brother¹⁷ and Sir Robert Raymond, Solicitor-General, in order to recommend the Doctor to your new Lord Chancellor, who left this place on Monday; and Raymond says he is hasting to Chester, to go with him.—I suppose he leaves his wife behind; for when he left London he had no thoughts of stirring till summer. So I suppose he will be with you before this. Ford came and desired I would dine with him, because it was Opera-day; which I did, and sent excuses to Lord Shelburne, who had invited me.

11. I am setting up a new Tatler, little Harrison,¹⁸ whom I have mentioned to you. Others have put him on it, and I encourage him; and he was with me this morning and evening, showing me his first, which comes out on Saturday. I doubt he will not succeed, for I do not much approve his manner; but the scheme is Mr. Secretary St. John’s and mine, and would have done well enough in good hands. I recommended him to a printer,¹⁹ whom I sent for, and settled the matter between them this evening. Harrison has just left me, and I am tired with correcting his trash.

12. I was this morning upon some business with Mr. Secretary St. John, and he made me promise to dine with him; which otherwise I would have done with Mr. Harley, whom I have not been with these ten days. I cannot but think they have mighty difficulties upon them; yet I always find them as easy and disengaged as schoolboys on a holiday. Harley has the procuring of five or six millions on his shoulders, and the Whigs will not lend a groat;²⁰ which is the only reason of the fall of stocks: for they are like Quakers and fanatics, that will only deal among themselves, while all others deal indifferently with them. Lady Marlborough offers, if they will let her keep her employments, never to come into the Queen’s presence. The Whigs say the Duke of Marlborough will serve no more; but I hope and think otherwise. I would to Heaven I were this minute with MD at Dublin; for I am weary of politics, that give me such melancholy prospects.

13. O, faith, I had an ugly giddy fit last night in my chamber, and I have got a new box of pills to take, and hope I shall have no more this good while. I would not tell you before, because it would vex you, little rogues; but now it is over. I dined to-day with Lord Shelburne; and to-day little Harrison’s new Tatler came out: there is not much in it, but I hope he will mend. You must understand that, upon Steele’s leaving off, there were two or three scrub Tatlers²¹ came out, and one of them holds on still, and to-day it advertised against Harrison’s; and so there must be disputes which are genuine, like the strops for razors.²² I am afraid the little toad has not the true vein for it. I will tell you a copy of verses. When Mr. St. John was turned out from being Secretary at War, three years ago, he retired to the country: there he was talking of something he would have written over his summer-house, and a gentleman gave him these verses—

From business and the noisy world retired,
Nor vexed by love, nor by ambition fired;
Gently I wait the call of Charon’s boat,
Still drinking like a fish, and ———— like a stoat.

He swore to me he could hardly bear the jest; for he pretended to retire like a philosopher, though he was but twenty-eight years old: and I believe the thing was true: for he had been a thorough rake. I think the three grave lines do introduce the last well enough. Od so, but I will go sleep; I sleep early now.

14. O, faith, young women, I want a letter from MD; ’tis now nineteen days since I had the last: and where have I room to answer it, pray? I hope I shall send this away without any answer at all; for I’ll hasten it, and away it goes on Tuesday, by which time this side will be full. I will send it two days sooner on purpose out of spite; and the very next day after, you must know, your letter will come, and then ’tis too late, and I will so laugh, never saw the like! ’Tis spring with us already. I ate asparagus t’other day. Did you ever see such a frostless winter? Sir Andrew Fountaine lies still extremely ill; it costs him ten guineas a day to doctors, surgeons, and apothecaries, and has done so these three weeks. I dined to-day with Mr. Ford; he sometimes chooses to dine at home, and I am content to dine with him; and at night I called at the Coffee-house, where I had not been in a week, and talked coldly a while with Mr. Addison. All our friendship and dearness are off: we are civil acquaintance, talk words of course, of when we shall meet, and that is all. I have not been at any house with him these six weeks: t’other day we were to have dined together at the Comptroller’s;²³ but I sent my excuses, being engaged to the Secretary of State. Is not it odd? But I think he has used me ill; and I have used him too well, at least his friend Steele.

15. It has cost me three guineas to-day for a periwig.²⁴ I am undone! It was made by a Leicester lad, who married Mr. Worrall’s daughter, where my mother lodged;²⁵ so I thought it would be cheap, and especially since he lives in the city. Well, London lickpenny:²⁶ I find it true. I have given Harrison hints for another Tatler to-morrow. The jackanapes wants a right taste: I doubt he won’t do. I dined with my friend Lewis of the Secretary’s office, and am got home early, because I have much business to do; but before I begin, I must needs say something to MD, faith—No, faith, I lie, it is but nineteen days to-day since my last from MD. I have got Mr. Harley to promise that whatever changes are made in the Council, the Bishop of Clogher shall not be removed, and he has got a memorial accordingly. I will let the Bishop know so much in a post or two. This is a secret; but I know he has enemies, and they shall not be gratified, if they designed any such thing, which perhaps they might; for some changes there will be made. So drink up your claret, and be quiet, and do not lose your money.

16. Morning. Faith, I will send this letter to-day to shame you, if I han’t one from MD before night, that’s certain. Won’t you grumble for want of the third side, pray now? Yes, I warrant you; yes, yes, you shall have the third, you shall so, when you can catch it, some other time; when you be writing girls.—O, faith, I think I won’t stay till night, but seal up this just now, and carry it in my pocket, and whip it into the post-office as I come home at evening. I am going out early this morning.—Patrick’s bills for coals and candles, etc., come sometimes to three shillings a week; I keep very good fires, though the weather be warm. Ireland will never be happy till you get small coal²⁷ likewise; nothing so easy, so convenient, so cheap, so pretty, for lighting a fire. My service to Mrs. Stoyte and Walls; has she a boy or a girl? A girl, hum; and died in a week, humm; and was poor Stella forced to stand for godmother?—Let me know how accompts stand, that you may have your money betimes. There’s four months for my lodging, that must be thought on too: and so go dine with Manley, and lose your money, do, extravagant sluttikin, but don’t fret.—It will be just three weeks when I have the next letter, that’s to-morrow. Farewell, dearest beloved MD; and love poor, poor Presto, who has not had one happy day since he left you, as hope saved.—It is the last sally I will ever make, but I hope it will turn to some account. I have done more for these,²⁸ and I think they are more honest than the last; however, I will not be disappointed. I would make MD and me easy; and I never desired more.—Farewell, etc. etc.

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.

London, Jan. 16, 1710-11.

O faith, young women, I have sent my letter N.13 without one crumb of an answer to any of MD’s, there’s for you now; and yet Presto ben’t angry, faith, not a bit, only he will begin to be in pain next Irish post, except he sees MD’s little handwriting in the glass-frame at the bar of St. James’s Coffee-house, where Presto would never go but for that purpose. Presto is at home, God help him, every night from six till bed-time, and has as little enjoyment or pleasure in life at present as anybody in the world, although in full favour with all the Ministry. As hope saved, nothing gives Presto any sort of dream of happiness but a letter now and then from his own dearest MD. I love the expectation of it; and when it does not come, I comfort myself that I have it yet to be happy with. Yes, faith, and when I write to MD, I am happy too; it is just as if methinks you were here, and I prating to you, and telling you where I have been: “Well,” says you, “Presto, come, where have you been to-day? come, let’s hear now.” And so then I answer: “Ford and I were visiting Mr. Lewis and Mr. Prior; and Prior has given me a fine Plautus; and then Ford would have had me dine at his lodgings, and so I would not; and so I dined with him at an eating-house, which I have not done five times since I came here; and so I came home, after visiting Sir Andrew Fountaine’s mother and sister, and Sir Andrew Fountaine is mending, though slowly.”

17. I was making, this morning, some general visits, and at twelve I called at the Coffee-house for a letter from MD; so the man said he had given it to Patrick. Then I went to the Court of Requests and Treasury, to find Mr. Harley, and, after some time spent in mutual reproaches, I promised to dine with him. I stayed there till seven, then called at Sterne’s and Leigh’s to talk about your box, and to have it sent by Smyth. Sterne says he has been making inquiries, and will set things right as soon as possible. I suppose it lies at Chester, at least I hope so, and only wants a lift over to you. Here has little Harrison been to complain that the printer I recommended to him for his Tatler is a coxcomb; and yet to see how things will happen; for this very printer is my cousin, his name is Dryden Leach;¹ did you never hear of Dryden Leach, he that prints the Postman? He acted Oroonoko;² he’s in love with Miss Cross.³—Well, so I came home to read my letter from Stella, but the dog Patrick was abroad; at last he came, and I got my letter. I found another hand had superscribed it; when I opened it, I found it written all in French, and subscribed Bernage:⁴ faith, I was ready to fling it at Patrick’s head. Bernage tells me he had been to desire your recommendation to me, to make him a captain; and your cautious answer, that he had as much power with me as you, was a notable one; if you were here, I would present you to the Ministry as a person of ability. Bernage should let me know where to write to him; this is the second letter I have had without any direction; however, I beg I may not have a third, but that you will ask him, and send me how I shall direct to him. In the meantime, tell him that if regiments are to be raised here, as he says, I will speak to George Granville,⁵ Secretary at War, to make him a captain; and use what other interest I conveniently can. I think that is enough, and so tell him, and do not trouble me with his letters, when I expect them from MD; do you hear, young women? write to Presto.

18. I was this morning with Mr. Secretary St. John, and we were to dine at Mr. Harley’s alone, about some business of importance; but there were two or three gentlemen there. Mr. Secretary and I went together from his office to Mr. Harley’s, and thought to have been very wise; but the deuce a bit, the company stayed, and more came, and Harley went away at seven, and the Secretary and I stayed with the rest of the company till eleven; I would then have had him come away; but he was in for’t; and though he swore he would come away at that flask, there I left him. I wonder at the civility of these people; when he saw I would drink no more, he would always pass the bottle by me, and yet I could not keep the toad from drinking himself, nor he would not let me go neither, nor Masham,⁶ who was with us. When I got home, I found a parcel directed to me; and opening it, I found a pamphlet written entirely against myself, not by name, but against something I writ:⁷ it is pretty civil, and affects to be so, and I think I will take no notice of it; ’tis against something written very lately; and indeed I know not what to say, nor do I care. And so you are a saucy rogue for losing your money to-day at Stoyte’s; to let that bungler beat you, fie, Stella, an’t you ashamed? Well, I forgive you this once, never do so again; no, noooo. Kiss and be friends, sirrah.—Come, let me go sleep, I go earlier to bed than formerly; and have not been out so late these two months; but the Secretary was in a drinking humour. So good-night, myownlittledearsaucyinsolentrogues.

19. Then you read that long word in the last line; no,⁸ faith, han’t you. Well, when will this letter come from our MD? to-morrow or next day without fail; yes, faith, and so it is coming. This was an insipid snowy day, no walking day, and I dined gravely with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, and came home, and am now got to bed a little after ten; I remember old Culpepper’s maxim:

“Would you have a settled head,
You must early go to bed:
I tell you, and I tell’t again,
You must be in bed at ten.”

20. And so I went to-day with my new wig, o hoao, to visit Lady Worsley,⁹ whom I had not seen before, although she was near a month in town. Then I walked in the Park to find Mr. Ford, whom I had promised to meet; and coming down the Mall, who should come towards me but Patrick, and gives me five letters out of his pocket. I read the superscription of the first, “Pshoh,” said I; of the second, “Pshoh” again; of the third, “Pshah, pshah, pshah”; of the fourth, “A gad, a gad, a gad, I’m in a rage”; of the fifth and last, “O hoooa; ay marry this is something, this is our MD”; so truly we opened it, I think immediately, and it began the most impudently in the world, thus: “Dear Presto, We are even thus far.” “Now we are even,” quoth Stephen, when he gave his wife six blows for one. I received your ninth four days after I had sent my thirteenth. But I’ll reckon with you anon about that, young women. Why did not you recant at the end of your letter, when you got my eleventh, tell me that, huzzies base? were we even then, were we, sirrah? But I won’t answer your letter now, I’ll keep it for another time. We had a great deal of snow to-day, and ’tis terrible cold. I dined with Ford, because it was his Opera-day and snowed, so I did not care to stir farther. I will send tomorrow to Smyth.

21. Morning. It has snowed terribly all night, and is vengeance cold. I am not yet up, but cannot write long; my hands will freeze. “Is there a good fire, Patrick?” “Yes, sir.” “Then I will rise; come, take away the candle.” You must know I write on the dark side of my bed-chamber, and am forced to have a candle till I rise, for the bed stands between me and the window, and I keep the curtains shut this cold weather. So pray let me rise; and Patrick, here, take away the candle.—At night. We are now here in high frost and snow, the largest fire can hardly keep us warm. It is very ugly walking; a baker’s boy broke his thigh yesterday. I walk slow, make short steps, and never tread on my heel. ’Tis a good proverb the Devonshire people have:

“Walk fast in snow,
In frost walk slow;
And still as you go,
Tread on your toe.
When frost and snow are both together,
Sit by the fire, and spare shoe-leather.”

I dined to-day with Dr. Cockburn,¹⁰ but will not do so again in haste, he has generally such a parcel of Scots with him.

22. Morning. Starving, starving, uth, uth, uth, uth, uth.—Don’t you remember I used to come into your chamber, and turn Stella out of her chair, and rake up the fire in a cold morning, and cry Uth, uth, uth? etc. O, faith, I must rise, my hand is so cold I can write no more. So good-morrow, sirrahs.—At night. I went this morning to Lady Giffard’s house, and saw your mother, and made her give me a pint bottle of palsy-water,¹¹ which I brought home in my pocket; and sealed and tied up in a paper, and sent it to Mr. Smyth, who goes to-morrow for Ireland, and sent a letter to him to desire his care of it, and that he would inquire at Chester about the box. He was not within: so the bottle and letter were left for him at his lodgings, with strict orders to give them to him; and I will send Patrick in a day or two, to know whether it was given, etc. Dr. Stratford¹² and I dined to-day with Mr. Stratford¹³ in the City, by appointment; but I chose to walk there, for exercise in the frost. But the weather had given a little, as you women call it, so it was something slobbery. I did not get home till nine.

And now I’m in bed,
To break your head.

23. Morning. They tell me it freezes again, but it is not so cold as yesterday: so now I will answer a bit of your letter.—At night. O, faith, I was just going to answer some of our MD’s letter this morning, when a printer came in about some business, and stayed an hour; so I rose, and then came in Ben Tooke, and then I shaved and scribbled; and it was such a terrible day, I could not stir out till one, and then I called at Mrs. Barton’s, and we went to Lady Worsley’s, where we were to dine by appointment. The Earl of Berkeley¹⁴ is going to be married to Lady Louisa Lennox, the Duke of Richmond’s daughter. I writ this night to Dean Sterne, and bid him tell you all about the bottle of palsy-water by Smyth; and to-morrow morning I will say something to your letter.

24. Morning. Come now to your letter. As for your being even with me, I have spoken to that already. So now, my dearly beloved, let us proceed to the next. You are always grumbling that you han’t letters fast enough; “surely we shall have your tenth;” and yet, before you end your letter, you own you have my eleventh.—And why did not MD go into the country with the Bishop of Clogher? faith, such a journey would have done you good; Stella should have rode, and Dingley gone in the coach. The Bishop of Kilmore¹⁵ I know nothing of; he is old, and may die; he lives in some obscure corner, for I never heard of him. As for my old friends, if you mean the Whigs, I never see them, as you may find by my journals, except Lord Halifax, and him very seldom; Lord Somers never since the first visit, for he has been a false, deceitful rascal.¹⁶ My new friends are very kind, and I have promises enough, but I do not count upon them, and besides my pretences are very young to them. However, we will see what may be done; and if nothing at all, I shall not be disappointed; although perhaps poor MD may, and then I shall be sorrier for their sakes than my own.—Talk of a merry Christmas (why do you write it so then, young women? sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander), I have wished you all that two or three letters ago. Good lack; and your news, that Mr. St. John is going to Holland; he has no such thoughts, to quit the great station he is in; nor, if he had, could I be spared to go with him. So, faith, politic Madam Stella, you come with your two eggs a penny, etc. Well, Madam Dingley, and so Mrs. Stoyte invites you, and so you stay at Donnybrook, and so you could not write. You are plaguy exact in your journals, from Dec. 25 to Jan. 4. Well, Smyth and the palsy-water I have handled already, and he does not lodge (or rather did not, for, poor man, now he is gone) at Mr. Jesse’s, and all that stuff; but we found his lodging, and I went to Stella’s mother on my own head, for I never remembered it was in the letter to desire another bottle; but I was so fretted, so tosticated, and so impatient that Stella should have her water (I mean decently, do not be rogues), and so vexed with Sterne’s carelessness.—Pray God, Stella’s illness may not return! If they come seldom, they begin to be weary; I judge by myself; for when I seldom visit, I grow weary of my acquaintance.—Leave a good deal of my tenth unanswered! Impudent slut, when did you ever answer my tenth, or ninth, or any other number? or who desires you to answer, provided you write? I defy the D—— to answer my letters: sometimes there may be one or two things I should be glad you would answer; but I forget them, and you never think of them. I shall never love answering letters again, if you talk of answering. Answering, quotha! pretty answerers truly.—As for the pamphlet you speak of, and call it scandalous, and that one Mr. Presto is said to write it, hear my answer. Fie, child, you must not mind what every idle body tells you—I believe you lie, and that the dogs were not crying it when you said so; come, tell truth. I am sorry you go to St. Mary’s¹⁷ so soon, you will be as poor as rats; that place will drain you with a vengeance: besides, I would have you think of being in the country in summer. Indeed, Stella, pippins produced plentifully; Parvisol could not send from Laracor: there were about half a score, I would be glad to know whether they were good for anything.—Mrs. Walls at Donnybrook with you; why is not she brought to bed? Well, well, well, Dingley, pray be satisfied; you talk as if you were angry about the Bishop’s not offering you conveniences for the journey; and so he should.— What sort of Christmas? Why, I have had no Christmas at all; and has it really been Christmas of late? I never once thought of it. My service to Mrs. Stoyte, and Catherine; and let Catherine get the coffee ready against I come, and not have so much care on her countenance; for all will go well.—Mr. Bernage, Mr. Bernage, Mr. Fiddlenage, I have had three letters from him now successively; he sends no directions, and how the D—— shall I write to him? I would have burnt his last, if I had not seen Stella’s hand at the bottom: his request is all nonsense. How can I assist him in buying? and if he be ordered to go to Spain, go he must, or else sell, and I believe one can hardly sell in such a juncture. If he had stayed, and new regiments raised, I would have used my endeavour to have had him removed; although I have no credit that way, or very little: but, if the regiment goes, he ought to go too; he has had great indulgence, and opportunities of saving; and I have urged him to it a hundred times. What can I do? whenever it lies in my power to do him a good office, I will do it. Pray draw up this into a handsome speech, and represent it to him from me, and that I would write, if I knew where to direct to him; and so I have told you, and desired you would tell him, fifty times. Yes, Madam Stella, I think I can read your long concluding word, but you can’t read mine after bidding you good-night. And yet methinks, I mend extremely in my writing; but when Stella’s eyes are well, I hope to write as bad as ever.—So now I have answered your letter, and mine is an answer; for I lay yours before me, and I look and write, and write and look, and look and write again.—So good-morrow, madams both, and I will go rise, for I must rise; for I take pills at night, and so I must rise early, I don’t know why.

25. Morning. I did not tell you how I passed my time yesterday, nor bid you good-night, and there was good reason. I went in the morning to Secretary St. John about some business; he had got a great Whig with him; a creature of the Duke of Marlborough, who is a go-between to make peace between the Duke and the Ministry: so he came out of his closet, and, after a few words, desired I would dine with him at three; but Mr. Lewis stayed till six before he came; and there we sat talking, and the time slipped so, that at last, when I was positive to go, it was past two o’clock; so I came home, and went straight to bed. He would never let me look at his watch, and I could not imagine it above twelve when we went away. So I bid you good-night for last night, and now I bid you good-morrow, and I am still in bed, though it be near ten, but I must rise.

26, 27, 28, 29, 30. I have been so lazy and negligent these last four days that I could not write to MD. My head is not in order, and yet is not absolutely ill, but giddyish, and makes me listless; I walk every day, and take drops of Dr. Cockburn, and I have just done a box of pills; and to-day Lady Kerry sent me some of her bitter drink, which I design to take twice a day, and hope I shall grow better. I wish I were with MD; I long for spring and good weather, and then I will come over. My riding in Ireland keeps me well. I am very temperate, and eat of the easiest meats as I am directed, and hope the malignity will go off; but one fit shakes me a long time. I dined to-day with Lord Mountjoy, yesterday at Mr. Stone’s, in the City, on Sunday at Vanhomrigh’s, Saturday with Ford, and Friday I think at Vanhomrigh’s; and that is all the journal I can send MD, for I was so lazy while I was well, that I could not write. I thought to have sent this to-night, but ’tis ten, and I’ll go to bed, and write on t’other side to Parvisol to-morrow, and send it on Thursday; and so good-night, my dears; and love Presto, and be healthy, and Presto will be so too, etc.

Cut off these notes handsomely, d’ye hear, sirrahs, and give Mrs. Brent hers, and keep yours till you see Parvisol, and then make up the letter to him, and send it him by the first opportunity; and so God Almighty bless you both, here and ever, and poor Presto.

What, I warrant you thought at first that these last lines were another letter.

Dingley, Pray pay Stella six fishes, and place them to the account of your humble servant, Presto.

Stella, Pray pay Dingley six fishes, and place them to the account of your humble servant, Presto.

There are bills of exchange for you.

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 (1680-1736), 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.

London, Jan. 31, 1710-11.

I am to send you my fourteenth to-morrow; but my head, having some little disorders, confounds all my journals. I was early this morning with Mr. Secretary St. John about some business, so I could not scribble my morning lines to MD. They are here intending to tax all little printed penny papers a halfpenny every half-sheet, which will utterly ruin Grub Street, and I am endeavouring to prevent it.¹ Besides, I was forwarding an impeachment against a certain great person; that was two of my businesses with the Secretary, were they not worthy ones? It was Ford’s birthday, and I refused the Secretary, and dined with Ford. We are here in as smart a frost for the time as I have seen; delicate walking weather, and the Canal and Rosamond’s Pond² full of the rabble sliding and with skates, if you know what those are. Patrick’s bird’s water freezes in the gallipot, and my hands in bed.

Feb. 1. I was this morning with poor Lady Kerry, who is much worse in her head than I. She sends me bottles of her bitter; and we are so fond of one another, because our ailments are the same; don’t you know that, Madam Stella? Han’t I seen you conning ailments with Joe’s wife,³ and some others, sirrah? I walked into the City to dine, because of the walk, for we must take care of Presto’s health, you know, because of poor little MD. But I walked plaguy carefully, for fear of sliding against my will; but I am very busy.

2. This morning Mr. Ford came to me to walk into the City, where he had business, and then to buy books at Bateman’s; and I laid out one pound five shillings for a Strabo and Aristophanes, and I have now got books enough to make me another shelf, and I will have more, or it shall cost me a fall; and so as we came back, we drank a flask of right French wine at Ben Tooke’s chamber; and when I got home, Mrs. Vanhomrigh sent me word her eldest daughter⁴ was taken suddenly very ill, and desired I would come and see her. I went, and found it was a silly trick of Mrs. Armstrong,⁵ Lady Lucy’s sister, who, with Moll Stanhope, was visiting there: however, I rattled off the daughter.

3. To-day I went and dined at Lady Lucy’s, where you know I have not been this long time. They are plaguy Whigs, especially the sister Armstrong, the most insupportable of all women, pretending to wit, without any taste. She was running down the last Examiner,⁶ the prettiest I had read, with a character of the present Ministry.—I left them at five, and came home. But I forgot to tell you, that this morning my cousin Dryden Leach, the printer, came to me with a heavy complaint, that Harrison the new Tatler had turned him off, and taken the last Tatler’s printers again. He vowed revenge; I answered gravely, and so he left me, and I have ordered Patrick to deny me to him from henceforth: and at night comes a letter from Harrison, telling me the same thing, and excused his doing it without my notice, because he would bear all the blame; and in his Tatler of this day⁷ he tells you the story, how he has taken his old officers, and there is a most humble letter from Morphew and Lillie to beg his pardon, etc.⁸ And lastly, this morning Ford sent me two letters from the Coffee-house (where I hardly ever go), one from the Archbishop of Dublin, and t’other from—Who do you think t’other was from?— I’ll tell you, because you are friends; why, then it was, faith, it was from my own dear little MD, N.10. Oh, but will not answer it now, no, noooooh, I’ll keep it between the two sheets; here it is, just under; oh, I lifted up the sheet and saw it there: lie still, you shan’t be answered yet, little letter; for I must go to bed, and take care of my head.

4. I avoid going to church yet, for fear of my head, though it has been much better these last five or six days, since I have taken Lady Kerry’s bitter. Our frost holds like a dragon. I went to Mr. Addison’s, and dined with him at his lodgings; I had not seen him these three weeks, we are grown common acquaintance; yet what have not I done for his friend Steele? Mr. Harley reproached me the last time I saw him, that to please me he would be reconciled to Steele, and had promised and appointed to see him, and that Steele never came. Harrison, whom Mr. Addison recommended to me, I have introduced to the Secretary of State, who has promised me to take care of him; and I have represented Addison himself so to the Ministry, that they think and talk in his favour, though they hated him before.—Well, he is now in my debt, and there’s an end; and I never had the least obligation to him, and there’s another end. This evening I had a message from Mr. Harley, desiring to know whether I was alive, and that I would dine with him to-morrow. They dine so late, that since my head has been wrong I have avoided being with them.— Patrick has been out of favour these ten days; I talk dry and cross to him, and have called him “friend” three or four times. But, sirrahs, get you gone.

5. Morning. I am going this morning to see Prior, who dines with me at Mr. Harley’s; so I can’t stay fiddling and talking with dear little brats in a morning, and ’tis still terribly cold.—I wish my cold hand was in the warmest place about you, young women, I’d give ten guineas upon that account with all my heart, faith; oh, it starves my thigh; so I’ll rise and bid you good-morrow, my ladies both, good-morrow. Come, stand away, let me rise: Patrick, take away the candle. Is there a good fire?—So—up-a-dazy.—At night. Mr. Harley did not sit down till six, and I stayed till eleven; henceforth I will choose to visit him in the evenings, and dine with him no more if I can help it. It breaks all my measures, and hurts my health; my head is disorderly, but not ill, and I hope it will mend.

6. Here has been such a hurry with the Queen’s Birthday, so much fine clothes, and the Court so crowded that I did not go there. All the frost is gone. It thawed on Sunday, and so continues, yet ice is still on the Canal (I did not mean that of Laracor, but St. James’s Park) and boys sliding on it. Mr. Ford pressed me to dine with him in his chamber.—Did not I tell you Patrick has got a bird, a linnet, to carry over to Dingley? It was very tame at first, and ’tis now the wildest I ever saw. He keeps it in a closet, where it makes a terrible litter; but I say nothing: I am as tame as a clout. When must we answer our MD’s letter? One of these odd-come-shortlies. This is a week old, you see, and no farther yet. Mr. Harley desired I would dine with him again to-day; but I refused him, for I fell out with him yesterday,⁹ and will not see him again till he makes me amends: and so I go to bed.

7. I was this morning early with Mr. Lewis of the Secretary’s office, and saw a letter Mr. Harley had sent to him, desiring to be reconciled; but I was deaf to all entreaties, and have desired Lewis to go to him, and let him know I expect further satisfaction. If we let these great Ministers pretend too much, there will be no governing them. He promises to make me easy, if I will but come and see him; but I won’t, and he shall do it by message, or I will cast him off. I’ll tell you the cause of our quarrel when I see you, and refer it to yourselves. In that he did something, which he intended for a favour; and I have taken it quite otherwise, disliking both the thing and the manner, and it has heartily vexed me, and all I have said is truth, though it looks like jest; and I absolutely refused to submit to his intended favour, and expect further satisfaction. Mr. Ford and I dined with Mr. Lewis. We have a monstrous deal of snow, and it has cost me two shillings to-day in chair and coach, and walked till I was dirty besides. I know not what it is now to read or write after I am in bed. The last thing I do up is to write something to our MD, and then get into bed, and put out my candle, and so go sleep as fast as ever I can. But in the mornings I do write sometimes in bed, as you know.

8. Morning. I HAVE DESIRED APRONIA TO BE ALWAYS CAREFUL, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE LEGS. Pray, do you see any such great wit in that sentence? I must freely own that I do not. But party carries everything nowadays, and what a splutter have I heard about the wit of that saying, repeated with admiration above a hundred times in half an hour! Pray read it over again this moment, and consider it. I think the word is ADVISED, and not DESIRED. I should not have remembered it if I had not heard it so often. Why—ay—You must know I dreamed it just now, and waked with it in my mouth. Are you bit, or are you not, sirrahs? I met Mr. Harley in the Court of Requests, and he asked me how long I had learnt the trick of writing to myself? He had seen your letter through the glass case at the Coffee-house, and would swear it was my hand; and Mr. Ford, who took and sent it me, was of the same mind. I remember others have formerly said so too. I think I was little MD’s writing-master.¹⁰—But come, what is here to do, writing to young women in a morning? I have other fish to fry; so good-morrow, my ladies all, good-morrow. Perhaps I’ll answer your letter to-night, perhaps I won’t; that’s as saucy little Presto takes the humour.—At night. I walked in the Park to-day in spite of the weather, as I do always when it does not actually rain. Do you know what it has gone and done? We had a thaw for three days, then a monstrous dirt and snow, and now it freezes, like a pot-lid, upon our snow. I dined with Lady Betty Germaine, the first time since I came for England; and there did I sit, like a booby, till eight, looking over her and another lady at piquet, when I had other business enough to do. It was the coldest day I felt this year.

9. Morning. After I had been abed an hour last night, I was forced to rise and call to the landlady and maid to have the fire removed in a chimney below stairs, which made my bed-chamber smoke, though I had no fire in it. I have been twice served so. I never lay so miserable an hour in my life. Is it not plaguy vexatious?—It has snowed all night, and rains this morning.—Come, where’s MD’s letter? Come, Mrs. Letter, make your appearance. Here am I, says she, answer me to my face.—O, faith, I am sorry you had my twelfth so soon; I doubt you will stay longer for the rest. I’m so ‘fraid you have got my fourteenth while I am writing this; and I would always have one letter from Presto reading, one travelling, and one writing. As for the box, I now believe it lost. It is directed for Mr. Curry, at his house in Capel Street, etc. I had a letter yesterday from Dr. Raymond in Chester, who says he sent his man everywhere, and cannot find it; and God knows whether Mr. Smyth will have better success. Sterne spoke to him, and I writ to him with the bottle of palsy-water; that bottle, I hope, will not miscarry: I long to hear you have it. O, faith, you have too good an opinion of Presto’s care. I am negligent enough of everything but MD, and I should not have trusted Sterne.— But it shall not go so: I will have one more tug for it.—As to what you say of Goodman Peasly and Isaac,¹¹ I answer as I did before. Fie, child, you must not give yourself the way to believe any such thing: and afterwards, only for curiosity, you may tell me how these things are approved, and how you like them; and whether they instruct you in the present course of affairs, and whether they are printed in your town, or only sent from hence.—Sir Andrew Fountaine is recovered; so take your sorrow again, but don’t keep it, fling it to the dogs. And does little MD walk indeed?—I’m glad of it at heart.—Yes, we have done with the plague here: it was very saucy in you to pretend to have it before your betters. Your intelligence that the story is false about the officers forced to sell,¹² is admirable. You may see them all three here every day, no more in the army than you. Twelve shillings for mending the strong box; that is, for putting a farthing’s worth of iron on a hinge, and gilding it; give him six shillings, and I’ll pay it, and never employ him or his again.—No indeed, I put off preaching as much as I can. I am upon another foot: nobody doubts here whether I can preach, and you are fools.— The account you give of that weekly paper¹³ agrees with us here. Mr. Prior was like to be insulted in the street for being supposed the author of it; but one of the last papers cleared him. Nobody knows who it is, but those few in the secret, I suppose the Ministry and the printer.—Poor Stella’s eyes! God bless them, and send them better. Pray spare them, and write not above two lines a day in broad daylight. How does Stella look, Madam Dingley? Pretty well, a handsome young woman still. Will she pass in a crowd? Will she make a figure in a country church?—Stay a little, fair ladies. I this minute sent Patrick to Sterne: he brings back word that your box is very safe with one Mr. Earl’s sister in Chester, and that Colonel Edgworth’s widow¹⁴ goes for Ireland on Monday next, and will receive the box at Chester, and deliver it you safe: so there are some hopes now.—Well, let us go on to your letter.— The warrant is passed for the First-Fruits. The Queen does not send a letter; but a patent will be drawn here, and that will take up time. Mr. Harley of late has said nothing of presenting me to the Queen: I was overseen¹⁵ when I mentioned it to you. He has such a weight of affairs on him, that he cannot mind all; but he talked of it three or four times to me, long before I dropped it to you. What, is not Mrs. Walls’ business over yet? I had hopes she was up and well, and the child dead before this time.—You did right, at last, to send me your accompts; but I did not stay for them, I thank you. I hope you have your bill sent in my last, and there will be eight pounds’ interest soon due from Hawkshaw: pray look at his bond. I hope you are good managers; and that, when I say so, Stella won’t think I intend she should grudge herself wine. But going to those expensive lodgings requires some fund. I wish you had stayed till I came over, for some reasons. That Frenchwoman¹⁶ will be grumbling again in a little time: and if you are invited anywhere to the country, it will vex you to pay in absence; and the country may be necessary for poor Stella’s health: but do as you like, and do not blame Presto.—Oh, but you are telling your reasons.—Well, I have read them; do as you please.— Yes, Raymond says he must stay longer than he thought, because he cannot settle his affairs. M—— is in the country at some friend’s, comes to town in spring, and then goes to settle in Herefordshire. Her husband is a surly, ill-natured brute, and cares not she should see anybody. O Lord, see how I blundered, and left two lines short; it was that ugly score in the paper¹⁷ that made me mistake.—I believe you lie about the story of the fire, only to make it more odd. Bernage must go to Spain; and I will see to recommend him to the Duke of Argyle, his General, when I see the Duke next: but the officers tell me it would be dishonourable in the last degree for him to sell now, and he would never be preferred in the army; so that, unless he designs to leave it for good and all, he must go. Tell him so, and that I would write if I knew where to direct to him; which I have said fourscore times already. I had rather anything almost than that you should strain yourselves to send a letter when it is inconvenient; we have settled that matter already. I’ll write when I can, and so shall MD; and upon occasions extraordinary I will write, though it be a line; and when we have not letters soon, we agree that all things are well; and so that’s settled for ever, and so hold your tongue.—Well, you shall have your pins; but for candles’ ends, I cannot promise, because I burn them to the stumps; besides, I remember what Stella told Dingley about them many years ago, and she may think the same thing of me.— And Dingley shall have her hinged spectacles.—Poor dear Stella, how durst you write those two lines by candlelight? bang your bones! Faith, this letter shall go to-morrow, I think, and that will be in ten days from the last, young women; that’s too soon of all conscience: but answering yours has filled it up so quick, and I do not design to use you to three pages in folio, no, nooooh. All this is one morning’s work in bed;—and so good-morrow, little sirrahs; that’s for the rhyme.¹⁸ You want politics: faith, I can’t think of any; but may be at night I may tell you a passage. Come, sit off the bed, and let me rise, will you?—At night. I dined to-day with my neighbour Vanhomrigh; it was such dismal weather I could not stir further. I have had some threatenings with my head, but no fits. I still drink Dr. Radcliffe’s¹⁹ bitter, and will continue it.

10. I was this morning to see the Secretary of State, and have engaged him to give a memorial from me to the Duke of Argyle in behalf of Bernage. The Duke is a man that distinguishes people of merit, and I will speak to him myself; but the Secretary backing it will be very effectual, and I will take care to have it done to purpose. Pray tell Bernage so, and that I think nothing can be luckier for him, and that I would have him go by all means. I will order it that the Duke shall send for him when they are in Spain; or, if he fails, that he shall receive him kindly when he goes to wait on him. Can I do more? Is not this a great deal?—I now send away this letter, that you may not stay.—I dined with Ford upon his Opera-day, and am now come home, and am going to study; do not you presume to guess, sirrahs, impudent saucy dear boxes. Towards the end of a letter I could not say saucy boxes without putting dear between. An’t that right now? Farewell. THIS should BE longer, BUT that I send IT to-night.²⁰

O silly, silly loggerhead!

I send a letter this post to one Mr. Staunton, and I direct it to Mr. Acton’s in St. Michael’s Lane. He formerly lodged there, but he has not told me where to direct. Pray send to that Acton, whether²¹ the letter is come there, and whether he has sent it to Staunton.

If Bernage designs to sell his commission and stay at home, pray let him tell me so, that my recommendation to the Duke of Argyle may not be in vain.

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.

London, Feb. 10, 1710-11.

I have just despatched my fifteenth to the post; I tell you how things will be, after I have got a letter from MD. I am in furious haste to finish mine, for fear of having two of MD’s to answer in one of Presto’s, which would be such a disgrace, never saw the like; but, before you write to me, I write at my leisure, like a gentleman, a little every day, just to let you know how matters go, and so and so; and I hope before this comes to you, you’ll have got your box and chocolate, and Presto will take more care another time.

11. Morning. I must rise and go see my Lord Keeper,¹ which will cost me two shillings in coach-hire. Don’t you call them two thirteens?²—At night. It has rained all day, and there was no walking. I read prayers to Sir Andrew Fountaine in the forenoon, and I dined with three Irishmen, at one Mr. Cope’s³ lodgings; the other two were one Morris an archdeacon,⁴ and Mr. Ford. When I came home this evening, I expected that little jackanapes Harrison would have come to get help about his Tatler for Tuesday: I have fixed two evenings in the week which I allow him to come. The toad never came, and I expecting him fell a reading, and left off other business.—Come, what are you doing? How do you pass your time this ugly weather? Gaming and drinking, I suppose: fine diversions for young ladies, truly! I wish you had some of our Seville oranges, and we some of your wine. We have the finest oranges for twopence apiece, and the basest wine for six shillings a bottle. They tell me wine grows cheap with you. I am resolved to have half a hogshead when I get to Ireland, if it be good and cheap, as it used to be; and I will treat MD at my table in an evening, oh hoa, and laugh at great Ministers of State.

12. The days are grown fine and long, ——— be thanked. O, faith, you forget all our little sayings, and I am angry. I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St. John: I went to the Court of Requests at noon, and sent Mr. Harley into the House to call the Secretary, to let him know I would not dine with him if he dined late. By good luck the Duke of Argyle was at the lobby of the House too, and I kept him in talk till the Secretary came out; then told them I was glad to meet them together, and that I had a request to the Duke, which the Secretary must second, and his Grace must grant. The Duke said he was sure it was something insignificant, and wished it was ten times greater. At the Secretary’s house I writ a memorial, and gave it to the Secretary to give the Duke, and shall see that he does it. It is, that his Grace will please to take Mr. Bernage into his protection; and if he finds Bernage answers my character, to give him all encouragement. Colonel Masham⁵ and Colonel Hill⁶ (Mrs. Masham’s⁷ brother tell me my request is reasonable, and they will second it heartily to the Duke too: so I reckon Bernage is on a very good foot when he goes to Spain. Pray tell him this, though perhaps I will write to him before he goes; yet where shall I direct? for I suppose he has left Connolly’s.⁸

13. I have left off Lady Kerry’s bitter, and got another box of pills. I have no fits of giddiness, but only some little disorders towards it; and I walk as much as I can. Lady Kerry is just as I am, only a great deal worse: I dined to-day at Lord Shelburne’s, where she is, and we con ailments, which makes us very fond of each other. I have taken Mr. Harley into favour again, and called to see him, but he was not within; I will use to visit him after dinner, for he dines too late for my head: then I went to visit poor Congreve, who is just getting out of a severe fit of the gout; and I sat with him till near nine o’clock. He gave me a Tatler⁹ he had written out, as blind as he is, for little Harrison. It is about a scoundrel that was grown rich, and went and bought a coat of arms at the Herald’s, and a set of ancestors at Fleet Ditch; ’tis well enough, and shall be printed in two or three days, and if you read those kind of things, this will divert you. It is now between ten and eleven, and I am going to bed.

14. This was Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s daughter’s¹⁰ birthday, and Mr. Ford and I were invited to dinner to keep it, and we spent the evening there, drinking punch. That was our way of beginning Lent; and in the morning Lord Shelburne, Lady Kerry, Mrs. Pratt, and I, went to Hyde Park, instead of going to church; for, till my head is a little settled, I think it better not to go; it would be so silly and troublesome to go out sick. Dr. Duke¹¹ died suddenly two or three nights ago; he was one of the wits when we were children, but turned parson, and left it, and never writ farther than a prologue or recommendatory copy of verses. He had a fine living given him by the Bishop of Winchester¹² about three months ago; he got his living suddenly, and he got his dying so too.

15. I walked purely to-day about the Park, the rain being just over, of which we have had a great deal, mixed with little short frosts. I went to the Court of Requests, thinking, if Mr. Harley dined early, to go with him. But meeting Leigh and Sterne, they invited me to dine with them, and away we went. When we got into his room, one H——, a worthless Irish fellow, was there, ready to dine with us; so I stepped out, and whispered them, that I would not dine with that fellow: they made excuses, and begged me to stay; but away I went to Mr. Harley’s, and he did not dine at home; and at last I dined at Sir John Germaine’s,¹³ and found Lady Betty but just recovered of a miscarriage. I am writing an inscription for Lord Berkeley’s¹⁴ tomb; you know the young rake his son, the new Earl, is married to the Duke of Richmond’s daughter,¹⁵ at the Duke’s country house, and are now coming to town. She will be fluxed in two months, and they’ll be parted in a year. You ladies are brave, bold, venturesome folks; and the chit is but seventeen, and is ill-natured, covetous, vicious, and proud in extremes. And so get you gone to Stoyte to-morrow.

16. Faith, this letter goes on but slow; ’tis a week old, and the first side not written. I went to-day into the City for a walk, but the person I designed to dine with was not at home; so I came back, and called at Congreve’s, and dined with him and Estcourt,¹⁶ and laughed till six; then went to Mr. Harley’s, who was not gone to dinner; there I stayed till nine, and we made up our quarrel, and he has invited me to dinner to-morrow, which is the day of the week (Saturday) that Lord Keeper and Secretary St. John dine with him privately, and at last they have consented to let me among them on that day. Atterbury and Prior went to bury poor Dr. Duke. Congreve’s nasty white wine has given me the heart-burn.

17. I took some good walks in the Park to-day, and then went to Mr. Harley. Lord Rivers was got there before me, and I chid him for presuming to come on a day when only Lord Keeper and the Secretary and I were to be there; but he regarded me not; so we all dined together, and sat down at four; and the Secretary has invited me to dine with him to-morrow. I told them I had no hopes they could ever keep in, but that I saw they loved one another so well, as indeed they seem to do. They call me nothing but Jonathan; and I said I believed they would leave me Jonathan as they found me; and that I never knew a Ministry do anything for those whom they make companions of their pleasures; and I believe you will find it so; but I care not. I am upon a project of getting five hundred pounds,¹⁷ without being obliged to anybody; but that is a secret, till I see my dearest MD; and so hold your tongue, and do not talk, sirrahs, for I am now about it.

18. My head has no fits, but a little disordered before dinner; yet I walk stoutly, and take pills, and hope to mend. Secretary St. John would needs have me dine with him to-day; and there I found three persons I never saw, two I had no acquaintance with, and one I did not care for: so I left them early and came home, it being no day to walk, but scurvy rain and wind. The Secretary tells me he has put a cheat on me; for Lord Peterborow sent him twelve dozen flasks of burgundy, on condition that I should have my share; but he never was quiet till they were all gone, so I reckon he owes me thirty-six pounds. Lord Peterborow is now got to Vienna, and I must write to him to-morrow. I begin now to be towards looking for a letter from some certain ladies of Presto’s acquaintance, that live at St. Mary’s,¹⁸ and are called in a certain language, our little MD. No, stay, I don’t expect one these six days, that will be just three weeks; an’t I a reasonable creature? We are plagued here with an October Club, that is, a set of above a hundred Parliament men of the country, who drink October beer at home, and meet every evening at a tavern near the Parliament to consult affairs, and drive things on to extremes against the Whigs, to call the old Ministry to account, and get off five or six heads.¹⁹ The Ministry seem not to regard them; yet one of them in confidence told me that there must be something thought on, to settle things better. I’ll tell you one great State secret: the Queen, sensible how much she was governed by the late Ministry, runs a little into t’other extreme, and is jealous in that point, even of those who got her out of the others’ hands. The Ministry is for gentler measures, and the other Tories for more violent. Lord Rivers, talking to me the other day, cursed the paper called the Examiner, for speaking civilly of the Duke of Marlborough; this I happened to talk of to the Secretary, who blamed the warmth of that lord and some others, and swore that if their advice were followed they would be blown up in twenty-four hours. And I have reason to think that they will endeavour to prevail on the Queen to put her affairs more in the hands of a Ministry than she does at present; and there are, I believe, two men thought on, one of them you have often met the name of in my letters. But so much for politics.

19. This proved a terrible rainy day, which prevented my walk into the City, and I was only able to run and dine with my neighbour Vanhomrigh, where Sir Andrew Fountaine dined too, who has just began to sally out, and has shipped his mother and sister, who were his nurses, back to the country. This evening was fair, and I walked a little in the Park, till Prior made me go with him to the Smyrna Coffee-house, where I sat a while, and saw four or five Irish persons, who are very handsome, genteel fellows; but I know not their names. I came away at seven, and got home. Two days ago I writ to Bernage, and told him what I had done, and directed the letter to Mr. Curry’s, to be left with Dingley. Brigadiers Hill and Masham, brother and husband to Mrs. Masham, the Queen’s favourite, Colonel Disney,²⁰ and I, have recommended Bernage to the Duke of Argyle; and Secretary St. John has given the Duke my memorial; and, besides, Hill tells me, that Bernage’s colonel, Fielding,²¹ designs to make him his captain-lieutenant: but I believe I said this to you before, and in this letter; but I will not look.

20. Morning. It snows terribly again; and ’tis mistaken, for I now want a little good weather. I bid you good-morrow; and, if it clear up, get you gone to poor Mrs. Walls, who has had a hard time of it, but is now pretty well again. I am sorry it is a girl: the poor Archdeacon too, see how simply he looked when they told him: what did it cost Stella to be gossip? I’ll rise; so, d’ye hear, let me see you at night; and do not stay late out, and catch cold, sirrahs.—At night. It grew good weather, and I got a good walk, and dined with Ford upon his Opera-day; but, now all his wine is gone, I shall dine with him no more. I hope to send this letter before I hear from MD, methinks there is—something great in doing so, only I can’t express where it lies; and, faith, this shall go by Saturday, as sure as you’re a rogue. Mrs. Edgworth was to set out but last Monday; so you won’t have your box so soon perhaps as this letter; but Sterne told me since that it is safe at Chester, and that she will take care of it. I’d give a guinea you had it.

21. Morning. Faith, I hope it will be fair for me to walk into the City; for I take all occasions of walking.—I should be plaguy busy at Laracor if I were there now, cutting down willows, planting others, scouring my canal, and every kind of thing. If Raymond goes over this summer, you must submit, and make them a visit, that we may have another eel and trout fishing; and that Stella may ride by, and see Presto in his morning-gown in the garden, and so go up with Joe to the Hill of Bree, and round by Scurlock’s Town. O Lord, how I remember names! faith, it gives me short sighs; therefore no more of that, if you love me. Good-morrow, I will go rise like a gentleman; my pills say I must.—At night. Lady Kerry sent to desire me to engage some lords about an affair she has in their house here: I called to see her, but found she had already engaged every lord I knew, and that there was no great difficulty in the matter; and it rained like a dog; so I took coach, for want of better exercise, and dined privately with a hang-dog in the City, and walked back in the evening. The days are now long enough to walk in the Park after dinner; and so I do whenever it is fair. This walking is a strange remedy: Mr. Prior walks, to make himself fat, and I to bring myself down; he has generally a cough, which he only calls a cold; we often walk round the Park together. So I’ll go sleep.

22. It snowed all this morning prodigiously, and was some inches thick in three or four hours. I dined with Mr. Lewis of the Secretary’s office at his lodgings: the chairmen that carried me squeezed a great fellow against a wall, who wisely turned his back, and broke one of the side-glasses in a thousand pieces. I fell a scolding, pretended I was like to be cut to pieces, and made them set down the chair in the Park, while they picked out the bits of glasses; and, when I paid them, I quarrelled still; so they dared not grumble, and I came off for my fare; but I was plaguily afraid they would have said, “God bless your honour, won’t you give us something for our glass?” Lewis and I were forming a project how I might get three or four hundred pounds,²² which I suppose may come to nothing. I hope Smyth has brought you your palsy-drops. How does Stella do? I begin more and more to desire to know. The three weeks since I had your last is over within two days, and I will allow three for accidents.

23. The snow is gone every bit, except the remainder of some great balls made by the boys. Mr. Sterne was with me this morning about an affair he has before the Treasury. That drab Mrs. Edgworth is not yet set out, but will infallibly next Monday: and this is the third infallible Monday, and pox take her! So you will have this letter first; and this shall go to-morrow; and, if I have one from MD in that time, I will not answer it till my next; only I will say, “Madam, I received your letter, and so, and so.” I dined to-day with my Mistress Butler,²³ who grows very disagreeable.

24. Morning. This letter certainly goes this evening, sure as you’re alive, young women, and then you will be so shamed that I have had none from you; and, if I was to reckon like you, I would say, I were six letters before you, for this is N.16, and I have had your N.10. But I reckon you have received but fourteen, and have sent eleven. I think to go to-day a Minister-of-State-hunting in the Court of Requests; for I have something to say to Mr. Harley. And it is fine, cold, sunshiny weather; I wish dear MD would walk this morning in your Stephen’s Green; ’tis as good as our Park, but not so large.²⁴ Faith, this summer we’ll take a coach for sixpence²⁵ to the Green Well, the two walks, and thence all the way to Stoyte’s.²⁶ My hearty service to Goody Stoyte and Catherine; and I hope Mrs. Walls had a good time. How inconstant I am! I can’t imagine I was ever in love with her. Well, I’m going; what have you to say? I DO NOT CARE HOW I WRITE NOW.²⁷ I don’t design to write on this side; these few lines are but so much more than your due; so I will write LARGE or small as I please. O, faith, my hands are starving in bed; I believe it is a hard frost. I must rise, and bid you good-bye, for I’ll seal this letter immediately, and carry it in my pocket, and put it into the post-office with my own fair hands. Farewell.

This letter is just a fortnight’s journal to-day. Yes, and so it is, I’m sure, says you, with your two eggs a penny.

Lele, lele, lele.²⁸

O Lord, I am saying lele, lele, to myself, in all our little keys: and, now you talk of keys, that dog Patrick broke the key-general of the chest of drawers with six locks, and I have been so plagued to get a new one, besides my good two shillings!

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 1707 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 1707, 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.

London, Feb. 24, 1710-11.

Now, young women, I gave in my sixteenth this evening. I dined with Ford (it was his Opera-day) as usual; it is very convenient to me to do so, for coming home early after a walk in the Park, which now the days will allow. I called on the Secretary at his office, and he had forgot to give the memorial about Bernage to the Duke of Argyle; but, two days ago, I met the Duke, who desired I would give it him myself, which should have more power with him than all the Ministry together, as he protested solemnly, repeated it two or three times, and bid me count upon it. So that I verily believe Bernage will be in a very good way to establish himself. I think I can do no more for him at present, and there’s an end of that; and so get you gone to bed, for it is late.

25. The three weeks are out yesterday since I had your last, and so now I will be expecting every day a pretty dear letter from my own MD, and hope to hear that Stella has been much better in her head and eyes: my head continues as it was, no fits, but a little disorder every day, which I can easily bear, if it will not grow worse. I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St. John, on condition I might choose my company, which were Lord Rivers, Lord Carteret, Sir Thomas Mansel,¹ and Mr. Lewis; I invited Masham, Hill, Sir John Stanley, and George Granville, but they were engaged; and I did it in revenge of his having such bad company when I dined with him before; so we laughed, etc. And I ventured to go to church to-day, which I have not done this month before. Can you send me such a good account of Stella’s health, pray now? Yes, I hope, and better too. We dined (says you) at the Dean’s, and played at cards till twelve, and there came in Mr. French, and Dr. Travors, and Dr. Whittingham, and Mr. (I forget his name, that I always tell Mrs. Walls of) the banker’s son, a pox on him. And we were so merry; I vow they are pure good company. But I lost a crown; for you must know I had always hands tempting me to go out, but never took in anything, and often two black aces without a manilio; was not that hard, Presto? Hold your tongue, etc.

26. I was this morning with Mr. Secretary about some business, and he tells me that Colonel Fielding is now going to make Bernage his captain-lieutenant, that is, a captain by commission, and the perquisites of the company; but not captain’s pay, only the first step to it. I suppose he will like it; and the recommendation to the Duke of Argyle goes on. And so trouble me no more about your Bernage; the jackanapes understands what fair solicitors he has got, I warrant you. Sir Andrew Fountaine and I dined, by invitation, with Mrs. Vanhomrigh. You say they are of no consequence: why, they keep as good female company as I do male; I see all the drabs of quality at this end of the town with them: I saw two Lady Bettys² there this afternoon; the beauty of one, the good-breeding and nature of t’other, and the wit of neither, would have made a fine woman. Rare walking in the Park now: why don’t you walk in the Green of St. Stephen? The walks there are finer gravelled than the Mall. What beasts the Irish women are, never to walk!

27. Darteneuf and I, and little Harrison the new Tatler, and Jervas the painter, dined to-day with James,³ I know not his other name, but it is one of Darteneuf’s dining-places, who is a true epicure. James is clerk of the kitchen to the Queen, and has a little snug house at St. James’s; and we had the Queen’s wine, and such very fine victuals that I could not eat it. Three weeks and three days since my last letter from MD; rare doings! why, truly we were so busy with poor Mrs. Walls, that indeed, Presto, we could not write, we were afraid the poor woman would have died; and it pitied us to see the Archdeacon, how concerned he was. The Dean never came to see her but once; but now she is up again, and we go and sit with her in the evenings. The child died the next day after it was born; and I believe, between friends, she is not very sorry for it.—Indeed, Presto, you are plaguy silly tonight, and han’t guessed one word right; for she and the child are both well, and it is a fine girl, likely to live; and the Dean was godfather, and Mrs. Catherine and I were godmothers; I was going to say Stoyte, but I think I have heard they don’t put maids and married women together; though I know not why I think so, nor I don’t care; what care I? but I must prate, etc.

28. I walked to-day into the City for my health, and there dined; which I always do when the weather is fair, and business permits, that I may be under a necessity of taking a good walk, which is the best thing I can do at present for my health. Some bookseller has raked up everything I writ, and published it t’other day in one volume; but I know nothing of it, ’twas without my knowledge or consent: it makes a four-shilling book, and is called Miscellanies in Prose and Verse.⁴ Tooke pretends he knows nothing of it; but I doubt he is at the bottom. One must have patience with these things; the best of it is, I shall be plagued no more. However, I will bring a couple of them over with me for MD; perhaps you may desire to see them. I hear they sell mightily.

March 1. Morning. I have been calling to Patrick to look in his almanac for the day of the month; I did not know but it might be leap-year. The almanac says ’tis the third after leap-year; and I always thought till now, that every third year was leap-year. I am glad they come so seldom; but I’m sure ’twas otherwise when I was a young man; I see times are mightily changed since then.—Write to me, sirrahs; be sure do by the time this side is done, and I’ll keep t’other side for the answer: so I’ll go write to the Bishop of Clogher; good-morrow, sirrahs.—Night. I dined to-day at Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s, being a rainy day; and Lady Betty Butler, knowing it, sent to let me know she expected my company in the evening, where the Vans (so we call them) were to be. The Duchess⁵ and they do not go over this summer with the Duke; so I go to bed.

2. This rainy weather undoes me in coaches and chairs. I was traipsing to-day with your Mr. Sterne, to go along with them to Moore,⁶ and recommend his business to the Treasury. Sterne tells me his dependence is wholly on me; but I have absolutely refused to recommend it to Mr. Harley, because I have troubled him lately so much with other folks’ affairs; and besides, to tell the truth, Mr. Harley told me he did not like Sterne’s business: however, I will serve him, because I suppose MD would have me. But, in saying his dependence lies wholly on me, he lies, and is a fool. I dined with Lord Abercorn, whose son Peasley⁷ will be married at Easter to ten thousand pounds.

3. I forgot to tell you that yesterday morning I was at Mr. Harley’s levee: he swore I came in spite, to see him among a parcel of fools. My business was to desire I might let the Duke of Ormond know how the affair stood of the First-Fruits. He promised to let him know it, and engaged me to dine with him to-day. Every Saturday, Lord Keeper, Secretary St. John, and I dine with him, and sometimes Lord Rivers; and they let in none else. Patrick brought me some letters into the Park; among which one was from Walls; and t’other, yes, faith, t’other was from our little MD, N.11. I read the rest in the Park, and MD’s in a chair as I went from St. James’s to Mr. Harley; and glad enough I was, faith, to read it, and see all right. Oh, but I won’t answer it these three or four days at least, or may be sooner. An’t I silly? faith, your letters would make a dog silly, if I had a dog to be silly, but it must be a little dog.—I stayed with Mr. Harley till past nine, where we had much discourse together after the rest were gone; and I gave him very truly my opinion where he desired it. He complained he was not very well, and has engaged me to dine with him again on Monday. So I came home afoot, like a fine gentleman, to tell you all this.

4. I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St. John; and after dinner he had a note from Mr. Harley, that he was much out of order.⁸ Pray God preserve his health! everything depends upon it. The Parliament at present cannot go a step without him, nor the Queen neither. I long to be in Ireland; but the Ministry beg me to stay: however, when this Parliament lurry⁹ is over, I will endeavour to steal away; by which time I hope the First-Fruit business will be done. This kingdom is certainly ruined as much as was ever any bankrupt merchant. We must have peace, let it be a bad or a good one, though nobody dares talk of it. The nearer I look upon things, the worse I like them. I believe the confederacy will soon break to pieces, and our factions at home increase. The Ministry is upon a very narrow bottom, and stand like an isthmus, between the Whigs on one side, and violent Tories on the other. They are able seamen; but the tempest is too great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them. Lord Somers has been twice in the Queen’s closet, once very lately; and your Duchess of Somerset,¹⁰ who now has the key, is a most insinuating woman; and I believe they will endeavour to play the same game that has been played against them.—I have told them of all this, which they know already, but they cannot help it. They have cautioned the Queen so much against being governed, that she observes it too much. I could talk till to-morrow upon these things, but they make me melancholy. I could not but observe that lately, after much conversation with Mr. Harley, though he is the most fearless man alive, and the least apt to despond, he confessed to me that uttering his mind to me gave him ease.

5. Mr. Harley continues out of order, yet his affairs force him abroad: he is subject to a sore throat, and was cupped last night: I sent and called two or three times. I hear he is better this evening. I dined to-day in the City with Dr. Freind at a third body’s house, where I was to pass for somebody else; and there was a plaguy silly jest carried on, that made me sick of it. Our weather grows fine, and I will walk like camomile. And pray walk you to your Dean’s, or your Stoyte’s, or your Manley’s, or your Walls’. But your new lodgings make you so proud, you will walk less than ever. Come, let me go to bed, sirrahs.

6. Mr. Harley’s going out yesterday has put him a little backwards. I called twice, and sent, for I am in pain for him. Ford caught me, and made me dine with him on his Opera-day; so I brought Mr. Lewis with me, and sat with him till six. I have not seen Mr. Addison these three weeks; all our friendship is over. I go to no Coffee-house. I presented a parson of the Bishop of Clogher’s, one Richardson,¹¹ to the Duke of Ormond to-day: he is translating prayers and sermons into Irish, and has a project about instructing the Irish in the Protestant religion.

7. Morning. Faith, a little would make me, I could find in my heart, if it were not for one thing, I have a good mind, if I had not something else to do, I would answer your dear saucy letter. O, Lord, I am going awry with writing in bed. O, faith, but I must answer it, or I shan’t have room, for it must go on Saturday; and don’t think I will fill the third side, I an’t come to that yet, young women. Well then, as for your Bernage, I have said enough: I writ to him last week.—Turn over that leaf. Now, what says MD to the world to come? I tell you, Madam Stella, my head is a great deal better, and I hope will keep so. How came yours to be fifteen days coming, and you had my fifteenth in seven? Answer me that, rogues. Your being with Goody Walls is excuse enough: I find I was mistaken in the sex, ’tis a boy.¹² Yes, I understand your cypher, and Stella guesses right, as she always does. He¹³ gave me al bsadnuk lboinlpl dfaonr ufainf btoy dpionufnad,¹⁴ which I sent him again by Mr. Lewis, to whom I writ a very complaining letter that was showed him; and so the matter ended. He told me he had a quarrel with me; I said I had another with him, and we returned to our friendship, and I should think he loves me as well as a great Minister can love a man in so short a time. Did not I do right? I am glad at heart you have got your palsy-water;¹⁵ pray God Almighty it may do my dearest little Stella good! I suppose Mrs. Edgworth set out last Monday se’ennight. Yes, I do read the Examiners, and they are written very finely, as you judge. I do not think they are too severe on the Duke;¹⁶ they only tax him of avarice, and his avarice has ruined us. You may count upon all things in them to be true. The author has said it is not Prior, but perhaps it may be Atterbury.—Now, Madam Dingley, says she, ’tis fine weather, says she; yes, says she, and we have got to our new lodgings. I compute you ought to save eight pounds by being in the others five months; and you have no more done it than eight thousand. I am glad you are rid of that squinting, blinking Frenchman. I will give you a bill on Parvisol for five pounds for the half-year. And must I go on at four shillings a week, and neither eat nor drink for it? Who the Devil said Atterbury and your Dean were alike? I never saw your Chancellor, nor his chaplain. The latter has a good deal of learning, and is a well-wisher to be an author: your Chancellor is an excellent man. As for Patrick’s bird, he bought him for his tameness, and is grown the wildest I ever saw. His wings have been quilled thrice, and are now up again: he will be able to fly after us to Ireland, if he be willing.—Yes, Mrs. Stella, Dingley writes more like Presto than you; for all you superscribed the letter, as who should say, Why should not I write like our Presto as well as Dingley? You with your awkward SS;¹⁷ cannot you write them thus, SS? No, but always SSS. Spiteful sluts, to affront Presto’s writing; as that when you shut your eyes you write most like Presto. I know the time when I did not write to you half so plain as I do now; but I take pity on you both. I am very much concerned for Mrs. Walls’s eyes. Walls says nothing of it to me in his letter dated after yours. You say, “If she recovers, she may lose her sight.” I hope she is in no danger of her life. Yes, Ford is as sober as I please: I use him to walk with me as an easy companion, always ready for what I please, when I am weary of business and Ministers. I don’t go to a Coffee-house twice a month. I am very regular in going to sleep before eleven.—And so you say that Stella is a pretty girl; and so she be, and methinks I see her just now as handsome as the day is long. Do you know what? when I am writing in our language, I make up my mouth just as if I was speaking it. I caught myself at it just now. And I suppose Dingley is so fair and so fresh as a lass in May, and has her health, and no spleen.—In your account you sent do you reckon as usual from the 1st of November¹⁸ was twelvemonth? Poor Stella, will not Dingley leave her a little daylight to write to Presto? Well, well, we’ll have daylight shortly, spite of her teeth; and zoo¹⁹ must cly Lele and Hele, and Hele aden. Must loo mimitate Pdfr, pay? Iss, and so la shall. And so lele’s fol ee rettle. Dood-mollow.—At night. Mrs. Barton sent this morning to invite me to dinner; and there I dined, just in that genteel manner that MD used when they would treat some better sort of body than usual.

8. O dear MD, my heart is almost broken. You will hear the thing before this comes to you. I writ a full account of it this night to the Archbishop of Dublin; and the Dean may tell you the particulars from the Archbishop. I was in a sorry way to write, but thought it might be proper to send a true account of the fact; for you will hear a thousand lying circumstances. It is of Mr. Harley’s being stabbed this afternoon, at three o’clock, at a Committee of the Council. I was playing Lady Catharine Morris’s²⁰ cards, where I dined, when young Arundel²¹ came in with the story. I ran away immediately to the Secretary, which was in my way: no one was at home. I met Mrs. St. John in her chair; she had heard it imperfectly. I took a chair to Mr. Harley, who was asleep, and they hope in no danger; but he has been out of order, and was so when he came abroad to-day, and it may put him in a fever: I am in mortal pain for him. That desperate French villain, Marquis de Guiscard,²² stabbed Mr. Harley. Guiscard was taken up by Mr. Secretary St. John’s warrant for high treason, and brought before the Lords to be examined; there he stabbed Mr. Harley. I have told all the particulars already to the Archbishop. I have now, at nine, sent again, and they tell me he is in a fair way. Pray pardon my distraction; I now think of all his kindness to me.—The poor creature now lies stabbed in his bed by a desperate French Popish villain. Good-night, and God preserve you both, and pity me; I want it.

9. Morning; seven, in bed. Patrick is just come from Mr. Harley’s. He slept well till four; the surgeon sat²³ up with him: he is asleep again: he felt a pain in his wound when he waked: they apprehend him in no danger. This account the surgeon left with the porter, to tell people that send. Pray God preserve him. I am rising, and going to Mr. Secretary St. John. They say Guiscard will die with the wounds Mr. St. John and the rest gave him. I shall tell you more at night.—Night. Mr. Harley still continues on the mending hand; but he rested ill last night, and felt pain. I was early with the Secretary this morning, and I dined with him, and he told me several particularities of this accident, too long to relate now. Mr. Harley is still mending this evening, but not at all out of danger; and till then I can have no peace. Good-night, etc., and pity Presto.

10. Mr. Harley was restless last night; but he has no fever, and the hopes of his mending increase. I had a letter from Mr. Walls, and one from Mr. Bernage. I will answer them here, not having time to write. Mr. Walls writes about three things. First, about a hundred pounds from Dr. Raymond, of which I hear nothing, and it is now too late. Secondly, about Mr. Clements:²⁴ I can do nothing in it, because I am not to mention Mr. Pratt; and I cannot recommend without knowing Mr. Pratt’s objections, whose relation Clements is, and who brought him into the place. The third is about my being godfather to the child:²⁵ that is in my power, and (since there is no remedy) will submit. I wish you could hinder it; but if it can’t be helped, pay what you think proper, and get the Provost to stand for me, and let his Christian name be Harley, in honour of my friend, now lying stabbed and doubtful of his life. As for Bernage, he writes me word that his colonel has offered to make him captain-lieutenant for a hundred pounds. He was such a fool to offer him money without writing to me till it was done, though I have had a dozen letters from him; and then he desires I would say nothing of this, for fear his colonel should be angry. People are mad. What can I do? I engaged Colonel Disney, who was one of his solicitors to the Secretary, and then told him the story. He assured me that Fielding (Bernage’s colonel) said he might have got that sum; but, on account of those great recommendations he had, would give it him for nothing: and I would have Bernage write him a letter of thanks, as of a thing given him for nothing, upon recommendations, etc. Disney tells me he will again speak to Fielding, and clear up this matter; then I will write to Bernage. A pox on him for promising money till I had it promised to me; and then making it such a ticklish point, that one cannot expostulate with the colonel upon it: but let him do as I say, and there is an end. I engaged the Secretary of State in it; and am sure it was meant a kindness to me, and that no money should be given, and a hundred pounds is too much in a Smithfield bargain,²⁶ as a major-general told me, whose opinion I asked. I am now hurried, and can say no more. Farewell, etc. etc.

How shall I superscribe to your new lodgings, pray, madams? Tell me but that, impudence and saucy-face.

Are not you sauceboxes to write “lele”²⁷ like Presto? O poor Presto!

Mr. Harley is better to-night, that makes me so pert, you saucy Gog and Magog.

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, 1710, 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 1720 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 1709 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.

London, March 10, 1710-11.

Pretty little MD must expect little from me till Mr. Harley is out of danger. We hope he is so now; but I am subject to fear for my friends. He has a head full of the whole business of the nation, was out of order when the villain stabbed him, and had a cruel contusion by the second blow. But all goes on well yet. Mr. Ford and I dined with Mr. Lewis, and we hope the best.

11. This morning Mr. Secretary and I met at Court, where he went to the Queen, who is out of order, and aguish: I doubt the worse for this accident to Mr. Harley. We went together to his house, and his wound looks well, and he is not feverish at all, and I think it is foolish in me to be so much in pain as I am. I had the penknife in my hand, which is broken within a quarter of an inch of the handle. I have a mind to write and publish an account of all the particularities of this fact:¹ it will be very curious, and I would do it when Mr. Harley is past danger.

12. We have been in terrible pain to-day about Mr. Harley, who never slept last night, and has been very feverish. But this evening I called there; and young Mr. Harley (his only son) tells me he is now much better, and was then asleep. They let nobody see him, and that is perfectly right. The Parliament cannot go on till he is well, and are forced to adjourn their money businesses, which none but he can help them in. Pray God preserve him.

13. Mr. Harley is better to-day, slept well all night, and we are a little out of our fears. I send and call three or four times every day. I went into the City for a walk, and dined there with a private man; and coming home this evening, broke my shin in the Strand over a tub of sand left just in the way. I got home dirty enough, and went straight to bed, where I have been cooking it with gold-beater’s skin, and have been peevish enough with Patrick, who was near an hour bringing a rag from next door. It is my right shin, where never any humour fell when t’other used to swell; so I apprehend it less: however, I shall not stir till ’tis well, which I reckon will be in a week. I am very careful in these sort of things; but I wish I had Mrs. J——‘s water:² she is out of town, and I must make a shift with alum. I will dine with Mrs. Vanhomrigh till I am well, who lives but five doors off; and that I may venture.

14. My journals are like to be very diverting, now I cannot stir abroad, between accounts of Mr. Harley’s mending, and of my broken shin. I just walked to my neighbour Vanhomrigh at two, and came away at six, when little Harrison the Tatler came to me, and begged me to dictate a paper to him, which I was forced in charity to do. Mr. Harley still mends; and I hope in a day or two to trouble you no more with him, nor with my shin. Go to bed and sleep, sirrahs, that you may rise to-morrow and walk to Donnybrook, and lose your money with Stoyte and the Dean; do so, dear little rogues, and drink Presto’s health. O pray, don’t you drink Presto’s health sometimes with your deans, and your Stoytes, and your Walls, and your Manleys, and your everybodies, pray now? I drink MD’s to myself a hundred thousand times.

15. I was this morning at Mr. Secretary St. John’s for all my shin; and he has given me for young Harrison the Tatler the prettiest employment in Europe; secretary to my Lord Raby,³ who is to be Ambassador Extraordinary at the Hague, where all the great affairs will be concerted; so we shall lose the Tatlers in a fortnight. I will send Harrison to-morrow morning to thank the Secretary. Poor Biddy Floyd⁴ has got the smallpox. I called this morning to see Lady Betty Germaine, and when she told me so, I fairly took my leave. I have the luck of it;⁵ for about ten days ago I was to see Lord Carteret;⁶ and my lady was entertaining me with telling of a young lady, a cousin, who was then ill in the house of the smallpox, and is since dead: it was near Lady Betty’s, and I fancy Biddy took the fright by it. I dined with Mr. Secretary; and a physician came in just from Guiscard, who tells us he is dying of his wounds, and can hardly live till to-morrow. A poor wench that Guiscard kept, sent him a bottle of sack; but the keeper would not let him touch it, for fear it was poison. He had two quarts of old clotted blood come out of his side to-day, and is delirious. I am sorry he is dying; for they had found out a way to hang him. He certainly had an intention to murder the Queen.

16. I have made but little progress in this letter for so many days, thanks to Guiscard and Mr. Harley; and it would be endless to tell you all the particulars of that odious fact. I do not yet hear that Guiscard is dead, but they say ’tis impossible he should recover. I walked too much yesterday for a man with a broken shin; to-day I rested, and went no farther than Mrs. Vanhomrigh’s, where I dined; and Lady Betty Butler coming in about six, I was forced in good manners to sit with her till nine; then I came home, and Mr. Ford came in to visit my shin, and sat with me till eleven: so I have been very idle and naughty. It vexes me to the pluck⁷ that I should lose walking this delicious day. Have you seen the Spectator⁸ yet, a paper that comes out every day? ’Tis written by Mr. Steele, who seems to have gathered new life, and have a new fund of wit; it is in the same nature as his Tatlers, and they have all of them had something pretty. I believe Addison and he club. I never see them; and I plainly told Mr. Harley and Mr. St. John, ten days ago, before my Lord Keeper and Lord Rivers, that I had been foolish enough to spend my credit with them in favour of Addison and Steele; but that I would engage and promise never to say one word in their behalf, having been used so ill for what I had already done.—So, now I am got into the way of prating again, there will be no quiet for me.

When Presto begins to prate,
Give him a rap upon the pate.

O Lord, how I blot! it is time to leave off, etc.

17. Guiscard died this morning at two; and the coroner’s inquest have found that he was killed by bruises received from a messenger, so to clear the Cabinet Councillors from whom he received his wounds. I had a letter from Raymond, who cannot hear of your box; but I hope you have it before this comes to your hands. I dined to-day with Mr. Lewis of the Secretary’s office. Mr. Harley has abundance of extravasated blood comes from his breast out of his wound, and will not be well so soon as we expected. I had something to say, but cannot call it to mind. (What was it?)

18. I was to-day at Court to look for the Duke of Argyle, and gave him the memorial about Bernage. The Duke goes with the first fair wind. I could not find him, but I have given the memorial to another to give him; and, however, it shall be sent after him. Bernage has made a blunder in offering money to his colonel without my advice; however, he is made captain-lieutenant, only he must recruit the company, which will cost him forty pounds, and that is cheaper than an hundred. I dined to-day with Mr. Secretary St. John, and stayed till seven, but would not drink his champagne and burgundy, for fear of the gout. My shin mends, but is not well. I hope it will by the time I send this letter, next Saturday.

19. I went to-day into the City, but in a coach, and sossed⁹ up my leg on the seat; and as I came home, I went to see poor Charles Barnard’s¹⁰ books, which are to be sold by auction, and I itch to lay out nine or ten pounds for some fine editions of fine authors. But ’tis too far, and I shall let it slip, as I usually do all such opportunities. I dined in a coffee-house with Stratford upon chops and some of his wine. Where did MD dine? Why, poor MD dined at home to-day, because of the Archbishop, and they could not go abroad, and had a breast of mutton and a pint of wine. I hope Mrs. Walls mends; and pray give me an account what sort of godfather I made, and whether I behaved myself handsomely. The Duke of Argyle is gone; and whether he has my memorial, I know not, till I see Dr. Arbuthnot,¹¹ to whom I gave it. That hard name belongs to a Scotch doctor, an acquaintance of the Duke’s and me; Stella can’t pronounce it. Oh that we were at Laracor this fine day! the willows begin to peep, and the quicks to bud. My dream is out: I was a-dreamed last night that I ate ripe cherries.—And now they begin to catch the pikes, and will shortly the trouts (pox on these Ministers!)—and I would fain know whether the floods were ever so high as to get over the holly bank or the river walk; if so, then all my pikes are gone; but I hope not. Why don’t you ask Parvisol these things, sirrahs? And then my canal, and trouts, and whether the bottom be fine and clear? But harkee, ought not Parvisol to pay in my last year’s rents and arrears out of his hands? I am thinking, if either of you have heads to take his accounts, it should be paid in to you; otherwise to Mr. Walls. I will write an order on t’other side; and do as you will. Here’s a world of business; but I must go sleep, I’m drowsy; and so goodnight, etc.

20. This sore shin ruins me in coach-hire; no less than two shillings to-day going and coming from the City, where I dined with one you never heard of, and passed an insipid day. I writ this post to Bernage, with the account I told you above. I hope he will like it; ’tis his own fault, or it would have been better. I reckon your next letter will be full of Mr. Harley’s stabbing. He still mends, but abundance of extravasated blood has come out of the wound: he keeps his bed, and sees nobody. The Speaker’s eldest son¹² is just dead of the smallpox, and the House is adjourned a week, to give him time to wipe off his tears. I think it very handsomely done; but I believe one reason is, that they want Mr. Harley so much. Biddy Floyd is like to do well: and so go to your Dean’s, and roast his oranges, and lose your money, do so, you saucy sluts. Stella, you lost three shillings and fourpence t’other night at Stoyte’s, yes, you did, and Presto stood in a corner, and saw you all the while, and then stole away. I dream very often I am in Ireland, and that I have left my clothes and things behind me, and have not taken leave of anybody; and that the Ministry expect me tomorrow, and such nonsense.

21. I would not for a guinea have a letter from you till this goes; and go it shall on Saturday, faith. I dined with Mrs. Vanhomrigh, to save my shin, and then went on some business to the Secretary, and he was not at home.

22. Yesterday was a short day’s journal: but what care I? what cares saucy Presto? Darteneuf¹³ invited me to dinner to-day. Do not you know Darteneuf? That’s the man that knows everything, and that everybody knows; and that knows where a knot of rabble are going on a holiday, and when they were there last: and then I went to the Coffee-house. My shin mends, but is not quite healed: I ought to keep it up, but I don’t; I e’en let it go as it comes. Pox take Parvisol and his watch! If I do not receive the ten-pound bill I am to get towards it, I will neither receive watch nor chain; so let Parvisol know.

23. I this day appointed the Duke of Ormond to meet him at Ned Southwell’s, about an affair of printing Irish Prayer-Books, etc.,¹⁴ but the Duke never came. There Southwell had letters that two packets are taken; so if MD writ then, the letters are gone; for they are packets coming hither. Mr. Harley is not yet well, but his extravasated blood continues, and I doubt he will not be quite well in a good while: I find you have heard of the fact by Southwell’s letters from Ireland: what do you think of it? I dined with Sir John Perceval,¹⁵ and saw his lady sitting in the bed, in the forms of a lying-in woman; and coming home my sore shin itched, and I forgot what it was, and rubbed off the scab, and blood came; but I am now got into bed, and have put on alum curd, and it is almost well. Lord Rivers told me yesterday a piece of bad news, as a secret, that the Pretender is going to be married to the Duke of Savoy’s daughter.¹⁶ ’Tis very bad if it be true. We were walking in the Mall with some Scotch lords, and he could not tell it until they were gone, and he bade me tell it to none but the Secretary of State and MD. This goes tomorrow, and I have no room but to bid my dearest little MD good-night. 24. I will now seal up this letter, and send it; for I reckon to have none from you (’tis morning now) between this and night; and I will put it in the post with my own hands. I am going out in great haste; so farewell, etc.

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 1708. During the frost of January 1709 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 20, 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.

London, March 24, 1710-11.

It was a little cross in Presto not to send to-day to the Coffee-house to see whether there was a letter from MD before I sent away mine; but, faith, I did it on purpose, because I would scorn to answer two letters of yours successively. This way of journal is the worst in the world for writing of news, unless one does it the last day; and so I will observe henceforward, if there be any politics or stuff worth sending. My shin mends in spite of the scratching last night. I dined to-day at Ned Southwell’s with the Bishop of Ossory¹ and a parcel of Irish gentlemen. Have you yet seen any of the Spectators? Just three weeks to-day since I had your last, N.11. I am afraid I have lost one by the packet that was taken; that will vex me, considering the pains MD take to write, especially poor pretty Stella, and her weak eyes. God bless them and the owner, and send them well, and little me together, I hope ere long. This illness of Mr. Harley puts everything backwards, and he is still down, and like to be so, by that extravasated blood which comes from his breast to the wound: it was by the second blow Guiscard gave him after the penknife was broken. I am shocked at that villainy whenever I think of it. Biddy Floyd is past danger, but will lose all her beauty: she had them mighty thick, especially about her nose.

25. Morning. I wish you a merry New Year; this is the first day of the year, you know, with us, and ’tis Lady-day. I must rise and go to my Lord Keeper: it is not shaving-day to-day, so I shall be early. I am to dine with Mr. Secretary St. John. Good-morrow, my mistresses both, good-morrow. Stella will be peeping out of her room at Mrs. De Caudres’² down upon the folks as they come from church; and there comes Mrs. Proby,³ and that is my Lady Southwell,⁴ and there is Lady Betty Rochfort.⁵ I long to hear how you are settled in your new lodgings. I wish I were rid of my old ones, and that Mrs. Brent could contrive to put up my books in boxes, and lodge them in some safe place, and you keep my papers of importance. But I must rise, I tell you.—At night. So I visited and dined as I told you, and what of that? We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence apiece: and the fellow that showed would point to his body, and, “See, gentlemen, this is the wound that was given him by his Grace the Duke of Ormond; and this is the wound,” etc., and then the show was over, and another set of rabble came in. ’Tis hard our laws would not suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and in the eye of our law every man is innocent till then.—Mr. Harley is still very weak, and never out of bed.

26. This was a most delicious day; and my shin being past danger, I walked like lightning above two hours in the Park. We have generally one fair day, and then a great deal of rain for three or four days together. All things are at a stop in Parliament for want of Mr. Harley; they cannot stir an inch without him in their most material affairs: and we fear, by the caprice of Radcliffe, who will admit none but his own surgeon,⁶ he has not been well looked after. I dined at an alehouse with Mr. Lewis, but had his wine. Don’t you begin to see the flowers and blossoms of the field? How busy should I be now at Laracor! No news of your box? I hope you have it, and are this minute drinking the chocolate, and that the smell of the Brazil tobacco has not affected it. I would be glad to know whether you like it, because I would send you more by people that are now every day thinking of going to Ireland; therefore pray tell me, and tell me soon: and I will have the strong box.

27. A rainy, wretched, scurvy day from morning till night: and my neighbour Vanhomrigh invited me to dine with them and this evening I passed at Mr. Prior’s with Dr. Freind; and ’tis now past twelve, so I must go sleep.

28. Morning. O, faith, you’re an impudent saucy couple of sluttikins for presuming to write so soon, said I to myself this morning; who knows but there may be a letter from MD at the Coffee-house? Well, you must know, and so, I just now sent Patrick, and he brought me three letters, but not one from MD, no indeed, for I read all the superscriptions; and not one from MD. One I opened, it was from the Archbishop;⁷ t’other I opened, it was from Staunton;⁸ the third I took, and looked at the hand. Whose hand is this? says I; yes, says I, whose hand is this? Then there was wax between the folds; then I began to suspect; then I peeped; faith, it was Walls’s hand after all: then I opened it in a rage, and then it was little MD’s hand, dear, little, pretty, charming MD’s sweet hand again. O Lord, an’t here a clutter and a stir, and a bustle? never saw the like. Faith, I believe yours lay some days at the post-office, and that it came before my eighteenth went, but that I did not expect it, and I hardly ever go there. Well, and so you think I’ll answer this letter now; no, faith, and so I won’t. I’ll make you wait, young women; but I’ll inquire immediately about poor Dingley’s exchequer trangum.⁹ What, is that Vedel again a soldier? was he broke? I’ll put it in Ben Tooke’s hand. I hope Vedel could not sell it.—At night. Vedel, Vedel, poh, pox, I think it is Vedeau;¹⁰ ay, Vedeau, now I have it; let me see, do you name him in yours? Yes, Mr. John Vedeau is the brother; but where does this brother live? I’ll inquire. This was a fast-day for the public; so I dined late with Sir Matthew Dudley, whom I have not been with a great while. He is one of those that must lose his employment whenever the great shake comes; and I can’t contribute to keep him in, though I have dropped words in his favour to the Ministry; but he is too violent a Whig, and friend to the Lord Treasurer,¹¹ to stay in. ’Tis odd to think how long they let those people keep their places; but the reason is, they have not enough to satisfy all expecters, and so they keep them all in hopes, that they may be good boys in the meantime; and thus the old ones hold in still. The Comptroller¹² told me that there are eight people expect his staff. I walked after dinner to-day round the Park. What, do I write politics to little young women? Hold your tongue, and go to your Dean’s.

29. Morning. If this be a fine day, I will walk into the City, and see Charles Barnard’s library. What care I for your letter, saucy N.12? I will say nothing to it yet: faith, I believe this will be full before its time, and then go it must. I will always write once a fortnight; and if it goes sooner by filling sooner, why, then there is so much clear gain. Morrow, morrow, rogues and lasses both, I can’t lie scribbling here in bed for your play; I must rise, and so morrow again.—At night. Your friend Montgomery and his sister are here, as I am told by Patrick. I have seen him often, but take no notice of him: he is grown very ugly and pimpled. They tell me he is a gamester, and wins money.—How could I help it, pray? Patrick snuffed the candle too short, and the grease ran down upon the paper.¹³ It an’t my fault, ’tis Patrick’s fault; pray now don’t blame Presto. I walked today in the City, and dined at a private house, and went to see the auction of poor Charles Barnard’s books; they were in the middle of the physic books, so I bought none; and they are so dear, I believe I shall buy none, and there is an end; and go to Stoyte’s, and I’ll go sleep.

30. Morning. This is Good Friday, you must know; and I must rise and go to Mr. Secretary about some business, and Mrs. Vanhomrigh desires me to breakfast with her, because she is to intercede for Patrick, who is so often drunk and quarrelsome in the house, that I was resolved to send him over; but he knows all the places where I send, and is so used to my ways, that it would be inconvenient to me; but when I come to Ireland, I will discharge him.¹⁴ Sir Thomas Mansel,¹⁵ one of the Lords of the Treasury, setting me down at my door to-day, saw Patrick, and swore he was a Teague-lander.¹⁶ I am so used to his face, I never observed it, but thought him a pretty fellow. Sir Andrew Fountaine and I supped this fast-day with Mrs. Vanhomrigh. We were afraid Mr. Harley’s wound would turn to a fistula; but we think the danger is now past. He rises every day, and walks about his room, and we hope he will be out in a fortnight. Prior showed me a handsome paper of verses he has writ on Mr. Harley’s accident:¹⁷ they are not out; I will send them to you, if he will give me a copy.

31. Morning. What shall we do to make April fools this year, now it happens on Sunday? Patrick brings word that Mr. Harley still mends, and is up every day. I design to see him in a few days: and he brings me word too that he has found out Vedeau’s brother’s shop: I shall call there in a day or two. It seems the wife lodges next door to the brother. I doubt the scoundrel was broke, and got a commission, or perhaps is a volunteer gentleman, and expects to get one by his valour. Morrow, sirrahs, let me rise.—At night. I dined to-day with Sir Thomas Mansel. We were walking in the Park, and Mr. Lewis came to us. Mansel asked where we dined. We said, “Together.” He said, we should dine with him, only his wife¹⁸ desired him to bring nobody, because she had only a leg of mutton. I said I would dine with him to choose; but he would send a servant to order a plate or two: yet this man has ten thousand pounds a year in land, and is a Lord of the Treasury, and is not covetous neither, but runs out merely by slattering¹⁹ and negligence. The worst dinner I ever saw at the Dean’s was better: but so it is with abundance of people here. I called at night at Mr. Harley’s, who begins to walk in his room with a stick, but is mighty weak.—See how much I have lost with that ugly grease.²⁰ ’Tis your fault, pray; and I’ll go to bed.

April 1. The Duke of Buckingham’s house fell down last night with an earthquake, and is half swallowed up; won’t you go and see it?—An April fool, an April fool, oh ho, young women. Well, don’t be angry. I will make you an April fool no more till the next time; we had no sport here, because it is Sunday, and Easter Sunday. I dined with the Secretary, who seemed terribly down and melancholy, which Mr. Prior and Lewis observed as well as I: perhaps something is gone wrong; perhaps there is nothing in it. God bless my own dearest MD, and all is well.

2. We have such windy weather, ’tis troublesome walking, yet all the rabble have got into our Park these Easter holidays. I am plagued with one Richardson, an Irish parson, and his project of printing Irish Bibles, etc., to make you Christians in that country: I befriend him what I can, on account of the Archbishop and Bishop of Clogher.—But what business have I to meddle, etc. Do not you remember that, sirrah Stella? what was that about, when you thought I was meddling with something that was not my business? O, faith, you are an impudent slut, I remember your doings, I’ll never forget you as long as I live. Lewis and I dined together at his lodgings. But where’s the answer to this letter of MD’s? O, faith, Presto, you must think of that. Time enough, says saucy Presto.

3. I was this morning to see Mrs. Barton: I love her better than anybody here, and see her seldomer. Why, really now, so it often happens in the world, that where one loves a body best—pshah, pshah, you are so silly with your moral observations. Well, but she told me a very good story. An old gentlewoman died here two months ago, and left in her will, to have eight men and eight maids bearers, who should have two guineas apiece, ten guineas to the parson for a sermon, and two guineas to the clerk. But bearers, parson, and clerk must be all true virgins; and not to be admitted till they took their oaths of virginity: so the poor woman still lies unburied, and so must do till the general resurrection.—I called at Mr. Secretary’s, to see what the D—— ailed him on Sunday. I made him a very proper speech; told him I observed he was much out of temper; that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; and one thing I warned him of, never to appear cold to me, for I would not be treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my life already (meaning from Sir William Temple); that I expected every great Minister who honoured me with his acquaintance, if he heard or saw anything to my disadvantage, would let me know it in plain words, and not put me in pain to guess by the change or coldness of his countenance or behaviour; for it was what I would hardly bear from a crowned head, and I thought no subject’s favour was worth it; and that I designed to let my Lord Keeper²¹ and Mr. Harley know the same thing, that they might use me accordingly. He took all right; said I had reason; vowed nothing ailed him but sitting up whole nights at business, and one night at drinking; would have had me dine with him and Mrs. Masham’s brother, to make up matters; but I would not. I don’t know, but I would not. But indeed I was engaged with my old friend Rollinson;²² you never heard of him before.

4. I sometimes look a line or two back, and see plaguy mistakes of the pen; how do you get over them? You are puzzled sometimes. Why, I think what I said to

The Journal to Stella

by

Jonathan Swift

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction.

The Letters:

Preface

Introduction.

Letter 1.1

Chester, Sept. 2, 1710.

Letter 2.

London, Sept. 9, 1710.

Letter 3.

London, Sept. 9, 1710.

Letter 4.

London, Sept. 21, 1710.

Letter 5.

London, Sept. 30, 1710.

Letter 6.

London, Oct. 10, 1710.

Letter 7.

London, Oct. 19, 1710.

Letter 8.

London, Oct. 31, 1710.

Letter 9.

London, Nov. 11, 1710.

Letter 10.

London, Nov. 25, 1710.

Letter 11.

London, Dec. 9, 1710.

Letter 12.

London, Dec. 23, 1710.

Letter 13.

London, Jan. 4, 1710-11.

Letter 14.

London, Jan. 16, 1710-11.

Letter 15.

London, Jan. 31, 1710-11.

Letter 16.

London, Feb. 10, 1710-11.

Letter 17.

London, Feb. 24, 1710-11.

Letter 18.

London, March 10, 1710-11.

Letter 19.

London, March 24, 1710-11.

Letter 1.¹