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 pa.s.sword to the Club--"October"--was one easy of remembrance to a country gentleman who loved his ale.
20 "Duke" Disney, "not an old man, but an old rake," died in 1731. Gay calls him "facetious Disney," and Swift says that all the members of the Club "love him mightily." Lady M. W. Montagu speaks of his
"Broad plump face, pert eyes, and ruddy skin, Which showed the stupid joke which lurked within."
Disney was a French Huguenot refugee, and his real name was Desaulnais.
He commanded an Irish regiment, and took part in General Hill"s expedition to Canada in 1711 (Kingsford"s Canada, ii. 465). By his will (Wentworth papers, 109) he "left nothing to his poor relations, but very handsome to his bottle companions."
21 There were several Colonel Fieldings in the first half of the eighteenth century, and it is not clear which is the one referred to by Swift. Possibly he was the Edmund Fielding--grandson of the first Earl of Denbigh--who died a Lieutenant-General in 1741, at the age of sixty-three, but is best known as the father of Henry Fielding, the novelist.
22 Cf. Feb. 17, 1711.
23 See Letter 3, note 37.
24 "It is a measured mile round the outer wall; and far beyond any the finest square in London" (Deane Swift).
25 "The common fare for a set-down in Dublin" (ib.).
26 "Mrs. Stoyte lived at Donnybrook, the road to which from Stephen"s Green ran into the country about a mile from the south-east corner"
(ib.).
27 "Those words in italics are written in a very large hand, and so is the word large" (ib.). (Italics replaced by capitals for the transcription of this etext.)
28 Deane Swift alters "lele" to "there," but in a note states how he here altered Swift"s "cypher way of writing." No doubt "lele" and other favourite words occurred frequently in the MS., as they do in the later letters.
LETTER 17.
1 Sir Thomas Mansel, Bart., Comptroller of the Household to Queen Anne, and a Lord of the Treasury, was raised to the peerage in December 1711 as Baron Mansel of Margam. He died in 1723.
2 Lady Betty Butler and Lady Betty Germaine (see Letter 3, note 40 and Letter 4, note 3).
3 James Eckershall, "second clerk of the Queen"s Privy Kitchen."
Chamberlayne (Magnae Britanniae Not.i.tia, 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 pa.s.sed 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. G.o.dolphin 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.