6 The envoys were Menager and the Abbe du Bois; the priest was the Abbe Gaultier.
7 See Letter 18, note 3.
8 Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, General, who died in 1702, married Eleanor, daughter of Richard Wall, of Rogane, Tipperary. She died in 1732, and Swift described her as so "cunning a devil that she had great influence as a reconciler of the differences at Court." One of her sons was General James Oglethorpe, the philanthropist, and friend of Dr. Johnson.
9 "Worrit," trouble, tease.
10 Sir John Walter, Bart. (died 1722), was M.P. for the city of Oxford. He and Charles G.o.dfrey (see Letter 30, note 11) were the Clerks Comptrollers of the Green Cloth.
11 See Letter 17, note 3.
12 No doubt one of the daughters of Mervyn Tuchet, fourth Earl of Castlehaven, who died in 1686.
13 Henrietta Maria, daughter of Charles Scarborow (see Letter 27, note 19). She married, in 1712, Sir Robert Jenkinson, Bart., M.P. for Oxfordshire, who died without issue in 1717. See Wentworth Papers, 244.
14 In July 1712 a Commission pa.s.sed empowering Conyers Darcy and George Fielding (an equerry to the Queen) to execute the office of Master of the Horse.
15 At Killibride, about four miles from Trim.
16 Swift"s "mistress," Lady Hyde (see Letter 5, note 11), whose husband had become Earl of Rochester in May 1711. She was forty-one in 1711.
17 See Sept. 19, 1711.
18 See Letter 29, note 14.
19 See Letter 22, note 3.
20 See Letter 27, note 9.
21 See Letter 26, note 10.
22 "This happens to be the only single line written upon the margin of any of his journals. By some accident there was a margin about as broad as the back of a razor, and therefore he made this use of it" (Deane Swift).
LETTER 32.
1 Lieutenant-Colonel Barton, of Colonel Kane"s regiment.
2 A nickname for the High Church party.
3 See Letter 29, note 10.
4 "From this pleasantry of my Lord Oxford, the appellative Martinus Scriblerus took its rise" (Deane Swift).
5 Cf. the Imitation of the Sixth Satire of the Second Book of Horace, 1714, where Swift says that, during their drives together, Harley would
"gravely try to read the lines Writ underneath the country signs."
6 See Letter 23, note 15.
7 See Letter 18, note 4.
8 See Letter 23, note 17.
9 Lord Pembroke (see Letter 7, note 31) married, in 1708, as his second wife, Barbara, Dowager Baroness Arundell of Trerice, formerly widow of Sir Richard Mauleverer, and daughter of Sir Thomas Slingsby. She died in 1722.
10 Caleb Coatesworth, who died in 1741, leaving a large fortune.
11 Abel Boyer, Whig journalist and historian, attacked Swift in his pamphlet, An Account of the State and Progress of the Present Negotiations for Peace. Boyer says that he was released from custody by Harley; and in the Political State for 1711 (p. 646) he speaks of Swift as "a shameless and most contemptible ecclesiastical turncoat, whose tongue is as swift to revile as his mind is swift to change." The Postboy said that Boyer would "be prosecuted with the utmost severity of the law" for this attack.
12 The "Edgar." Four hundred men were killed.
13 William Bretton, or Britton, was made Lieutenant-Colonel in 1702, Colonel of a new Regiment of Foot 1705, Brigadier-General 1710, and Colonel of the King"s Own Borderers in April 1711 (Dalton, Army Lists, iii. 238). In December 1711 he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary to the King of Prussia (Postboy, Jan. 1, 1712), and he died in December 1714 or January 1715.
14 See Letter 24, note 14.
15 It is not clear which of several Lady Gores is here referred to.
It may be (1) the wife of Sir William Gore, Bart., of Manor Gore, and Custos Rotulorum, County Leitrim, who married Hannah, eldest daughter and co-heir of James Hamilton, Esq., son of Sir Frederick Hamilton, and niece of Gustavus Hamilton, created Viscount Boyne. She died 1733.
Or (2) the wife of Sir Ralph Gore, Bart. (died 1732), M.P. for County Donegal, and afterwards Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He married Miss Colville, daughter of Sir Robert Colville, of Newtown, Leitrim, and, as his second wife, Elizabeth, only daughter of Dr. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher. Or (3) the wife of Sir Arthur Gore, Bart. (died 1727), of Newtown Gore, Mayo, who married Eleanor, daughter of Sir George St. George, Bart., of Carrick, Leitrim, and was ancestor of the Earls of Arran.
16 "Modern usage has sanctioned Stella"s spelling" (Scott). Swift"s spelling was "wast."
17 Mrs. Manley.
18 Swift"s own lines, "Mrs. Frances Harris"s Pet.i.tion."
19 Thomas Coote was a justice of the Court of Queen"s Bench, in Ireland, from 1692 until his removal in 1715.
20 Probably a relative of Robert Echlin, Dean of Tuam, who was killed by some of his own servants in April 1712, at the age of seventy-three. His son John became Prebendary and Vicar-General of Tuam, and died in 1764, aged eighty-three. In August 1731 Bolingbroke sent Swift a letter by the hands of "Mr. Echlin," who would, he said, tell Swift of the general state of things in England.
21 "This column of words, as they are corrected, is in Stella"s hand"
(Deane Swift).
LETTER 33.
1 Swift"s verses, "The Description of a Salamander," are a scurrilous attack on John, Lord Cutts (died 1707), who was famous for his bravery. Joanna Cutts, the sister who complained of Swift"s abuse, died unmarried.
2 See Letter 6, note 5.
3 Fourteen printers or publishers were arrested, under warrants signed by St. John, for publishing pamphlets directed against the Government.
They appeared at the Court of Queens Bench on Oct. 23, and were continued on their own recognisances till the end of the term.
4 Robert Benson (see Letter 6, note 36).