Letter 1.
1. Addressed "To Mrs. Dingley, at Mr. Curry's house over against the Ram in
Capel Street, Dublin, Ireland," and endorsed by Esther Johnson, "Sept. 9.
Received." Afterwards Swift added, "MD received this Sept. 9," and "Letters
to Ireland from Sept.1710, begun soon after the change of Ministry. Nothing
in this."
2. Beaumont is the "grey old fellow, poet Joe," of Swift's verses "On the
little house by the Churchyard at Castlenock." Joseph Beaumont, a linen-
merchant, is described as "a venerable, handsome, grey-headed man, of quick
and various natural abilities, but not improved by learning." His inventions
and mathematical speculations, relating to the longitude and other things,
brought on mental troubles, which were intensified by bankruptcy, about 1718.
He was afterwards removed from Dublin to his home at Trim, where he rallied;
but in a few years his madness returned, and he committed suicide.
3. Vicar of Trim, and formerly a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. In
various places in his correspondence Swift criticises the failings of Dr.
Anthony Raymond, who was, says Scott, "a particular friend." His
unreliability in money matters, the improvidence of his large family, his
peculiarities in grammar, his pride in his good manners, all these points are
noticed in the journal and elsewhere. But when Dr. Raymond returned to
Ireland after a visit to London, Swift felt a little melancholy, and regretted
that he had not seen more of him. In July 1713 Raymond was presented to the
Crown living of Moyenet.
4. A small township on the estuary of the Dee, between twelve and thirteen
miles north-west of Chester. In the early part of the eighteenth century
Parkgate was a rival of Holyhead as a station for the Dublin packets, which
started, on the Irish side, from off Kingsend.
5. Dr. St. George Ashe, afterwards Bishop of Derry, who had been Swift's tutor
at Trinity College, Dublin. He died in 1718. It is this lifelong friend who
is said to have married Swift and Esther Johnson in 1716.
6. The Commission to solicit for the remission of the First-Fruits and
twentieth parts, payable to the Crown by the Irish clergy, was signed by the
Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, and Cashel, and the Bishops of Kildare, Meath,
and Killala.
7. Dr. William Lloyd was appointed Bishop of Killala in 1690. He had
previously been Dean of Achonry.
8. Dr. John Hough (1651-1743). In 1687 he had been elected President of
Magdalen College, Oxford, in place of the nominee of James II. Hough was
Bishop of Oxford, Lichfield, and Worcester successively, and declined the
primacy in 1715.
9. Steele was at this time Gazetteer. The Cockpit, in Whitehall, looked upon
St. James's Palace, and was used for various Government purposes.
10. This coffee-house, the resort of the Whig politicians, was kept by a man
named Elliot. It is often alluded to in the Tatler and Spectator.
11. William Stewart, second Viscount Mountjoy, a friend and correspondent of
Swift's in Ireland. He was the son of one of William's generals, and was
himself a Lieutenant-General and Master-General of the Ordnance; he died in
1728.
12. Catherine, daughter of Maurice Keating, of Narraghmore, Kildare, and wife
of Garret Wesley, of Dangan, M.P. for Meath. She died in 1745. On the death
of Garret Wesley without issue in 1728, the property passed to a cousin,
Richard Colley, who was afterwards created Baron Mornington, and was
grandfather to the Duke of Wellington.
13. The landlady of Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley.
14. Swift's housekeeper at Laracor. Elsewhere Swift speaks of his "old
Presbyterian housekeeper," "who has been my Walpole above thirty years,
whenever I lived in this kingdom." "Joe Beaumont is my oracle for public
affairs in the country, and an old Presbyterian woman in town."
15. Isaiah Parvisol, Swift's tithe-agent and steward at Laracor, was an
Irishman of French extraction, who died in 1718 (Birkbeck's Unpublished
Letters of Dean Swift, 1899, p.85).
Letter 2.
1. In some MS. Accounts of Swift's, in the Forster Collection at South
Kensington there is the following entry:--"Set out for England Aug. 31st on
Thursday, 10 at night; landed at Parkgate Friday 1st at noon. Sept. 1, 171O,
came to London. Thursday at noon, Sept. 7th, with Lord Mountjoy, etc. Mem.:
Lord Mountjoy bore my expenses from Chester to London."
2. In a letter to Archbishop King of the same date Swift says he was "equally
caressed by both parties; by one as a sort of bough for drowning men to lay
hold of, and by the other as one discontented with the late men in power."
3. The Earl of Godolphin, who was severely satirised by Swift in his Sid
Hamet's Rod, 171O. He had been ordered to break his staff as Treasurer on
August 8. Swift told Archbishop King that Godolphin was "altogether short,
dry, and morose."
4. Martha, widow of Sir Thomas Giffard, Bart., of County Kildare, the
favourite sister of Sir William Temple, had been described by Swift in early
pindaric verses as "wise and great." Afterwards he was to call her "an old
beast" (Journal, Nov. 11, 171O). Their quarrel arose, towards the close of
17O9, out of a difference with regard to the publication of Sir William
Temple's Works. On the appearance of vol. v. Lady Giffard charged Swift with
publishing portions of the writings from an unfaithful copy in lieu of the
originals in his possession, and in particular with printing laudatory notices
of Godolphin and Sunderland which Temple intended to omit, and with omitting
an unfavourable remark on Sunderland which Temple intended to print. Swift
replied that the corrections were all made by Temple himself.
5. Lord Wharton's second wife, Lucy, daughter of Lord Lisburn. She died in
1716, a few months after her husband. See Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters.
6. Mrs. Bridget Johnson, who married, as her second husband, Ralph Mose or
Moss, of Farnham, an agent for Sir William Temple's estate, was waiting-woman
or companion to Lady Giffard. In her will (1722) Lady Giffard left Mrs. Moss
2O pounds, "with my silver cup and cover." Mrs. Moss died in 1745, when
letters of administration were granted to a creditor of the deceased.
7. Dr. William King (165O-1729), a Whig and High Churchman, had more than one
difference with Swift during the twenty years following Swift's first visit to
London in connection with the First-Fruits question.
8. Swift's benefice, in the diocese of Meath, two miles from Trim.
9. Steele, who had been issuing the Tatler thrice weekly since April 17O9. He
lost the Gazetteership in October.
10. James, second Duke of Ormond (1665-1745) was appointed Lord Lieutenant on
the 26th of October. In the following year he became Captain-General and
Commander-in-Chief. He was impeached of high treason and attainted in 1715;
and he died in exile.
11. "Presto," substituted by the original editor for "Pdfr," was suggested by
a passage in the Journal for Aug. 2, 1711, where Swift says that the Duchess
of Shrewsbury "could not say my name in English, but said Dr. Presto, which is
Italian for Swift."
12. Charles Jervas, the popular portrait-painter, has left two portraits of
Swift, one of which is in the National Portrait Gallery, and the other in the
Bodleian Library.
13. Sir William Temple's nephew, and son of Sir John Temple (died 17O4),
Solicitor and Attorney-General, and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons.
"Jack" Temple acquired the estate of Moor Park, Surrey, by his marriage with
Elizabeth, granddaughter of Sir William Temple, and elder daughter of John
Temple, who committed suicide in 1689. As late as 17O6 Swift received an
invitation to visit Moor Park.
14. Dr. Benjamin Pratt, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, was appointed Dean
of Down in 1717. Swift calls him "a person of wit and learning," and "a
gentleman of good birth and fortune,. . very much esteemed among us" (Short
Character of Thomas, Earl of Wharton). On his death in 1721 Swift wrote, "He
was one of the oldest acquaintance I had, and the last that I expected to die.
He has left a young widow, in very good circumstances. He had schemes of long
life. . . . What a ridiculous thing is man!" (Unpublished Letters of Dean
Swift, 1899, p. 106).
15. A Westmeath landlord, whom Swift met from time to time in London. The
Leighs were well acquainted with Esther Johnson.
16. Dr. Enoch Sterne, appointed Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in 17O4. Swift
was his successor in the deanery on Dr. Sterne's appointment as Bishop of
Dromore in 1713. In 1717 Sterne was translated to the bishopric of Clogher.
He spent much money on the cathedrals, etc., with which he was connected.
17. Archdeacon Walls was rector of Castle Knock, near Trim. Esther Johnson
was a frequent visitor at his house in Queen Street, Dublin.
18. William Frankland, Comptroller of the Inland Office at the Post Office,
was the second son of the Postmaster-General, Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart.
Luttrell (vi. 333) records that in 17O8 he was made Treasurer of the Stamp
Office, or, according to Chamberlayne's Mag. Brit. Notitia for 171O, Receiver-
General.
19. Thomas Wharton, Earl and afterwards Marquis of Wharton, had been one of
Swift's fellow-travellers from Dublin. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland under the
Whig Government, from 17O8 to 171O, Wharton was the most thorough-going party
man that had yet appeared in English politics; and his political enemies did
not fail to make the most of his well-known immorality. In his Notes to
Macky's Characters Swift described Wharton as "the most universal villain that
ever I knew." On his death in 1715 he was succeeded by his profligate son,
Philip, who was created Duke of Wharton in 1718.
20. This money was a premium the Government had promised Beaumont for his
Mathematical Sleying Tables, calculated for the improvement of the linen
manufacture.
21. The bellman was both town-crier and night-watchman.
