Letter 3.
1. Dr. William Cockburn (1669-1739), Swift's physician, of a good Scottish
family, was educated at Leyden. He invented an electuary for the cure of
fluxes, and in 173O, in The Danger of Improving Physick, satirised the
academical physicians who envied him the fortune he had made by his secret
remedy. He was described in 1729 as "an old very rich quack."
2. Sir Matthew Dudley, Bart., an old Whig friend, was M.P. for
Huntingdonshire, and Commissioner of the Customs from 17O6 to 1712, and again
under George I., until his death in 1721.
3. Isaac Manley, who was appointed Postmaster-General in Ireland in 17O3
(Luttrell, v. 333). He had previously been Comptroller of the English Letter
Office, a post in which he was succeeded by William Frankland, son of Sir
Thomas Frankland. Dunton calls Manley "loyal and acute."
4. Sir Thomas Frankland was joint Postmaster-General from 1691 to 1715. He
succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father, Sir William Frankland,
in 1697, and he died in 1726. Macky describes Sir Thomas as "of a sweet and
easy disposition, zealous for the Constitution, yet not forward, and indulgent
to his dependants." On this Swift comments, "This is a fair character."
5. Theophilus Butler, elected M.P. for Cavan, in the Irish Parliament, in
17O3, and for Belturbet (as "the Right Hon. Theophilus Butler") in 1713. On
May 3, 171O, Luttrell wrote (Brief Relation of State Affairs, vi. 577), "'Tis
said the Earl of Montrath, Lord Viscount Mountjoy. . . and Mr. Butler will be
made Privy Councillors of the Kingdom of Ireland." Butler--a contemporary of
Swift's at Trinity College, Dublin--was created Baron of Newtown-Butler in
1715, and his brother, who succeeded him in 1723, was made Viscount
Lanesborough. Butler's wife was Emilia, eldest daughter and co-heir of James
Stopford, of Tara, County Meath.
6. No. 193 of the Tatler, for July 4, 1710, contained a letter from Downes the
Prompter--not by Steele himself--in ridicule of Harley and his proposed
Ministry.
7. Charles Robartes, second Earl of Radnor, who died in 1723. In the Journal
for Dec. 3O, 1711, Swift calls him "a scoundrel."
8. Benjamin Tooke, Swift's bookseller or publisher, lived at the Middle Temple
Gate. Dunton wrote of him, "He is truly honest, a man of refined sense, and
is unblemished in his reputation." Tooke died in 1723.
9. Swift's servant, of whose misdeeds he makes frequent complaints in the
Journal.
10. Deputy Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. In one place Swift calls him Captain
Pratt; and in all probability he is the John Pratt who, as we learn from
Dalton's English Army Lists, was appointed captain in General Erle's regiment
of foot in 1699, and was out of the regiment by 17O6. In 17O2 he obtained the
Queen's leave to be absent from the regiment when it was sent to the West
Indies. Pratt seems to have been introduced to Swift by Addison.
11. Charles Ford, of Wood Park, near Dublin, was a great lover of the opera
and a friend of the Tory wits. He was appointed Gazetteer in 1712. Gay calls
him "joyous Ford," and he was given to over-indulgence in conviviality. See
Swift's poem on Stella at Wood Park.
12. Lord Somers, to whom Swift had dedicated The Tale of a Tub, with high
praise of his public and private virtues. In later years Swift said that
Somers "possessed all excellent qualifications except virtue."
13. At the foundation school of the Ormonds at Kilkenny. (see note 22.)
14. A Whig haberdasher.
15. Benjamin Hoadley, the Whig divine, had been engaged in controversy with
Sacheverell, Blackall, and Atterbury. After the accession of George I. he
became Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester in success.
16. Dr. Henry Sacheverell, whose impeachment and trial had led to the fall of
the Whig Government.
17. Sir Berkeley Lucy, Bart., F.R.S., married Katherine, daughter of Charles
Cotton, of Beresford, Staffordshire, Isaac Walton's friend. Lady Lucy died in
174O, leaving an only surviving daughter, Mary, who married the youngest son
of the Earl of Northampton, and had two sons, who became successively seventh
and eighth Earls of Northampton. Forster and others assumed that "Lady Lucy"
was a Lady Lucy Stanhope, though they were not able to identify her. It was
reserved for Mr. Ryland to clear up this difficulty. As he points out, Lady
Lucy's elder sister, Olive, married George Stanhope, Dean of Canterbury, and
left a daughter Mary,--Swift's "Moll Stanhope,"--a beauty and a madcap, who
married, in 1712, William Burnet, son of Bishop Burnet, and
died in 1714. Mary, another sister of Lady Lucy's, married Augustine
Armstrong, of Great Ormond Street, and is the Mrs. Armstrong mentioned by
Swift on Feb. 3, 1711, as a pretender to wit, without taste. Sir Berkeley
Lucy's mother was a daughter of the first Earl of Berkeley, and it was
probably through the Berkeleys that Swift came to know the Lucys.
18. Ann Long was sister to Sir James Long, and niece to Colonel Strangeways.
Once a beauty and toast of the Kit-Cat Club, she fell into narrow
circumstances through imprudence and the unkindness of her friends, and
retired under the name of Mrs. Smythe to Lynn, in Norfolk, where she died in
1711 (see Journal, December 25, 1711). Swift said, "She was the most
beautiful person of the age she lived in; of great honour and virtue, infinite
sweetness and generosity of temper, and true good sense" (Forster's Swift,
229). In a letter of December 1711, Swift wrote that she "had every valuable
quality of body and mind that could make a lady loved and esteemed."
19. Said, I know not on what authority, to be Swift's friend, Mrs. Barton.
But Mrs. Barton is often mentioned by Swift as living in London in 1710-11.
20. One of Swift's cousins, who was separated from her husband, a man of bad
character, living abroad. Her second husband, Lancelot, a servant of Lord
Sussex, lived in New Bond Street, and there Swift lodged in 1727.
21. 100,000 pounds.
22. Francis Stratford's name appears in the Dublin University Register for
1686 immediately before Swift's. Budgell is believed to have referred to the
friendship of Swift and Stratford in the Spectator, No. 353, where he
describes two schoolfellows, and says that the man of genius was buried in a
country parsonage of 160 pounds a year, while his friend, with the bare
abilities of a common scrivener, had gained an estate of above 100,000 pounds.
23. William Cowper, afterwards Lord Cowper.
24. Sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards Viscount Harcourt, had been counsel for
Sacheverell. On Sept. 19, 171O, he was appointed Attorney-General, and on
October 19 Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In April 1713 he became Lord
Chancellor.
25. This may be some relative of Dr. John Freind (see Letter 9), or, more
probably, as Sir Henry Craik suggests, a misprint for Colonel Frowde,
Addison's friend (see Journal, Nov. 4, 171O). No officer named Freind or
Friend is mentioned in Dalton's English Army Lists.
26. See the Tatler, Nos. 124, 2O3. There are various allusions in the
"Wentworth Papers" to this, the first State Lottery of 171O; and two bluecoat
boys drawing out the tickets, and showing their hands to the crowd, as Swift
describes them, are shown in a reproduction of a picture in a contemporary
pamphlet given in Ashton's Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, i. 115.
27. A few weeks later Swift wrote, "I took a fancy of resolving to grow mad
for it, but now it is off."
28. Sir John Holland, Bart., was a leading manager for the Commons in the
impeachment of Sacheverell. He succeeded Sir Thomas Felton in the
Comptrollership in March 171O.
29. Dryden Leach. (see Letter 7.)
30. William Pate, "bel esprit and woollen-draper," as Swift called him, lived
opposite the Royal Exchange. He was Sheriff of London in 1734, and died in
1746. Arbuthnot, previous to matriculating at Oxford, lodged with Pate, who
gave him a letter of introduction to Dr. Charlett, Master of University
College; and Pate is supposed to have been the woollen-draper, "remarkable for
his learning and good-nature," who is mentioned by Steele in the Guardian, No.
141.
31. James Brydges, son of Lord Chandos of Sudeley, was appointed Paymaster-
General of Forces Abroad in 17O7. He succeeded his father as Baron Chandos in
1714, and was created Duke of Chandos in 1729. The "princely Chandos" and his
house at Canons suggested to Pope the Timon's villa of the "Epistle to Lord
Burlington." The Duke died in 1744.
32. Charles Talbot, created Duke of Shrewsbury in 1694, was held in great
esteem by William III., and was Lord Chamberlain under Anne. In 1713 he
became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and held various offices under George I.,
until his death in 1718. "Before he was o. age," says Macaulay, "he was
allowed to be one of the finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time."
33. See No. 23O.
34. William Cavendish, second Duke of Devonshire (1673-1729), who was Lord
Steward from 17O7 to 1710 and from 1714 to 1716. Afterwards he was Lord
President of the Council. Swift's comment on Macky's character of this Whig
nobleman was, "A very poor understanding."
35. John Annesley, fourth Earl of Anglesea, a young nobleman of great promise,
had only recently been appointed joint Vice-Treasurer, Receiver-General, and
Paymaster of the Forces in Ireland, and sworn of the Privy Council.
36. Nichols, followed by subsequent editors, suggested that "Durham" was a
mistake for "St. David's," because Dr. George Bull, Bishop of St. David's,
died in 1710. But Dr. Bull died on Feb. 17, 171O, though his successor, Dr.
Philip Bisse, was not appointed until November; and Swift was merely repeating
a false report of the death of Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, which was current
on the day on which he wrote. Luttrell says, on Sept. 19, "The Lord Crewe. .
. died lately"; but on the 23rd he adds, "The Bishop of Durham is not dead as
reported" (Brief Relation, vi. 63O, 633.
37. Lady Elizabeth ("Betty") Butler, who died unmarried in 175O.
38. Swift wrote in 1734, "Once every year I issued out an edict, commanding
that all ladies of wit, sense, merit, and quality, who had an ambition to be
acquainted with me, should make the first advances at their peril: which
edict, you may believe, was universally obeyed."
39. Charles, second Earl of Berkeley (1649-171O), married Elizabeth, daughter
of Baptist Noel, Viscount Campden. The Earl died on Sept. 24, 171O, and his
widow in 1719. Swift, it will be remembered, had been chaplain to Lord
Berkeley in Ireland in 1699.
40. Lady Betty and Lady Mary Butler. (see Letter 7, notes 2 and 3.)
41. Henry Boyle, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 17O2 to 17O8, was Secretary
of State from 17O8 to 171O, when he was succeeded by St. John. In 1714 he was
created Baron Carleton, and he was Lord President from 1721 until his death in
1725.
42. On Sept. 29 Swift wrote that his rooms consisted of the first floor, a
dining-room and bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week. On his last visit to
England, in 1726, he lodged "next door to the Royal Chair" in Bury Street.
Steele lived in the same street from 17O7 to 1712; and Mrs. Vanhomrigh was
Swift's next-door neighbour.
43. In Exchange Alley. Cf. Spectator, No. 454: "I went afterwards to
Robin's, and saw people who had dined with me at the fivepenny ordinary just
before, give bills for the value of large estates.
