Letter 9.
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."
