Letter 11.
1 L'Estrange speaks of "insipid twittle twattles." Johnson calls this "a vile
word."
2 A cousin of Swift's; probably a son of William Swift.
3 Nicholas Sankey (died 1722) succeeded Lord Lovelace as Colonel of a Regiment
of Foot in Ireland in 1689. He became Brigadier-General in 1704, Major-
General 1707, and Lieutenant-General 1710. He served in Spain, and was taken
prisoner at the battle of the Caya in 1709.
4 See Letter 10, note 30.
5 The Earl of Abercorn (see Letter 10, note 33) married, in 1686, Elizabeth,
only child of Sir Robert Reading, Bart., of Dublin, by Jane, Dowager Countess
of Mountrath. Lady Abercorn survived her husband twenty years, dying in 1754,
aged eighty-six.
6 Charles Lennox, first Duke of Richmond and Gordon (1672-1723), was the
illegitimate son of Charles II. by Madame de Querouaille.
7 Sir Robert Raymond, afterwards Lord Raymond (1673-1733), M.P. for Bishop's
Castle, Shropshire, was appointed Solicitor-General in May 1710, and was
knighted in October. He was removed from office on the accession of George
I., but was made Attorney-General in 1720, and in 1724 became a judge of the
King's Bench. In the following year he was made Lord Chief-Justice, and was
distinguished both for his learning and his impartiality.
8 Lynn-Regis.
9 Richard Savage, fourth Earl Rivers, the father of Richard Savage, the poet.
Under the Whigs Lord Rivers was Envoy to Hanover; and after his conversion by
Harley, he was Constable of the Tower under the Tories. He died in 1712.
10 Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland from 1695 until his death in 1717.
11 Lord Shelburne's clever sister, Anne, only daughter of Sir William Petty,
and wife of Thomas Fitzmaurice, Lord of Kerry, afterwards created first Earl
of Kerry.
12 Mrs. Pratt, an Irish friend of Lady Kerry, lodged at Lord Shelburne's
during her visit to London. The reference to Clements (see Letter 9, note
20), Pratt's relative, in the Journal for April 14, 1711, makes it clear that
Mrs. Pratt was the wife of the Deputy Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, to whom Swift
often alludes (see Letter 3, note 10).
13 Lieutenant-General Thomas Meredith, Major-General Maccartney, and Brigadier
Philip Honeywood. They alleged that their offence only amounted to drinking a
health to the Duke of Marlborough, and confusion to his enemies. But the
Government said that an example must be made, because various officers had
dropped dangerous expressions about standing by their General, Marlborough,
who was believed to be aiming at being made Captain General for life. For
Maccartney see the Journal for Nov. 15, 1712, seq. Meredith, who was
appointed Adjutant-General of the Forces in 1701, was made a Lieutenant-
General in 1708. He saw much service under William III., and Marlborough, and
was elected M.P. for Midhurst in 1709. He died in 1719 (Dalton's Army Lists,
III. 181). Honeywood entered the army in 1694; was at Namur; and was made a
Brigadier-General before 1711. After the accession of George I. he became
Colonel of a Regiment of Dragoons, and commanded a division at Dettingen. At
his death in 1752 he was acting as Governor of Portsmouth, with the rank of
General (Dalton, iv. 30).
14 Or "malkin"; a counterfeit, or scarecrow.
15 William Cadogan, Lieutenant-General and afterwards Earl Cadogan (1675-
1726), a great friend of Marlborough, was Envoy to the United Provinces and
Spanish Flanders. Cadogan retained the post of Lieutenant to the Tower until
1715.
16 Earl Cadogan's father, Henry Cadogan, barrister, married Bridget, daughter
of Sir Hardresse Waller, and sister of Elizabeth, Baroness Shelburne in her
own right.
17 See Letter 5, note 30.
18 Cadogan married Margaretta, daughter of William Munter, Counsellor of the
Court of Holland.
19 Presumably the eldest son, William, who succeeded his father as second Earl
of Kerry in 1741, and died in 1747. He was at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford,
and was afterwards a Colonel in the Coldstream Guards.
20 Henry Petty, third Lord Shelburne, who became Earl of Shelburne in 1719.
His son predeceased him, without issue, and on Lord Shelburne's death, in
1751, his honours became extinct. His daughter Anne also died without issue.
21 The menagerie, which had been one of the sights of London, was removed from
the Tower in 1834. In his account of the Tory Fox Hunter in No. 47 of the
Freeholder, Addison says, "Our first visit was to the lions."
22 Bethlehem Hospital, for lunatics, in Moorfields, was a popular "sight" in
the eighteenth century. Cf. the Tatler, No. 30: "On Tuesday last I took
three lads, who are under my guardianship, a rambling, in a hackney coach, to
show them the town: as the lions, the tombs, Bedlam."
23 The Royal Society met at Gresham College from 1660 to 1710. The professors
of the College lectured on divinity, civil law, astronomy, music, geometry,
rhetoric, and physic.
24 The most important of the puppet-shows was Powell's, in the Little Piazza,
Covent Garden, which is frequently mentioned in the Tatler.
25 The precise nature this negligent costume is not known, but it is always
decried by popular writers of the time.
26 Retched. Bacon has "Patients must not keck at them at the first."
27 Swift was born on November 30.
28 Mrs. De la Riviere Manley, daughter of Sir Roger Manley, and cousin of John
Manley, M.P., and Isaac Manley (see Letter 3, note 3), wrote poems and plays,
but is best known for her "Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of
Quality, of both sexes. From the New Atalantis, 1709," a book abounding in
scandalous references to her contemporaries. She was arrested in October, but
was discharged in Feb. 1710. In May 1710 she brought out a continuation of
the New Atalantis, called "Memoirs of Europe towards the Close of the Eighth
Century." In June 1711 she became editress of the Tory Examiner, and wrote
political pamphlets with Swift's assistance. Afterwards she lived with
Alderman Barber, the printer, at whose office she died in 1724. In her will
she mentioned her "much honoured friend, the Dean of St. Patrick, Dr. Swift."
29 "He seems to have written these words in a whim; for the sake of what
follows" (Deane Swift).
30 See Letter 8, note 33.
31 No. 249 (see Letter 10, note 18).
32 See Letter 5, note 34.
33 In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Tisdall, of Dec. 16, 1703, Swift said: "I'll
teach you a way to outwit Mrs. Johnson: it is a new-fashioned way of being
witty, and they call it a bite. You must ask a bantering question, or tell
some damned lie in a serious manner, and then she will answer or speak as if
you were in earnest; and then cry you, 'Madam, there's a bite!' I would not
have you undervalue this, for it is the constant amusement in Court, and
everywhere else among the great people." See, too, the Tatler, No. 12, and
Spectator, Nos. 47, 504: "In a word, a Biter is one who thinks you a fool,
because you do not think him a knave."
34 See Letter 9, note 4.
35 "As I hope to be saved;" a favourite phrase in the Journal.
36 See Letter 7, note 12.
37 This statement receives some confirmation from a pamphlet published in
September 1710, called "A Condoling Letter to the Tatler: On Account of the
Misfortunes of Isaac Bickerstaf Esq., a Prisoner in the ---- on Suspicion of
Debt."
38 Dr. Lambert, chaplain to Lord Wharton, was censured in Convocation for
being the author of a libellous letter.
39 Probably the same person as Dr. Griffith, spoken of in the Journal for
March 3, 1713,--when he was ill,--as having been "very tender of" Stella.
40 See Letter 9, note 22.
41 Vexed, offended. Elsewhere Swift wrote, "I am apt to grate the ears of
more than I could wish."
42 Ambrose Philips, whose Pastorals had been published in the same volume of
Tonson's Miscellany as Pope's. Two years later Swift wrote, "I should
certainly have provided for him had he not run party mad." In 1712 his play,
The Distrest Mother, received flattering notice in the Spectator, and in 1713,
to Pope's annoyance, Philips' Pastorals were praised in the Guardian. His
pretty poems to children led Henry Carey to nickname him "Namby Pamby."
43 An equestrian statue of William III., in College Green, Dublin. It was
common, in the days of party, for students of the University of Dublin to play
tricks with this statue.
44 Lieutenant-General Richard Ingoldsby (died 1712) was Commander of the
Forces in Ireland, and one of the Lords Justices in the absence of the Lord
Lieutenant.
45 This seems to have been a mistake; cf. Journal for July 13, 1711, Alan
Brodrick, afterwards Viscount Midleton, a Whig politician and lawyer, was made
Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in Ireland in 1709, but was removed from
office in June 1711, when Sir Richard Cox succeeded him. On the accession of
George I. he was appointed Lord Chancellor for Ireland. Afterwards he
declined to accept the dedication to him of Swift's Drapiers Letters, and
supported the prosecution of the author. He died in 1728.
46 Robert Doyne was appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1695,
and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1703. This appointment was revoked
on the accession of George I.
47 See Letter 9, note 12.
48 Of the University of Dublin.
49 See Letter 2, note 18 and Letter 3, note 4. Sir Thomas Frankland's eldest
son, Thomas, who afterwards succeeded to the baronetcy, acquired a fortune
with his first wife, Dinah, daughter of Francis Topham, of Agelthorpe,
Yorkshire. He died in 1747.
50 See Letter 8, note 21.
51 see Letter 4, note 15.
52 Mary, daughter of Sir John Williams, Bart., and widow of Charles Petty,
second Lord Shelburne, who died in 1696. She had married, as her second
husband, Major-General Conyngham, and, as her third husband, Colonel Dallway.
53 Dr. John Vesey became Bishop of Limerick in 1672, and Archbishop of Tuam in
1678. He died in 1716.
54 See Letter 3, note 39.
55 Sex.
56 Toby Caulfeild, third son of the fifth Lord Charlemont. In 1689 he was
Colonel to the Earl of Drogheda's Regiment of Foot, and about 1705 he
succeeded to the command of Lord Skerrin's Regiment of Foot. After serving in
Spain his regiment was reduced, having lost most of its men (Luttrell, vi.
158).
57 John Campbell, second Duke of Argyle (1680-1743), was installed a Knight of
the Garter in December 1710, after he had successfully opposed a vote of
thanks to Marlborough, with whom he had quarrelled. It was of this nobleman
that Pope wrote--
"Argyle, the State's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field."
In a note to Macky's Memoirs, Swift describes the Duke as an "ambitious,
covetous, cunning Scot, who had no principle but his own interests and
greatness."
58 Harley's second wife, Sarah, daughter of Simon Middleton, of Edmonton, and
sister of Sir Hugh Middleton, Bart. She died, without issue, in 1737.
59 Elizabeth Harley, then unmarried, the daughter of Harley's first wife,
Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Foley, of Whitley Court, Worcestershire. She
subsequently married the Marquis of Caermarthen, afterwards Duke of Leeds.
60 Harcourt (see Letter 3, note 24).
61 William Stawel, the third baron, who succeeded to the title in 1692, was
half-brother to the second Baron Stawel. The brother here referred to was
Edward, who succeeded to the title as fourth baron in 1742.
