Letter 17.
1 Sir Thomas Mansel, Bart., Comptroller of the Household to Queen Anne, and a
Lord of the Treasury, was raised to the peerage in December 1711 as Baron
Mansel of Margam. He died in 1723.
2 Lady Betty Butler and Lady Betty Germaine (see Letter 3, note 40 and Letter
4, note 3).
3 James Eckershall, "second clerk of the Queen's Privy Kitchen." Chamberlayne
(Magnae Britanniae Notitia, 171O, p. 536) says that his wages were 11 pounds,
8 shillings and a penny-ha'penny, and board-wages 138 pounds, 11 shillings and
tenpence-ha'penny, making 150 pounds in all. Afterwards Eckershall was
gentleman usher to Queen Anne; he died at Drayton in 1753, aged seventy-four.
Pope was in correspondence with him in 172O on the subject of contemplated
speculations in South Sea and other stocks.
4 In October 1710 (see Letter 6, note 44) Swift wrote as if he knew about the
preparation of these Miscellanies. The volume was published by Morphew
instead of Tooke, and it is frequently referred to in the Journal.
5 In 1685 the Duke of Ormond (see Letter 2, note 10) married, as his second
wife, Lady Mary Somerset, eldest surviving daughter of Henry, first Duke of
Beaufort.
6 Arthur Moore, M.P., was a Commissioner of Trade and Plantations from 1710
until his death in 1730. Gay calls him "grave," and Pope ("Prologue to the
Satires," 23) says that Moore blamed him for the way in which his "giddy son,"
James Moore Smythe, neglected the law.
7 James, Lord Paisley, who succeeded his father (see Letter 10, note 33) as
seventh Earl of Abercorn in 1734, married, in 1711, Anne, eldest daughter of
Colonel John Plumer, of Blakesware, Herts.
8 Harley's ill-health was partly due to his drinking habits.
9 Crowd or confusion.
10 The first wife of Charles Seymour, sixth Duke of Somerset, was Lady
Elizabeth Percy, only daughter of Joscelyn, eleventh Earl of Northumberland,
and heiress of the house of Percy. She married the Duke, her third husband,
at the age of eighteen.
11 John Richardson, D.D., rector of Armagh, Cavan, and afterwards chaplain to
the Duke of Ormond. In 1711 he published a Proposal for the Conversion of the
Popish Natives of Ireland to the Established Religion, and in 1712 a Short
History of the Attempts to Convert the Popish Natives of Ireland. In 17O9 the
Lower House of Convocation in Ireland had passed resolutions for printing the
Bible and liturgy in Irish, providing Irish preachers, etc. In 1711 Thomas
Parnell, the poet, headed a deputation to the Queen on the subject, when an
address was presented; but nothing came of the proposals, owing to fears that
the English interest in Ireland might be injured. In 1731 Richardson was
given the small deanery of Kilmacluagh.
12 See Feb. 27, 1711.
13 Harley.
14 "Bank bill for fifty pound," taking the alternate letters (see Letter 15,
note 9).
15 See Letter 5, note 17.
16 See Nos. 27 and 29, by Swift himself.
17 "Print cannot do justice to whims of this kind, as they depend wholly upon
the awkward shape of the letters" (Deane Swift).
18 See Letter 8, note 2.
19 "Here is just one specimen given of his way of writing to Stella in these
journals. The reader, I hope, will excuse my omitting it in all other places
where it occurs. The meaning of this pretty language is: 'And you must cry
There, and Here, and Here again. Must you imitate Presto, pray? Yes, and so
you shall. And so there's for your letter. Good-morrow'" (Deane Swift).
What Swift really wrote was probably as follows: "Oo must cly Lele and Lele
and Lele aden. Must oo mimitate Pdfr, pay? Iss, and so oo sall. And so
lele's fol oo rettle. Dood-mallow."
20 Lady Catherine Morice (died 1716) was the eldest daughter of Thomas
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and wife of Sir Nicholas Morice, Bart., M.P. for
Newport.
21 Perhaps Henry Arundell, who succeeded his father as fifth Baron Arundell of
Wardour in 1712, and died in 1726.
22 Antoine, Abbe de Bourlie and Marquis de Guiscard, was a cadet of a
distinguished family of the south of France. He joined the Church, but having
been driven from France in consequence of his licentious excesses, he came to
England, after many adventures in Europe, with a recommendation from the Duke
of Savoy. Godolphin gave him the command of a regiment of refugees, and
employed him in projects for effecting a landing in France. These schemes
proving abortive, Guiscard's regiment was disbanded, and he was discharged
with a pension of 500 pounds a year. Soon after the Tories came to power
Guiscard came to the conclusion that there was no hope of employment for him,
and little chance of receiving his pension; and he began a treacherous
correspondence with the French. When this was detected he was brought before
the Privy Council, and finding that everything was known, and wishing a better
death than hanging, he stabbed Harley in the breast. Mrs. Manley, under
Swift's directions, wrote a Narrative of Guiscard's Examination, and the
incident greatly added to the security of Harley's position, and to the
strength of the Government.
23 Harley's surgeon, Mr. Green.
24 See Letter 9, note 20.
25 Mrs. Walls' baby (see Feb 5, 1711).
26 The phrase had its origin in the sharp practices in the horse and cattle
markets. Writing to Arbuthnot in 1727, Swift said that Gay "had made a pretty
good bargain (that is a Smithfield) for a little place in the Custom House."
27 "There."
