224
The Journal to Stella
journey; but I have no prospect of ships, and it will be almost necessary I should be in Dublin before the 25th instant, to take the oaths;[2] otherwise I must wait to a quarter sessions. I will lodge as I can; therefore take no lodgings for me, to pay in my absence. The poor Dean can’t afford it. I spoke again to the Duke of Ormond about Moimed for Raymond, and hope he may yet have it, for I laid it strongly to the Duke, and gave him the Bishop of Meath’s memorial. I am sorry for Raymond’s fistula; tell him so. I will speak to Lord Treasurer about Mrs. South[3] to−morrow. Odso! I forgot; I thought I had been in London. Mrs. Tisdall[4] is very big, ready to lie down. Her husband is a puppy. Do his feet stink still? The letters to Ireland go at so uncertain an hour, that I am forced to conclude. Farewell, MD, MD MD FW FW FW ME ME ME ME.
Lele lele
lele logues and
Ladies bose fair
and slender.
[On flyleaf.]
I mightily approve Ppt’s project of hanging the blind parson. When I read that passage upon Chester walls, as I was coming into town, and just received your letter, I said aloudAgreeable B−tch.
NOTES.
These notes are referenced by ‘Notes to the Introduction’ or ‘Letter (number)’, and the numbers in square brackets (thus [3]) in the body of the Journal.
Notes to the Introduction.
1 Notes and Queries, Sixth Series, x. 287.
2 See letter from Swift to John Temple, February 1737. She was then “quite sunk with years and unwieldliness.”
3 Athenaeum, Aug. 8, 1891.
4 Journal, May 4, 1711.
5 Craik’s Life of Swift, 269.
6 Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, pp. 189−96.
7 In 1730 he wrote, “Those who have been married may form juster ideas of that estate than I can pretend to do” (Dr. Birkbeck Hill’s Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, p. 237).
8 Scott added a new incident which has become incorporated in the popular conception of Swift’s story.
Delany is said to have met Swift rushing out of Archbishop King’s study, with a countenance of distraction, immediately after the wedding. King, who was in tears, said, “You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness you must never ask a question.” Will it be believed that Scottwho rejects Delany’s inference from this alleged incidenthad no better authority for it than “a friend of his (Delany’s) relict”?
9 This incident, for which there is probably some foundation of factwe cannot say how muchhas been greatly expanded by Mrs. Woods in her novel Esther Vanhomrigh. Unfortunately most of her readers cannot, NOTES.
225
The Journal to Stella
of course, judge exactly how far her story is a work of imagination.
10 In October Swift explained that he had been in the country “partly to see a lady of my old acquaintance, who was extremely ill” (Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, p. 198).
11 There is a story that shortly before her death Swift begged Stella to allow herself to be publicly announced as his wife, but that she replied that it was then too late. The versions given by Delany and Theophilus Swift differ considerably, while Sheridan alters the whole thing by representing Swift as brutally refusing to comply with Stella’s last wishes.
12 There has also been the absurd suggestion that the impediment was Swift’s knowledge that both he and Stella were the illegitimate children of Sir William Templea theory which is absolutely disproved by known facts.
13 It is curious to note the intimate knowledge of some of Swift’s peculiarities which was possessed by the hostile writer of a pamphlet called A Hue and Cry after Dr. S−t, published in 1714. That piece consists, for the most part, of extracts from a supposed Diary by Swift, and contains such passages as these: “Friday. Go to the Club . . . Am treated. Expenses one shilling.” “Saturday. Bid my servant get all things ready for a journey to the country: mend my breeches; hire a washerwoman, making her allow for old shirts, socks, dabbs and markees, which she bought of me . . . Six coaches of quality, and nine hacks, this day called at my lodgings.”
“Thursday. The Earl looked queerly: left him in a huff. Bid him send for me when he was fit for company. . .
Spent ten shillings.”
14 The “little language” is marked chiefly by such changes of letters (e.g., l for r, or r for l) as a child makes when learning to speak. The combinations of letters in which Swift indulges are not so easy of interpretation.
For himself he uses Pdfr, and sometimes Podefar or FR (perhaps Poor dear foolish rogue). Stella is Ppt (Poor pretty thing). MD (my dears) usually stands for both Stella and Mrs. Dingley, but sometimes for Stella alone.
Mrs. Dingley is indicated by ME (Madam Elderly), D, or DD (Dear Dingley). The letters FW may mean Farewell, or Foolish Wenches. Lele seems sometimes to be There, there, and sometimes Truly.
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.
NOTES.
226
The Journal to Stella
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).