15 The turnpike system had spread rapidly since the Restoration, and had already effected an important reform in the English roads. Turnpike roads were as yet unknown in Ireland.
16 Ann Johnson, who afterwards married a baker named Filby.
17 An infusion of which the main ingredient was cowslip or palsy−wort.
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18 William Legge, first Earl of Dartmouth (1672−175O), was St. John’s fellow Secretary of State. Lord Dartmouth seems to have been a plain, unpretending man, whose ignorance of French helped to throw important matters into St. John’s hands.
19 Richard Dyot was tried at the Old Bailey, on Jan. 13, 171O−11, for counterfeiting stamps, and was acquitted, the crime being found not felony, but only breach of trust. Two days afterwards a bill of indictment was found against him for high misdemeanour.
20 Sir Philip Meadows (1626−1718) was knighted in 1658, and was Ambassador to Sweden under Cromwell.
His son Philip (died 1757) was knighted in 170O, and was sent on a special mission to the Emperor in 1707.
A great−grandson of the elder Sir Philip was created Earl Manvers in 1806.
21 Her eyes were weak.
22 The son of the Sir Robert Southwell to whom Temple had offered Swift as a “servant” on his going as Secretary of State to Ireland in 1690. Edward Southwell (1671−173O) succeeded his father as Secretary of State for Ireland in 1702, and in 1708 was appointed Clerk to the Privy Council of Great Britain. Southwell held various offices under George I. and George II., and amassed a considerable fortune.
23 Nicholas Rowe (1674−1718), dramatist and poet laureate, and one of the first editors of Shakespeare, was at this time under−secretary to the Duke of Queensberry, Secretary of State for Scotland.
24 No. 238 contains Swift’s “Description of a Shower in London.”
25 This seems to be a vague allusion to the text, “Cast thy bread upon the waters,” etc.
26 Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646−1723), the fashionable portrait−painter of the period.
27 At the General election of 171O the contest at Westminster excited much interest. The number of constituents was large, and the franchise low, all householders who paid scot and lot being voters. There were, too, many houses of great Whig merchants, and a number of French Protestants. But the High Church candidates, Cross and Medlicott, were returned by large majorities, though the Whigs had chosen popular candidatesGeneral Stanhope, fresh from his successes in Spain, and Sir Henry Dutton Colt, a Herefordshire gentleman.
28 Sir Andrew Fountaine (1676−1753), a distinguished antiquary, of an old Norfolk family, was knighted by William III. in 1699, and inherited his father’s estate at Norfolk in 17O6. He succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as Warden of the Mint in 1727, and was Vice−Chamberlain to Queen Caroline. He became acquainted with Swift in Ireland in 1707, when he went over as Usher of the Black Rod in Lord Pembroke’s Court.
29 See Letter 2, note 17. The Bishop was probably Dr. Moreton, Bishop of Meath (see Journal, July 1, 1712).
30 The game of ombreof Spanish originis described in Pope’s Rape of the Lock. See also the Compleat Gamester, 1721, and Notes and Queries, April 8, 1871. The ace of spades, or Spadille, was always the first trump; the ace of clubs (Basto) always the third. The second trump was the worst card of the trump suit in its natural order, i.e. the seven in red and the deuce in black suits, and was called Manille. If either of the red suits was trumps, the ace of the suit was fourth trump (Punto). Spadille, Manille, and Basto were
“matadores,” or murderers, as they never gave suit.
31 See Letter 3, note 30,
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32 In the Spectator, No. 337, there is a complaint from “one of the top China women about town,” of the trouble given by ladies who turn over all the goods in a shop without buying anything. Sometimes they cheapened tea, at others examined screens or tea−dishes.
33 The Right Hon. John Grubham Howe, M.P. for Gloucestershire, an extreme Tory, had recently been appointed Paymaster of the Forces. He is mentioned satirically as a patriot in sec. 9 of The Tale of a Tub.
34 George Henry Hay, Viscount Dupplin, eldest son of the sixth Earl of Kinnoull, was made a Teller of the Exchequer in August, and a peer of Great Britain in December 1711, with the title of Baron Hay. He married, in 1709, Abigail, Harley’s younger daughter, and he succeeded his father in the earldom of Kinnoull in 1719.
35 Edward Harley, afterwards Lord Harley, who succeeded his father as Earl of Oxford in 1724. He married Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, but died without male issue in 1741.
His interest in literature caused him to form the collection known as the Harleian Miscellany.
36 William Penn (1644−1718), the celebrated founder of Pennsylvania. Swift says that he “spoke very agreeably, and with much spirit.”
37 This “Memorial to Mr. Harley about the First−Fruits” is dated Oct. 7, 171O.
38 Henry St. John, created Viscount Bolingbroke in July 1712. In the quarrel between Oxford and Bolingbroke in 1714, Swift’s sympathies were with Oxford.
39 I.e., it is decreed by fate. So Tillotson says, “These things are fatal and necessary.”
40 See Letter 3, note 8.
41 Obscure. Hooker speaks of a “blind or secret corner.”
42 Ale served in a gill measure.
43 Scott suggests that the allusion is to The Tale of a Tub.
44 An extravagant compliment.
45 See Letter 8.
46 L’Estrange speaks of “trencher−flies and spungers.”
47 See Letter 1, note 10.
48 Samuel Garth, physician and member of the Kit−Cat Club, was knighted in 1714. He is best known by his satirical poem, The Dispensary, 1699.
49 Gay speaks of “Wondering Main, so fat, with laughing eyes” (Mr. Pope’s Welcome from Greece, st. xvii.).
50 See Letter 5, note 10.
51 See the letter of Oct. 10, 1710, to Archbishop King.
52 See Letter 1.
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53 Seventy−three lines in folio upon one page, and in a very small hand.” (Deane Swift).
Letter 6.
1. I.e., Lord Lieutenant.
2 Tatler, No. 238.
3 See Letter 1, note 12.
4 Charles Coote, fourth Earl of Mountrath, and M.P. for Knaresborough. He died unmarried in 1715.
5 Henry Coote, Lord Mountrath’s brother. He succeeded to the earldom in 1715, but died unmarried in 172O.
6 The Devil Tavern was the meeting−place of Ben Jonson’s Apollo Club. The house was pulled down in 1787.
7 Addison was re−elected M.P. for Malmesbury in Oct. 171O, and he kept that seat until his death in 1719.
8 Captain Charles Lavallee, who served in the Cadiz Expedition of 1702, and was appointed a captain in Colonel Hans Hamilton’s Regiment of Foot in 1706 (Luttrell, v. 175, vi. 64O; Dalton’s English Army Lists, iv. 126).
9 See Letter 5.
10 The Tatler, No. 23O, Sid Hamet’s Rod, and the ballad (now lost) on the Westminster Election.
11 The Earl of Galway (1648−172O), who lost the battle of Almanza to the Duke of Berwick in 1707.
Originally the Marquis de Ruvigny, a French refugee, he had been made Viscount Galway and Earl of Galway successively by William III.
12 William Harrison, the son of a doctor at St. Cross, Winchester, had been recommended to Swift by Addison, who obtained for him the post of governor to the Duke of Queensberry’s son. In Jan. 1711 Harrison began the issue of a continuation of Steele’s Tatler with Swift’s assistance, but without success. In May 1711, St. John gave Harrison the appointment of secretary to Lord Raby, Ambassador Extraordinary at the Hague, and in Jan. 1713 Harrison brought the Barrier Treaty to England. He died in the following month, at the age of twenty−seven, and Lady Strafford says that “his brother poets buried him, as Mr. Addison, Mr. Philips, and Dr. Swift.” Tickell calls him “that much loved youth,” and Swift felt his death keenly. Harrison’s best poem is Woodstock Park, 1706.
13 The last volume of Tonson’s Miscellany, 1708.
14 James Douglas, second Duke of Queensberry and Duke of Dover (1662−1711), was appointed joint Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1708, and third Secretary of State in 1709. Harrison must have been “governor”
either to the third son, Charles, Marquis of Beverley (born 1698), who succeeded to the dukedom in 1711, or to the fourth son, George, born in 1701.
15 Anthony Henley, son of Sir Robert Henley, M.P. for Andover, was a favourite with the wits in London.
He was a strong Whig, and occasionally contributed to the Tatler and Maynwaring’s Medley. Garth dedicated The Dispensary to him. Swift records Henley’s death from apoplexy in August 1711.
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16 Sir William Ashurst, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, and Mr. John Ward were replaced by Sir Richard Hoare, Sir George Newland, and Mr. John Cass at the election for the City in 1710. Scott was wrong in saying that the Whigs lost also the fourth seat, for Sir William Withers had been member for the City since 1707.