to 1741. His elder brother, Arthur, was created Viscount Doneraile in 1703.
13 “Relation of the Facts and Circumstances of the Intended Riot on Queen Elizabeth’s Birthday.”
14 The Conduct of the Allies.
15 See Letter 9, note 18.
16 The first motto was “Partem tibi Gallia nostri eripuit,” etc. (Horace, 2 Od. 17−24).
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17 See Plautus’s Amphitrus, or Dryden’s Amphitryon.
18 It is not known whether or no this was Dr. William Savage, Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. No copy of the sermonif it was printedhas been found. See Courtenay’s Memoirs of Sir William Temple.
19 Of The Conduct of the Allies, a pamphlet which had a very wide circulation. See a paper by Edward Solly in the Antiquarian Magazine, March 1885.
20 Allen Bathurst, M.P. (1684−1775), created Baron Bathurst in December 1711, and Earl Bathurst in 1772.
His second and eldest surviving son was appointed Lord Chancellor in the year preceding the father’s death.
Writing to her son in January 1711 (Wentworth Papers, 173), Lady Wentworth said of Bathurst, “He is, next to you, the finest gentleman and the best young man I know; I love him dearly.”
21 See Letter 9, note 17.
22 See Letter 16, note 20.
23 Swift is alluding to the quarrel between Lord Santry (see Letter 23, note 2) and Francis Higgins (see Letter 34, note 10), which led to Higgins’s prosecution. The matter is described at length in Boyer s Political State, 1711, pp. 617 seq.
24 See Letter 19, note 1.
25 No doubt the same as Colonel Newburgh (see Journal, March 5, 1711−12).
26 Beaumont (see Letter 1, note 2 and Letter 26, Jul. 6, 1711).
27 See Letter 31, note 1.
28 Cf. Letter 15, Feb. 9, 1710−11.
29 See Letter 35, note 3.
Letter 36.
1 See Letter 34, note 15. Debtors could not be arrested on Sunday.
2 Sir George Pretyman, Bart., dissipated the fortune of the family. The title became dormant in 1749.
3 See the Introduction.
4 For the Whites of Farnham, see Manning and Bray’s Surrey, iii. 177.
5 The Conduct of the Allies.
6 The Percevals were among Swift’s principal friends in the neighbourhood of Laracor. In a letter to John Temple in 1706 (Forster’s Life of Swift, 182) Swift alludes to Perceval; in spite of different views in politics,
“I always loved him,” says Swift, “very well as a man of very good understanding and humour.” Perceval was related to Sir John Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont (see Letter 18, note 15).
7 See Letter 1, note 12.
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8 See Letter 8, note 14.
9 The Examiner was resumed on Dec. 6, 1711, under Oldisworth’s editorship, and was continued by him until July 1714.
10 Daniel Finch, second Earl of Nottingham, a staunch Tory, had quarrelled with the Government and the Court. On Dec. 7, 1711, he carried, by six votes, an amendment to the Address, to the effect that no peace would be acceptable which left Spain in the possession of the House of Bourbon. Harley’s counter− stroke was the creation of twelve new peers. The Whigs rewarded Nottingham by withdrawing their opposition to the Occasional Conformity Bill:
11 This “Song” begins:
“An orator dismal of Nottinghamshire,
Who had forty years let out his conscience for hire.”
12 The Conduct of the Allies.
13 Robert Bertie, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and fourth Earl of Lindsey, was created Marquis of Lindsay in 1706, and Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven in 1715. He died in 1723.
14 Lady Sunderland (see Letter 27, note 21) and Lady Rialton, ladies of the bed−chamber to the Queen.
15 Hugh Cholmondeley (died 1724), the second Viscount, was created Viscount Malpas and Earl of Cholmondeley in 1706, and in 1708 was appointed Treasurer of Her Majesty’s Household, an office which he held until 1713, in spite of his Whig sympathies. “Good for nothing, so far as ever I knew,” Swift wrote of him.
16 Prov. xxv. 3.
17 See Letter 31, note 8.
18 Thomas Parker, afterwards created Earl of Macclesfield, was appointed Lord Chief−Justice in March 1710. In September 1711 he declined Harley’s offer of the Lord Chancellorship, a post which he accepted under a Whig Government in the next reign.
19 The Bill against Occasional Conformity.
Letter 37.
1 The proposed visit to London of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the renowned General, and friend of Marlborough, was viewed by the Government with considerable alarm.
2 Swift’s “An excellent new Song; being the intended Speech of a famous orator against Peace,” a ballad “two degrees above Grub Street” (see Letter 36, note 11).
3 Robert Walpole was then M.P. for King’s Lynn, and Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons.
He had been Secretary at War from February 1708 to September 1710, and the Commissioners of Public Accounts having reported, on Dec. 21, 1711, that he had been guilty of venality and corruption, he was expelled from the House of Commons, and taken to the Tower.
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4 William King, D.C.L., author of the Journey to London in 1698, Dialogues of the Dead, The Art of Cookery, and other amusing works, was, at the end of the month, appointed Gazetteer, in succession to Steele, on Swift’s recommendation. Writing earlier in the year, Gay said that King deserved better than to
“languish out the small remainder of his life in the Fleet Prison.” The duties of Gazetteer were too much for his easy−going nature and failing health, and he resigned the post in July 1712. He died in the following December.
5 At the bottom of St. James’s Street, on the west side.
6 The Rev. John Shower, pastor of the Presbyterian Congregation at Curriers’ Hall, London Wall.
7 The Windsor Prophecy, in which the Duchess of Somerset (see Letter 17, note 10) is attacked as “Carrots from Northumberland.”
8 Merlin’s Prophecy, 1709, written in pseudo−mediaeval English.
9 See Letter 3, note 18.
10 Dorothy, daughter of Sir Edward Leach, of Shipley, Derbyshire.
11 Sir James Long, Bart. (died 1729), was at this time M.P. for Chippenham.
12 The number containing this paragraph is not in the British Museum.
13 Joseph Beaumont (see Letter 1, note 2, Letter 26, Jul. 6, 1711 and Letter 35, note 26) 14 See Letter 4, note 13.
15 Apparently a misprint for “whether.”
16 See Letter 32, note 19.
17 James Compton, afterwards fifth Earl of Northampton (died 1754), was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Compton in December 1711. Charles Bruce, who succeeded his father as third Earl of Aylesbury in 1741, was created Lord Bruce, of Whorlton, at the same time.
18 James, Lord Compton, eldest son of the Earl of Northampton; Charles, Lord Bruce, eldest son of the Earl of Aylesbury; Henry Paget, son of Lord Paget; George Hay, Viscount Dupplin, the son−in−law of the Lord Treasurer, created Baron Hay; Viscount Windsor, created Baron Montjoy; Sir Thomas Mansel, Baron Mansel; Sir Thomas Willoughby, Baron Middleton; Sir Thomas Trevor, Baron Trevor; George Granville, Baron Lansdowne; Samuel Masham, Baron Masham; Thomas Foley, Baron Foley; and Allen Bathurst, Baron Bathurst.
Letter 38.
1 Juliana, widow of the second Earl of Burlington, and daughter of the Hon. Henry Noel, was Mistress of the Robes to Queen Anne. She died in 1750, aged seventy−eight.
2 Thomas Windsor, Viscount Windsor (died 1738), an Irish peer, who had served under William III. in Flanders, was created Baron Montjoy, of the Isle of Wight, in December 1711. He married Charlotte, widow of John, Baron Jeffries, of Wem, and daughter of Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
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3 The Hon. Russell Robartes, brother of Lord Radnor (see Letter 3, note 7), was Teller of the Exchequer, and M.P. for Bodmin. His son became third Earl of Radnor in 1723.
4 Gay (Trivia, ii. 92) speaks of “the slabby pavement.”
5 See Letter 17, note 1.
6 George Granville (see Letter 14, note 5), now Baron Lansdowne, married Lady Mary Thynne, widow of Thomas Thynne, and daughter of Edward, Earl of Jersey (see Letter 29, note 3). In October 1710 Lady Wentworth wrote to her son, “Pray, my dear, why will you let Lady Mary Thynne go? She is young, rich, and not unhandsome, some say she is pretty; and a virtuous lady, and of the nobility, and why will you not try to get her?” (Wentworth papers, 149).
7 See Letter 24, note 4.
8 Harness.
9 On his birthday Swift read the third chapter of Job.
10 See Letter 33, note 12.
11 Sir George St. George of Dunmore, Co. Galway, M.P. for Co. Leitrim from 1661 to 1692, and afterwards for Co. Galway, died in December 1711.
12 See Letter 35, note 11 and Letter 31, note 10.
13 See Letter 4, note 16.
14 Dr. Pratt (see Letter 2, note 14).
15 King Henry VIII., act iv. sc. 2; “An old man broken with the storms,” etc.