The Journal to Stella by Jonathan Swift

Then I walked home, and was here by ten, so miserably hot, that I was in as perfect a passion as ever I was in my life at the greatest affront or provocation. Then I sat an hour, till I was quite dry and cool enough to go swim; which I did, but with so much vexation that I think I have given it over: for I was every moment disturbed by boats, rot them; and that puppy Patrick, standing ashore, would let them come within a yard or two, and then call sneakingly to them. The only comfort I proposed here in hot weather is gone; for there is no jesting with those boats after it is dark: I had none last night. I dived to dip my head, and held my cap on with both my hands, for fear of losing it. Pox take the boats! Amen. ‘Tis near twelve, and so I’ll answer your letter (it strikes twelve now) to−morrow morning.

7. Morning. Well, now let us answer MD’s letter, N.15, 15, 15, 15. Now have I told you the number? 15, 15; there, impudence, to call names in the beginning of your letter, before you say, How do you do, Mr. Presto?

There is your breeding! Where is your manners, sirrah, to a gentleman? Get you gone, you couple of jades.No, I never sit up late now; but this abominable hot weather will force me to eat or drink something that will do me hurt. I do venture to eat a few strawberries.Why then, do you know in Ireland that Mr. St.

John talked so in Parliament?[21] Your Whigs are plaguily bit; for he is entirely for their being all out.And are you as vicious in snuff as ever? I believe, as you say, it does neither hurt nor good; but I have left it off, and when anybody offers me their box, I take about a tenth part of what I used to do, and then just smell to it, and privately fling the rest away. I keep to my tobacco still,[22] as you say; but even much less of that than formerly, only mornings and evenings, and very seldom in the day.As for Joe,[23] I have recommended his case heartily to my Lord Lieutenant; and, by his direction, given a memorial of it to Mr. Southwell, to whom I have recommended it likewise. I can do no more, if he were my brother. His business will be to apply himself to Southwell. And you must desire Raymond, if Price of Galway comes to town, to desire him to wait on Mr. Southwell, as recommended by me for one of the Duke’s chaplains, which was all I could do for him; and he must be presented to the Duke, and make his court, and ply about, and find out some vacancy, and solicit early for it. The bustle about your Mayor I had before, as I told you, from the Archbishop of Dublin.

Was Raymond not come till May 18? So he says fine things of me? Certainly he lies. I am sure I used him indifferently enough; and we never once dined together, or walked, or were in any third place; only he came sometimes to my lodgings, and even there was oftener denied than admitted.What an odd bill is that you sent of Raymond’s! A bill upon one Murry in Chester, which depends entirely not only upon Raymond’s honesty, but his discretion; and in money matters he is the last man I would depend on. Why should Sir Alexander Cairnes[24] in London pay me a bill, drawn by God knows who, upon Murry in Chester? I was at LETTER 24.

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The Journal to Stella

Cairnes’s, and they can do no such thing. I went among some friends, who are merchants, and I find the bill must be sent to Murry, accepted by him, and then returned back, and then Cairnes may accept or refuse it as he pleases. Accordingly I gave Sir Thomas Frankland the bill, who has sent it to Chester, and ordered the postmaster there to get it accepted, and then send it back, and in a day or two I shall have an answer; and therefore this letter must stay a day or two longer than I intended, and see what answer I get. Raymond should have written to Murry at the same time, to desire Sir Alexander Cairnes to have answered such a bill, if it come. But Cairnes’s clerks (himself was not at home) said they had received no notice of it, and could do nothing; and advised me to send to Murry.I have been six weeks to−day at Chelsea, and you know it but just now. And so Dean thinks I write the Medley. Pox of his judgment! It is equal to his honesty. Then you han’t seen the Miscellany yet?[25] Why, ’tis a four−shilling book: has nobody carried it over?No, I believe Manley[26] will not lose his place; for his friend[27] in England is so far from being out that he has taken a new patent since the Post Office Act; and his brother Jack Manley[28] here takes his part firmly; and I have often spoken to Southwell in his behalf, and he seems very well inclined to him. But the Irish folks here in general are horribly violent against him. Besides, he must consider he could not send Stella wine if he were put out. And so he is very kind, and sends you a dozen bottles of wine AT A TIME, and you win eight shillings AT A TIME; and how much do you lose? No, no, never one syllable about that, I warrant you.Why, this same Stella is so unmerciful a writer, she has hardly left any room for Dingley. If you have such summer there as here, sure the Wexford waters are good by this time. I forgot what weather we had May 6th; go look in my journal. We had terrible rain the 24th and 25th, and never a drop since. Yes, yes, I remember Berested’s bridge; the coach sosses up and down as one goes that way, just as at Hockley−in−the−Hole.[29] I never impute any illness or health I have to good or ill weather, but to want of exercise, or ill air, or something I have eaten, or hard study, or sitting up; and so I fence against those as well as I can: but who a deuce can help the weather? Will Seymour,[30] the General, was excessively hot with the sun shining full upon him; so he turns to the sun, and says, “Harkee, friend, you had better go and ripen cucumbers than plague me at this rate,” etc. Another time, fretting at the heat, a gentleman by said it was such weather as pleased God: Seymour said, “Perhaps it may; but I am sure it pleases nobody else.” Why, Madam Dingley, the First−Fruits are done. Southwell told me they went to inquire about them, and Lord Treasurer said they were done, and had been done long ago. And I’ll tell you a secret you must not mention, that the Duke of Ormond is ordered to take notice of them in his speech in your Parliament: and I desire you will take care to say on occasion that my Lord Treasurer Harley did it many months ago, before the Duke was Lord Lieutenant. And yet I cannot possibly come over yet: so get you gone to Wexford, and make Stella well. Yes, yes, I take care not to walk late; I never did but once, and there are five hundred people on the way as I walk.

Tisdall is a puppy, and I will excuse him the half−hour he would talk with me. As for the Examiner, I have heard a whisper that after that of this day,[31] which tells us what this Parliament has done, you will hardly find them so good. I prophesy they will be trash for the future; and methinks in this day’s Examiner the author talks doubtfully, as if he would write no more.[32] Observe whether the change be discovered in Dublin, only for your own curiosity, that’s all. Make a mouth there. Mrs. Vedeau’s business I have answered, and I hope the bill is not lost. Morrow. ‘Tis stewing hot, but I must rise and go to town between fire and water. Morrow, sirrahs both, morrow.At night. I dined to−day with Colonel Crowe, Governor of Jamaica, and your friend Sterne. I presented Sterne to my Lord Treasurer’s brother,[33] and gave him his case, and engaged him in his favour. At dinner there fell the swingingest long shower, and the most grateful to me, that ever I saw: it thundered fifty times at least, and the air is so cool that a body is able to live; and I walked home to−night with comfort, and without dirt. I went this evening to Lord Treasurer, and sat with him two hours, and we were in very good humour, and he abused me, and called me Dr. Thomas Swift fifty times: I have told you he does that when he has mind to make me mad.[34] Sir Thomas Frankland gave me to−day a letter from Murry, accepting my bill; so all is well: only, by a letter from Parvisol, I find there are some perplexities.Joe has likewise written to me, to thank me for what I have done for him; and desires I would write to the Bishop of Clogher, that Tom Ashe[35] may not hinder his father[36] from being portreve. I have written and sent to Joe several times, that I will not trouble myself at all about Trim. I wish them their liberty, but they do not deserve it: so tell Joe, and send to him. I am mighty happy with this rain: I was at the end of my patience, but now I live again. This cannot go till Saturday; and perhaps I may go out of town with Lord Shelburne and LETTER 24.