The Journal to Stella Part 30

27. Nothing new to-day. I dined with Tom Harley, etc. I'll seal up this to-night. Pray write soon.... MD MD MD FW FW FW ME ME ME Lele, lele.

LETTER 64.(1)

LONDON, May 16 (1713).

I had yours, No. 40, yesterday. Your new Bishop acts very ungratefully.

I cannot say so bad of it as he deserved. I begged at the same post his warrant and mine went over, that he would leave those livings to my disposal. I shall write this post to him to let him know how ill I take it. I have letters to tell me that I ought to think of employing some body to set the t.i.thes of the deanery. I know not what to do at this distance. I cannot be in Ireland under a month. I will write two orders; one to Parvisol, and t'other to Parvisol, and a blank for whatever fellow it is whom the last Dean employed; and I would desire you to advise with friends which to make use of: and if the latter, let the fellow's name be inserted, and both act by commission. If the former, then speak to Parvisol, and know whether he can undertake it. I doubt it is hardly to be done by a perfect stranger alone, as Parvisol is. He may perhaps venture at all, to keep up his interest with me; but that is needless, for I am willing to do him any good, that will do me no harm.

Pray advise with Walls and Raymond, and a little with Bishop Sterne for form. Tell Raymond I cannot succeed for him to get that living of Moimed. It is represented here as a great sinecure. Several chaplains have solicited for it; and it has vexed me so, that, if I live, I will make it my business to serve him better in something else. I am heartily sorry for his illness, and that of the other two. If it be not necessary to let the t.i.thes till a month hence, you may keep the two papers, and advise well in the meantime; and whenever it is absolutely necessary, then give that paper which you are most advised to. I thank Mr. Walls for his letter. Tell him that must serve for an answer, with my service to him and her. I shall buy Bishop Sterne's hair as soon as his household goods. I shall be ruined, or at least sadly cramped, unless the Queen will give me a thousand pounds. I am sure she owes me a great deal more. Lord Treasurer rallies me upon it, and I believe intends it; but, quando? I am advised to hasten over as soon as possible, and so I will, and hope to set out the beginning of June. Take no lodging for me.

What? at your old tricks again? I can lie somewhere after I land, and I care not where, nor how. I will buy your eggs and bacon, DD... (2) your caps and Bible; and pray think immediately, and give me some commissions, and I will perform them as far as oo poo Pdfr can.(3) The letter I sent before this was to have gone a post before; but an accident hindered it; and, I a.s.sure oo, I wam very akkree(4) MD did not write to Dean Pdfr, and I think oo might have had a Dean under your girdle for the superscription. I have just finished my Treatise,(5) and must be ten days correcting it. Farewell, deelest MD, MD, MD, FW, FW, FW, ME, ME, ME, Lele.

You'll seal the two papers after my name.

"LONDON, May 16, 1713.

"I appoint Mr. Isaiah Parvisol and Mr. to set and let the t.i.thes of the Deanery of St. Patrick's for this present year. In witness whereof, I hereunto set my hand and seal, the day and year above written.

(JONAT. SWIFT."(6))

"LONDON, May 16, 1713.

"I do hereby appoint Mr. Isaiah Parvisol my proctor, to set and let the t.i.thes of the Deanery of St. Patrick's. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, the day and year above written.

JONAT. SWIFT."

LETTER 65.(1)

CHESTER, June 6, 1713.

I am come here after six days. I set out on Monday last, and got here to-day about eleven in the morning. A n.o.ble rider, fais! and all the ships and people went off yesterday with a rare wind. This was told me, to my comfort, upon my arrival. Having not used riding these three years, made me terrible weary; yet I resolve on Monday to set out for Holyhead, as weary as I am. 'Tis good for my health, mam. When I came here, I found MD's letter of the 26th of May sent down to me. Had you writ a post sooner I might have brought some pins: but you were lazy, and would not write your orders immediately, as I desired you. I will come when G.o.d pleases; perhaps I may be with you in a week. I will be three days going to Holyhead; I cannot ride faster, say hat oo will. I am upon Stay-behind's mare. I have the whole inn to myself. I would fain 'scape this Holyhead 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 pa.s.sage upon Chester walls, as I was coming into town, and just received your letter, I said aloud--Agreeable 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 Scott--who rejects Delany's inference from this alleged incident--had no better authority for it than "a friend of his (Delany's) relict"?

9 This incident, for which there is probably some foundation of fact--we cannot say how much--has been greatly expanded by Mrs. Woods in her novel Esther Vanhomrigh. Unfortunately most of her readers cannot, 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 Temple--a 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 pa.s.sages as these: "Friday. Go to the Club... Am treated. Expenses one shilling." "Sat.u.r.day. 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.

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.