The Journal to Stella Part 33

15 Katherine Barton, second daughter of Robert Barton, of Brigstock, Northamptonshire, and niece of Sir Isaac Newton. She was a favourite among the toasts of the Kit-Cat Club, and Lord Halifax, who left her a fortune, was an intimate friend. In 1717 she married John Conduitt, afterwards Master of the Mint.

16 William Connolly, appointed a Commissioner of the Revenue in 1709, was afterwards Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He died in 1729.

Francis Robarts, appointed a Commissioner of the Revenue in 1692, was made a Teller of the Exchequer in England in 1704, and quitted that office, in September 1710, on his reappointment, in Connolly's place, as Revenue Commissioner in Ireland. In 1714 Robarts was removed, and Connolly again appointed Commissioner.

17 Enoch Sterne, Collector of Wicklow and Clerk to the Irish House of Lords. Writing to Dr. Sterne on Sept. 26, Swift said, "I saw Collector Sterne, who desired me to present his service to you, and to tell you he would be glad to hear from you, but not about business."

18 In his "Character of Mrs. Johnson" Swift says, "She was never known to cry out, or discover any fear, in a coach." The pa.s.sage in the text is obscure. Apparently Esther Johnson had boasted of saving money by walking, instead of riding, like a coward.

19 John Radcliffe (1650-1714), the well-known physician and wit, was often denounced as a clever empiric. Early in 1711 he treated Swift for his dizziness. By his will, Radcliffe left most of his property to the University of Oxford.

20 Charles Barnard, Sergeant-Surgeon to the Queen, and Master of the Barber Surgeons' Company. His large and valuable library, to which Swift afterwards refers, fetched great prices. Luttrell records Barnard's death in his diary for Oct. 12, 1710.

21 Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, had been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in August 1710. In May 1711 he was raised to the peerage and made Lord High Treasurer; and he is constantly referred to in the Journal as "Lord Treasurer." He was impeached in 1715, but was acquitted to 1717; he died in 1724.

22 The Right Hon. Thomas Bligh, M.P., of Rathmore, County Meath, died on Aug. 28, 1710. His son, mentioned later in the Journal, became Earl of Darnley.

Letter 5.

1 Penalty.

2 Erasmus Lewis, Under Secretary of State under Lord Dartmouth, was a great friend of Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot. He had previously been one of Harley's secretaries, and in his Horace Imitated, Book I. Ep. vii., Swift describes him as "a cunning shaver, and very much in Harley's favour." Arbuthnot says that under George I. Lewis kept company with the greatest, and was "princ.i.p.al governor" in many families. Lewis was a witness to Arbuthnot's will. Pope and Esther Vanhomrigh both left him money to buy rings. Lewis died in 1754, aged eighty-three.

3 Charles Darteneuf, or Dartiquenave, was a celebrated epicure, who is said to have been a son of Charles II. Lord Lyttleton, in his Dialogues of the Dead, recalling Pope's allusions to him, selects him to represent modern bon vivants in the dialogue between Darteneuf and Apicius. See Tatler 252. Darteneuf was Paymaster of the Royal Works and a member of the Kit-Cat Club. He died in 1737.

4 No. 230.

5 Good, excellent.

6 Captain George Delaval, appointed Envoy Extraordinary to the King of Portugal in Oct, 1710, was with Lord Peterborough in Spain in 1706. In May 1707 he went to Lisbon with despatches for the Courts of Spain and Portugal, from whence he was to proceed as Envoy to the Emperor of Morocco, with rich presents (Luttrell, vi. 52, 174, 192).

7 Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, as Ranger of Bushey Park and Hampton Court, held many offices under William III., and was First Lord of the Treasury under George I., until his death in 1715. He was great as financier and as debater, and he was a liberal patron of literature.

8 John Manley, M.P. for Bossiney, was made Surveyor-General on Sept. 30, 1710, and died in 1714. In 1706 he fought a duel with another Cornish member (Luttrell, vi. 11, 535, 635). He seems to be the cousin whom Mrs.

De la Riviere Manley accuses of having drawn her into a false marriage.

For Isaac Manley and Sir Thomas Frankland, see Letter 3, notes 3 and 4.

9 The Earl of G.o.dolphin (see Letter 2, note 3).

10 Sir John Stanley, Bart., of Northend, Commissioner of Customs, whom Swift knew through his intimate friends the Pendarves. His wife, Anne, daughter of Bernard Granville, and niece of John, Earl of Bath, was aunt to Mary Granville, afterwards Mrs. Delany, who lived with the Stanleys at their house in Whitehall.

11 Henry, Viscount Hyde, eldest son of Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, succeeded his father in the earldom in 1711, and afterwards became Earl of Clarendon. His wife, Jane, younger daughter of Sir William Leveson Gower,--who married a daughter of John Granville, Earl of Bath,--was a beauty, and the mother of two beauties--Jane, afterwards Countess of Ess.e.x (see journal, Jan. 29, 1712), and Catherine, afterwards Countess of Queensberry. Lady Hyde was complimented by Prior, Pope, and her kinsman, Lord Lansdowne, and is said to have been more handsome than either of her daughters. She died in 1725; her husband in 1753. Lord Hyde became joint Vice-Treasurer for Ireland in 1710; hence his interest with respect to Pratt's appointment.

12 See Letter 3, note 10.

13 Sir Paul Methuen (1672-1757), son of John Methuen, diplomatist and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Methuen was Envoy and Amba.s.sador to Portugal from 1697 to 1708, and was M.P. for Devizes from 1708 to 1710, and a Lord of the Admiralty. Under George I. he was Amba.s.sador to Spain, and held other offices. Gay speaks of "Methuen of sincerest mind, as Arthur grave, as soft as womankind," and Steele dedicated to him the seventh volume of the Spectator. In his Notes on Macky's Characters, Swift calls him "a profligate rogue... without abilities of any kind."

14 Sir James Montagu was Attorney-General from 1708 to Sept. 1710, when he resigned, and was succeeded by Sir Simon Harcourt. Under George I.

Montagu was raised to the Bench, and a few months before his death in 1723 became Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

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.

18 William Legge, first Earl of Dartmouth (1672-1750), 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, 1710-11, 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 Amba.s.sador to Sweden under Cromwell. His son Philip (died 1757) was knighted in 1700, 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 (1671-1730) 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 ama.s.sed 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 G.o.dfrey Kneller (1646-1723), the fashionable portrait-painter of the period.

27 At the General election of 1710 the contest at Westminster excited much interest. The number of const.i.tuents 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 candidates--General 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 1706. 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 ombre--of Spanish origin--is 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,

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 t.i.tle 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."