2>"» S. VI. 149., Nov. 6. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



367 



AN INEDITED LETTER OF DEAN SWIFT. 



The following copy of an original letter of Dean 

 Swift, made about forty years ago, has lately been 

 found among my papers. I was shown the original 

 by my relative, the late Viscount Ashbrook, at 

 Beaumont Lodge, and made the transcript myself. 

 The address is — 



"To 



" The Right Honourable the Lord 

 Castle Durrow, at Castle Durrow, 

 in the County of 



" Kilkenny. 

 " My Lord, 



" Your last letter hath layn by me about a 

 fortnight unacknowledged, partly by the want of 

 health and lowness of Spirits, and chiefly by want 

 of Time not taken up in busyness, but lost in the 

 Teazings of insignificant people who worry me 

 with Trifles. I often reflect on my present life as 

 the exact Burlesque of my middle age, which 

 passed among Ministers that you and your party 

 since call the worst of times. I am now acting 

 the same things in Miniature, but in a higher sta- 

 tion as first Minister, nay sometimes as a Prince, 

 in which last quality my Housekeeper, a grave 

 elderly woman, is called at home and in the neigh- 

 bourhood S"^ Robert. My Butler is Secretary, 

 and has no other defect for that office but that he 

 cannot write ; Yet that is not singular, for I have 

 known three Secretaryes of state upon the same 

 level, and who were too old to mend, which mine 

 is not. My realm extends to 120 Houses, whose 

 inhabitants constitute the Bulk of my Subjects ; 

 my Grand Jury is my House of Commons, and 

 my Chapter the House of Lords. I must proceed 

 no further, because my Arts of Governing are 

 Secrets of State. 



" Your Lordship owes all this to the beginning 

 of your letter, which abounded with so many un- 

 merited Compliments that I was puffed up like a 

 Bladder, but at the first touching with a pin's 

 point, it shrivelled like myself almost to nothing. 

 The long absence from my Friends in England, 

 whom I shall never see again, hath made most of 

 them as well as myself drop our Correspondence. 

 Besides, what is worse, many of them are dead, 

 others in Exile ; and the rest have prudently 

 changed their sentiments both of the Times and 

 of me. 



" My Secretary above-mentioned is a true Irish 

 blockhead, and, what is worse, a blockhead with a 

 bad memory : for I suppose it was with him you 

 left your message, which he never delivered. 

 However, I wanted no proofs of your Lordship's 

 great civilityes. 



" Ab to my CEconomy, I cannot call myself a 

 Housekeeper. My servants are at Boardwages, 

 however 1 diiic almost constantly at homo ; be- 

 cause, literally speaking, 1 know not above one 



Family in this whole Town where I can go for a 

 Dinner. The old Hospitality is quite extinguished 

 by Poverty and the oppressions of England. \\ hen 

 I would have a Friend eat with me, I direct him 

 in general to send in the morning and enquire 

 whether I dine at home, and alone ; I add a Fowl 

 to my Commons, and something else if the Com- 

 pany be more, but I never mingle strangers, nor 

 multiply dishes. I give a reasonable price for my 

 wine (higher my ill-paid, sunk rents will not 

 reach). I am seldom without 8 or nine Hogs- 

 heads. And as to the rest, if your Lordship will 

 do me that Honour when you come to Town, you 

 must submit to the same method. Onely perhaps 

 I will order the Butler to see whether, by chance, 

 he can find out an odd bottle of a particular choice 

 wine which is all spent*, although there may be 

 a dozen or two remaining ; but they are like 

 Court Secrets, kept in the Dark. As to puddings, 

 my Lord, I am not only the best, but the sole per- 

 fect maker of them in this kingdom ; they are 

 universally known and esteemed under the name 

 of the Deanry Puddings : Suit and Plumbs are 

 three-fourths of the Ingredients ; I had them from 

 my Aunt Giflfard, who preserved the succession 

 from the time of Sir W. Temple. 



" You are perfectly right that for a young Man 

 you are my oldest acquaintance here ; for when, 

 upon the Queen's death, I came to my Banish""' I 

 hardly knew two faces in the nation. But I lost 

 you long before, for you grew a fine Gentleman of 

 the town (London), went through all the forms, 

 marryed, sometimes came to Ireland, settled, 

 broke up house, went back, and are now as un- 

 fixed as ever. However, I find you have not 

 neglected your Book like most of your sort I sup- 

 pose in your Neighbourhood, of whom you are 

 grown weary, as I should be in your case ; but I 

 am not certain whether you are a member of the 

 Biennial Colledge Green Club, which is all the 

 title I give them to your old Friend the Duke, 

 and yet I know one of the members who, confess- 

 ing himself partial, declares there are 35 among 

 them who can read and write. As to the Duke 

 himself, although I knew him from his Boyhood, 

 and severall of his near Relations, I never could 

 obtain any the most reasonable Request from 

 him, nor any more than common Civiletyes, al- 

 though I desired nothing [for a t] friend or two, 

 but what would have redounded to his honour [and 

 the t] Satisfaction of his best friends, as well as 

 without any Party end. He hath this to say that 

 he was steady from his youth to the same side, 

 and I own him to be as easy and agreeable in 

 Conversation as ever I knew, but a Governor of 

 this Kingdom never is a freeman ; however I de- 



* This sounds something like what is termed an 

 Irishism. 



t Two words in each line supplied on conjecture, where 

 the original bad been torn by the seal. 



