[Footnote 13:  This post was found for Addison on his appointment in 1709 as secretary to the Earl of Wharton, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland.  Tickell, in his preface to his edition of Addison’s works, says the post was granted to Addison as a mark of Queen Anne’s special favour.  Bermingham’s Tower was that part of Dublin Castle in which the records were kept. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 14:  Mr. Hopkins, secretary to the Duke of Grafton.  The exactions made by this gentleman upon the players, in his capacity of Master of the Revels, are the subject of two satirical poems. [S.]

This may have been John Hopkins, the second son of the Bishop of Londonderry, who was the author of “Amasia,” dedicated to the Duchess of Grafton. [T.S.]]

I confess, I have been sometimes tempted to wish that this project of Wood might succeed, because I reflected with some pleasure what a jolly crew it would bring over among us of lords and squires, and pensioners of both sexes, and officers civil and military, where we should live together as merry and sociable as beggars, only with this one abatement, that we should neither have meat to feed, nor manufactures to clothe us, unless we could be content to prance about in coats of mail, or eat brass as ostriches do iron.

I return from this digression to that which gave me the occasion of making it:  And I believe you are now convinced, that if the Parliament of Ireland were as temptable as any other assembly within a mile of Christendom (which God forbid) yet the managers must of necessity fail for want of tools to work with.  But I will yet go one step further, by supposing that a hundred new employments were erected on purpose to gratify compilers; yet still an insuperable difficulty would remain; for it happens, I know not how, that money is neither Whig nor Tory, neither of town nor country party, and it is not improbable, that a gentleman would rather choose to live upon his own estate which brings him gold and silver, than with the addition of an employment, when his rents and salary must both be paid in Wood’s brass, at above eighty per cent. discount.

For these and many other reasons, I am confident you need not be under the least apprehensions from the sudden expectation of the Lord Lieutenant,[15] while we continue in our present hearty disposition; to alter which there is no suitable temptation can possibly be offered:  And if, as I have often asserted from the best authority, the law hath not left a power in the crown to force any money except sterling upon the subject, much less can the crown devolve such a power upon another.

[Footnote 15:  Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville.  See note to “A Vindication of Lord Carteret,” in vol. vii. of present edition of Swift’s works. [T.S.]]