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.

5.  Dr. St. George Ashe, afterwards Bishop of Derry, who had been Swift’s tutor at Trinity College, Dublin.  He died in 1718.  It is this lifelong friend who is said to have married Swift and Esther Johnson in 1716.

6.  The Commission to solicit for the remission of the First-Fruits and twentieth parts, payable to the Crown by the Irish clergy, was signed by the Archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, and Cashel, and the Bishops of Kildare, Meath, and Killala.

7.  Dr. William Lloyd was appointed Bishop of Killala in 1690.  He had previously been Dean of Achonry.

8.  Dr. John Hough (1651-1743).  In 1687 he had been elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford, in place of the nominee of James ii.  Hough was Bishop of Oxford, Lichfield, and Worcester successively, and declined the primacy in 1715.

9.  Steele was at this time Gazetteer.  The Cockpit, in Whitehall, looked upon St. James’s Palace, and was used for various Government purposes.

10.  This coffee-house, the resort of the Whig politicians, was kept by a man named Elliot.  It is often alluded to in the Tatler and Spectator.