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 Ambassador to Portugal from 1697 to 1708, and was M.P. for Devizes from 1708 to 171O, and a Lord of the Admiralty.  Under George I. he was Ambassador 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. 171O, 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 (1672-175O), 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, 171O-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 Ambassador to Sweden under Cromwell.  His son Philip (died 1757) was knighted in 170O, 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 (1671-173O) 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 amassed 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 Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), the fashionable portrait-painter of the period.