16 See Letter 1, note 12.
17 Service.
18 “Aplon”—if this is the right word—means, of course, apron—the apron referred to on Letter 39, Jan. 25, 1711-12.
19 Words obliterated.
20 As the son of a “brother” of the Club.
21 The Archbishop, Dr. King.
22 See Tacitus, Annals, book ii. Cn. Calpurnius Piso, who was said to have poisoned Germanicus, was found with his throat cut.
23 This satire on Marlborough concludes—
“And Midas now
neglected stands,
With asses’
ears and dirty hands.”
24 Dr. Robinson, Bishop of Bristol.
25 Some Remarks on the Barrier Treaty.
26 Several words are obliterated. Forster reads “MD MD, for we must always write to MD MD MD, awake or asleep;” but the passage is illegible.
27 See Letter 11, note 39 and Letter 61, note 5.
28 A long erasure. Forster reads “Go to bed. Help pdfr. Rove pdfr. MD MD. Nite darling rogues.”
29 Word obliterated. Forster reads “saucy.”
30 Letter from.
31 Words partially obliterated.
32 Swift wrote by mistake, “On Europe Britain’s safety lies”; the slip was pointed out by Hawkesworth. All the verse is written in the MSS. as prose.
33 “Them” (Ms.).
34 See Wyons Queen Anne, ii. 366-7.
35 A Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue, in a Letter to the Most Honourable Robert, Earl of Oxford, 1712.
36 “Help him to draw up the representation” (omitting every other letter).
37 See Letter 23, note 13.
38 Robert Benson.
39 The Story of the St. Albans Ghost, 1712.
40 “Usually” (Ms.).
41 These words are partially obliterated.
42 This sentence is obliterated. Forster reads, “Farewell, mine deelest rife deelest char Ppt, MD MD MD Ppt, FW, Lele MD, me me me me aden FW MD Lazy ones Lele Lele all a Lele.”
Letter 42.
1 Endorsed by Stella “Recd. Mar. 19.”
2 “Would” (Ms.).
3 Conversation.
4 John Guillim’s Display of Heraldrie appeared first in 1610. The edition to which Swift refers was probably that of 1679, which is wrongly described as the “fifth edition,” instead of the seventh.
5 “One of the horses here mentioned may have been the celebrated Godolphin Arabian from whom descends all the blue blood of the racecourse, and who was the grandfather of Eclipse” (Larwood’s Story of the London Parks, 99).
6 See Letter 36, note 6.
7 Dorothea, daughter of James Stopford, of New Hall, County Meath, and sister of Lady Newtown-Butler, was the second wife of Edward, fourth Earl of Meath, who died without issue in 1707. She afterwards married General Richard Gorges (see Journal, April 5, 1713), of Kilbrue, County Meath, and Swift wrote an epitaph on them—“Doll and Dickey.”