strangers; there every rascal, your contemporary, will get over your head by the merit of party.Farewell again; though my head is now disturbed, yet I have had these thoughts about you long ago.

TO DR. JINNY, RECTOR OF ARMAGH.

*

1726.

* THE author of " A Philosophical Survey of "the South of Ireland" refers to an unpublished letter of Dr. Swift, now in the possession of lord Dartrey, which entirely acquits him of that want of hospitality laid to his charge from some passages in his "Hamilton's Bawn." The letter is written to that Dr. Jinny represented in the poem as looking so like a ninny: the purport of it is, "To acquaint the "doctor (then rector of Armagh, in the neighbour"hood of which he spent the summer) how he passed "his time. Among other amusements, he mentions "that of writing this very poem, the motives which "excited him to it, and the effects it produced. And so far was it from giving umbrage to the lady, or jealousy to the knight, that every addition he made "at night came up with the bread and butter as part "of the entertainment next morning, and all parties "expressed the utmost satisfaction *.

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* The offence which the dean had given was not what this ingenious writer supposes. It was not by the poem on Hamilton's Bawn, which was not written till 1729, (vol. VIII, p. 26) but by the de- ́ struction of a favourite old thorn in 1726, (vol. VII, p. 379) that the Acheson family were offended. The tree, which was a remarkable one, was much admired by sir Arthur; yet the dean, in one of his

unaccountable

MADAM,

TO MRS. HOWARD *.

SEPT. 1, 1726.

BEING perpetually teased with the remembrance

of you, by the sight of your ring on my finger, my patience at last is at an end; and, in order to be revenged, I have sent you a piece of Irish plaid, made in imitation of the Indian, wherein our workmen are grown so expert, that, in this kind of stuff, they are said to excel that which comes from the Indies; and because our ladies are too proud to wear what is made at home, the workman is forced to run a gold thread through the middle, and sell it as Indian. But I ordered him to leave out that circumstance, that you may be clad in Irish stuff, and in my livery. But IÍ beg you will not tell any parliament man from whence you had that plaid; otherwise, out of malice, they will make a law to cut off all our weavers' fingers. I must likewise tell you, to prevent your pride, my intention is to use you very scurvily; for my real design is, that when the princess asks you where you got that fine nightgown, you are to say, that it is an Irish plaid sent you by the dean of St. Patrick's; who, with his most humble duty to her royal highness, is ready to make her such another present, at

unaccountable humours, gave directions for cutting it down in the absence of the knight, who was of course highly incensed, nor would see Swift for some time after. By way of making his peace, the dean wrote the poem, "On cutting down the old Thorn at "Market Hill;" which had the desired effect.

* An answer to this letter, dated Nov. 1726, is printed in vol. XII, p. 211.

VOL. XIX.

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the

the terrible expense of eight shillings and threepence per yard, if she will descend to honour Ireland with receiving and wearing it. And in recompense I, who govern the vulgar, will take care to have her royal highness's health drunk by five hundred weavers, as an encourager of the Irish manufactory. And I command you to add, that I am no courtier, nor have any thing to ask. May all courtiers imitate me in that! I hope the whole royal family about you is in health. Dr. Arbuthnot lately mortified me with an account of a great pain in your head. I believe no head that is good for any thing is long without some disorder, at least that is the best argument. I had for any thing that is good in my own.

I pray God preserve you; and I entreat you to believe that I am, with great respect, madam, your most obedient and most obliged servant,

JONATH. SWIFT.

MADAM,

TO THE SAME *.

WHEN I received your letter I thought it the

most unaccountable one. I ever saw in my life, and was not able to comprehend three words of it together. The perverseness of your lines astonished me, which tended downward to the right in one page, and upward in the two others. This I thought impossible to be done by any one who did not squint

* It appears by note † in vol. XII, p. 211, that this letter should have been dated "Nov. 17, 1726.”

with both eyes; an infirmity I never observed in you. However, one thing I was pleased with, that after you had writ down, you repented, and writ me up again. But I continued four days at a loss for your meaning, till a bookseller sent me the Travels of one captain Gulliver, who proved a very good explainer, although, at the same time, I thought it hard to be forced to read a book of seven hundred pages, in order to understand a letter of fifty lines; especially as those of our faculty are already but too much pestered with commentators. The stuffs you require are making, because the weaver piques himself upon having them in perfection. But he has read Gulliver's book, and has no conception what you mean by returning money; for he has become a proselyte of the Houyhnhnms, whose great principle, if I rightly remember, is benevolence; and, as to myself, I am so highly offended with such a base proposal, that I am determined to complain of you to her royal highness,. that you are a mercenary Yahoo, fond of shining pebbles. What have I to do with you or your court, farther than to show the esteem I have for your person, because you happen to deserve it; and my gratitude to her royal highness, who was pleased a little to distinguish me; which, by the way, is the greatest compliment I ever paid, and may probably be the last; for I am not such a prostitute flatterer as Gulliver, whose chief study is to extenuate the vices, and magnify the virtues, of mankind, and perpetually dins our ears with the praises of his country in the midst of corruption, and for that reason alone has found so many readers, and probably will have a pension, which, I suppose, was his chief design in writing. As for his compliments

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compliments to the ladies, I can easily forgive him, as a natural effect of the devotion which our sex ought always to pay to yours. You need not be in pain about the officers searching or seizing the plaids, for the silk has already paid duty in England, and there is no law against exporting silk manufacture from hence. I am sure the princess and you have got the length of my foot, and sir Robert Walpole says he has the length of my head, so that I need not give you the trouble of sending you either. I shall only tell you in general, that I never had a long head, and for that reason few people have thought it worth while to get the length of my foot. I cannot answer your queries about eggs buttered or poached; but I possess one talent which admirably qualifies me for roasting them; for, as the world, with respect to eggs, is divided into pelters and roasters, it is my unhappiness to be one of the latter, and consequently to be persecuted by the former. I have been five days turning over old books to discover the meaning of those monstrous births you mention. That of the four black rabbits seems to threaten some dark court intrigue, and, perhaps, some change in the administration; for the rabbit is an undermining animal, that loves to walk in the dark. The blackness denotes the bishops, whereof some of the last you have made are persons of such dangerous parts and profound abilities: But rabbits, being clothed in furs, may perhaps glance at the judges. However, the ram, by which is meant the ministry, butting with his two horns, one against the church, and the other against the law, shall obtain the victory. And whereas the birth was a conjunction of ram and yahoo, this is easily explained by

the