they fly, and to make every innocent action an amusement. If If you knew how I struggle for a little health, what uneasiness I am at in riding and walking, and refraining from everything agreeable to my taste, you would think it but a small thing to take a coach now and then, and converse with fools and impertinents, to avoid spleen and sickness." Then follows one of those passages which led Horace Walpole-rightly, I believe-to infer that the connection between Swift and Vanessa was a guilty one. I A fortnight later than the date of Swift's letter to Chetwode he wrote to the Archbishop of Dublin : "I own my head and your grace's feet would be ill joined; but give me your head and take my feet, and match us in the kingdom, if you can. My Lord, I row after health like a waterman, and ride after it like a postboy, and find some little success; but subeunt morbi tristisque senectus. I have a receipt to which you are a stranger; my Lord Oxford and Mr. Prior used to join with me in taking it; to whom I often said, when we were two hours diverting ourselves with trifles, vive la bagatelle. I am so deep among the workmen at Rochefort's canals and lakes, so dexterous at the oar, such an alderman after the hare--" In some lively verses entitled The Country Life, Swift bids 'See Walpole's letter to George Montague, dated June 20, 1766. "Thalia tell in sober lays, 4 How George,' Nim,2 Dan,3 Dean, pass their days. Begin my Muse! First from our bowers Hauls him, and scolds us down to breakfast. They dined at two and supped some time after sunset. The Dean decamped from his friend's house suddenly and secretly. On reaching home he wrote to Dan Jackson: "I fell upon a supposition that Mr. Rochefort had a mind to keep me longer, which I will allow in him and you, but not one of the family besides, who, I confess, had reason enough to be weary of a man who entered into none of their tastes, nor pleasures, nor fancies, nor opinions, nor talk. . . . You are now happy, and have nobody to teaze you to the oar or the saddle. You can sit in your night-gown till noon without any reproaches." The "honorary Satisfaction" that might have been given to Chetwode was perhaps that English 'George Rochefort. 2 John Rochefort, the Nimrod of the party. 3 Rev. Daniel Jackson. 4 Dean Swift. 5 Dressing-gown. "A loose gown used for an undress."-Johnson's Dictionary. peerage in claiming which his grandfather had ruined himself. Mr. Jervas was Charles Jervas the painter, known also as the translator of Don Quixote, to whom Pope addressed an epistle. He painted a portrait of Swift in London, and another in Ireland. Gay described him as "robust and debonair." "Kneller remarked on hearing that he had set up a carriage and four horses: Ah, mine Cot, if his horses do not draw better than he does he will never get to his journey's end." XXII. DUBLIN. Novr. 11th 1721. SR, I received yours yesterday. I writ to Mr Jervas from the Country, but have yet received no answer, nor do find that any one of his Friends hath yet heard from him, so that some of them are in a good deal of pain to know where he is, and whether he be alive. I intend however to write a second time, but I thought it was needless to trouble you till I could say something to the Purpose. But indeed I have had a much better or rather a much worse Excuse, having been almost three weeks pursued with a Noise in my Ears and Deafness that makes me an unsociable Creature, hating to see others, or be seen by my best Friends, and wholly confined to my Chamber-I have been often troubled with it but never so long as now, which wholly disconcerts and confounds me to a degree that I can neither think nor speak nor Act as I used to do, nor mind the least Business even of my own, which is an Apology I should be glad to be without. I am ever Yr &c. J. S. NOTE ON XXII. The deafness of which Swift complains in this letter grew worse and worse, till at last it cut him. off from all society. Five years before his death he wrote to his cousin: "I have been very miserable all night, and to-day extremely deaf and full of pain. I am so stupid and confounded that I cannot express the mortification I am under both in body and mind. All I can say is, that I am not in torture; but I daily and hourly expect it. Pray let me know how your health is and your family. I hardly understand one word I write. I am sure my days will be very few; few and miserable they must be. "I am, for those days, yours entirely, "If I do not blunder, it is Saturday, July 26, 1740. "If I live till Monday I shall hope to see you, perhaps for the last time." XXIII. DUBLIN. Decembr 5th 1721. SR, When I received your French Letter I was going to write you an English one. I forsook the World and French at the same time, and have nothing to do with the Latter further than sometimes reading or gabbling with the French clergy who come to me about business of their Church car je parle à peindre, mais pour l'ecrire je n'en songe guere depuis que j'ay quitté le politique. I am but just recovered of my Deafness which put me out of all Temper with my self and the rest of Mankind. My Health is not worth a Rush nor consequently the Remaining Part of my Life. I just now hear that D' Prat Dean of Down, my old Acquaintance is dead, and I must here break off to go to his Relations. -9. The poor Dean dyed on Tuesday, and was buried yesterday, he was one of the oldest Acquaintance I had, and the last that I expected to dy. He has left a young Widow, in very good Circumstances. He had Scheems of long life, hiring a Town-house, and building a Countrey, preparing great Equipages and Furniture. What a ridiculous Thing is ManI am this moment inevitably stoppt this moment [sic] by company, and cannot send my Letter till next Post. |