NOTES ON XXXVI.

So strong a disagreement had risen between Chetwode and his wife-the "Dame Plyant" of earlier letters, the mistress of that "little fire-side " to which Swift used to send kind messages that they were thinking of separating. Stopford, as this letter shows, was her brother. He was at this time a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. The "amour which he had begun in much youth" was evidently innocent, "kept up" as it was, "perhaps more out of decency and truth than prudence." By marriage he would have forfeited his fellowship. The settlement to which he could look forward was preferment in the Church. Lord Carteret gave him a vicarage. Mrs. Delany wrote in 1753: "Dr. Berkeley's bishopric is bestowed on a very learned, ingenious good man, Dr. Stopford, who has been in expectation of one for twenty years past."

The discipline of Oxford from the Restoration onwards kept sinking and sinking, till it reached its lowest depth of degradation toward the close of the eighteenth century. Swift, it is reported, once asked a young clergyman if he smoked. " Being answered that he did not, 'It is a sign,' said he, 'you were not bred in the University of Oxford, for drinking and smoking are the first rudiments of learning taught there; and in these two arts no university in Europe can outdo them.'" Nevertheless, in his Essay on Modern Education he says that though he "could

add some hundred examples from his own observation of men who learnt nothing more at Oxford than to drink ale and smoke tobacco," there were others who made good use of their time there, "and were ready to celebrate and defend that course of education." In his Essay on the Fates of Clergymen he thus describes the course of an Oxford student who was destined to rise high in the Church: "He was never absent from prayers or lecture, nor once out of his college after Tom [the great Christ Church bell] tolled. He spent every day ten hours in his closet, in reading his courses, dozing, clipping papers, or darning his stockings; which last he performed to admiration. He could be soberly drunk at the expense of others with college ale, and at those seasons was always most devout. He wore the same gown five years without dragling or tearing. He never once looked into a playbook or a poem. He never understood a jest or had the least conception of wit." A Fellowship at Dublin "differed as Swift pointed out, "in some very important circumstances from most of those in either of the Universities in England. It is obtained with great difficulty by the number of candidates, the strict examination in many branches of learning, and the regularity of life and manners.

There were, however, two sides to the picture. Hearne, writing at Oxford nineteen years before the date of Swift's letter, speaks ill of the Irish university. "The library of Trinity coll. in Dublin,

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where the noble study of Bishop Usher was placed, is quite neglected, and in no order, so that 'tis perfectly useless; the provost and fellows of that coll. having no regard for books and learning." Towards the end of last century the library was only opened "from eight to ten in the morning and from eleven to one at noon," while "no person was suffered under any pretence to take books away." On holidays it was closed. In Christ Church, Oxford, the discipline does not seem to have been remiss under Dean Aldrich, who died in 1710. Hearne tells us that "he rose to five o'clock prayers in the morning, summer and winter, visited the chambers of young gentlemen, on purpose to see that they employed their time in useful and commendable studies. was a severe student himself, yet always free, open and facetious." On the other hand Lord Chesterfield, writing to Dr. Madden in 1749, about the University of Dublin, said: "Our two universities will do it no hurt, unless by their examples; for I cannot believe that their present reputations will invite people in Ireland to send their sons there. The one (Cambridge) is sunk into the lowest obscurity; and the existence of Oxford would not be known, if it were not for the treasonable spirit publicly avowed, and often exerted there. The University of Dublin has this great advantage over ours; it is one compact body under the eye and authority of one head, who, if he be a good one, can enforce order and discipline, and establish

the public exercises as he thinks proper." R. L. Edgeworth, who in 1761 entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a fellow-commoner, says that "it was not the fashion in those days to plague fellowcommoners with lectures." He mentions his "total neglect of study," and adds "my father prudently removed me from Dublin to Oxford. Having entered Corpus Christi College, I applied assiduously not only to my studies under my excellent tutor, Mr. Russell, but also to the perusal of the best English writers, both in prose and verse." Russell was father of the Master of the Charterhouse whom Thackeray has celebrated in Pendennis.

XXXVII.

[Indorsed, “About James Stopford, and placing my son Vall: under his care in Coledge of Dublin."]

DUBLIN. Decr 19th 1724.

S", The Fault of my Eyes the Confusion of my Deafness and Giddyness of my Head have made me commit a great Blunder. I am just come from the Country where I was about 3 weeks in hopes to recover my Health; thither y' last Letter was sent me, with the two inclosed, M' Stopford's to you and yours to him. In reading them, I mistook and thought yrs to him had been onely a Copy of what

you had already sent to him so I burned them both as containing Things between y'selves, but I preserved y' to me to answer it, and now reading it again since my Return, I find my unlucky Error, which I hope you will excuse on Account of my many Infirmityes in Body and Mind. I very much approve of putting y Son under M' Stopford's Care, and I am confident you need not apprehend his leaving the College for some years, or if he should, care may be taken to put the young Lad into good Hands, particularly under M' King--I am utterly, against his being a Gentleman Commoner on other Regards besides the Expence and I believe 50" a Year (which is no small sum to a Builder) will maintain him very well a creditable Pensioner. have not seen the L' [Lord-Lieutenant] yet, being not in a Condition to converse with any Body, for want of better Ears, and better Health-I suppose you do not want Correspondents who send you the Papers Current of late in Prose and Verses on Woods, the Juryes, the Drapier &c. I think there is now a sort of Calm, except a very few of the lowest Grubstreet but there have been at least a Dozen worth reading--And I hope you approve of the grand Juryes Proceedings, and hardly thought such a Spirit could ever rise over this whole Kingdom. I am &c.

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