Reason why I should approve of such a Ramble; I know all young Travellers are eager to travell again. But I doubt whether he consults his Preferment, or whether he will be able to do any Good to, un Enfant gaté, as Graham is. Pray desire him to write to me. I had rather your Son might have the Advantage of his Care, than of his Chambers. I read no Prints. I know not whether we have a new King, or the old much less any thing of Barber. I did not receive any Packet from you. I am ever y' &c. The 6 months are over, so the Discoverer of the Draper will not get the 300" as I am told. I hope the Parlm will do as they ought, in that matter, which is the onely publick thing, I have in my mind. I hope you like D' Delany's country Place and am glad to find you among such Acquaintances, especially such a Person as he. NOTES ON XLI. Swift was staying in Dr. Sheridan's country retreat at Quilca, "a bleak spot among the wildest of the Cavan heaths," about fifty miles north-west of Dublin. One November ten years later he thus described the life he was leading there to his cousin, Mrs. Whiteway "Here are a thousand domestic conveniences wanting; but one pair of tongs in the whole house; the turf so wet that a tolerable fire is a miracle; the kitchen is a cabin a hundred yards off and a half; the house back and fore door always left open, which in a storm, our constant companion, threatens the fall of the whole edifice; Madam as cross as the devil, and as lazy as any of her sister sows, and as nasty. These are some of our blind sides. But we have a good room to eat in, and the wife and lodgers have another, where the doctor often sits and seems to eat, but comes to my eating room (which is his study), there finishes his meal, and has a share of a pint of wine; the other pint is left till night." The Dean was working at Gulliver's Travels. "I have employed my time," he wrote to Pope, "(beside ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my travels in four parts complete, newly augmented and intended for the press, when the world shall deserve them, or rather when a printer shall be found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting after distresses and dispersions, but the chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is to vex the world rather than divert it; and if I could compass that design without hurting my own person or fortune I would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen, without reading." His sight had been long failing. Twelve years earlier he had told how Vanessa "Imaginary charms can find In eyes with reading almost blind.” In some pretty lines to Stella on her birthday he said: "For nature always in the right And till I see them with these eyes, On another birthday he wrote to her "This day then let us not be told He would not let art remedy the failings of nature; "for, having by some ridiculous resolution, or mad vow, determined never to wear spectacles, he could make little use of books in his latter years.' The work which he was overseeing was some improvements, at his own expense, on his friend's land, with which he hoped to surprise him. "He had a canal cut, and at the end of it, by transplanting some young trees, he had formed an arbour, which he called Stella's Bower. Besides he had surrounded some acres of land with a stone wall." Sheridan had heard of what was going on, and on his arrival took not the slightest notice of the changes. Confound your stupidity;' said Swift, in a rage; 'why, you blockhead, don't you see the great improvements I have been making here?' 'Improvements! Mr. Dean,'" and then he went on to make nothing of them. 66 6 Sheridan, in his turn, during Swift's absence, had an island made in the middle of the lake by throwing in stones wrapped in large bundles of heath. On the top green sods were laid, and several well-grown osiers were planted. "How the water of the lake is sunk in this short time,' cried out Swift, 'to discover that island of which there was no trace before!' 'Greatly sunk indeed,' observed the Doctor, if it covered the tops of those osiers. Swift then saw he had been fairly taken in, and acknowledged that his friend had got the better of him." 66 He described the people of Cavan as "a thievish Race of People." 'Oppressed beggars," he says in one of his letters, "are always knaves; and I believe there hardly are any other among us." In another letter speaking of Tipperary, he writes: "Every male and female from the farmer inclusive to the day labourer, is infallibly a thief, and consequently a beggar, which in this island are terms convertible." Arthur Young, in his Tour in Ireland, mentions the following things stolen on Lord Longford's estate in Westmeath : Hinges, chains, locks, keys, new wheels of a car, stones out of a wall, turnips by cartloads, two acres of wheat plucked off in a night. How far," he continues, “it is owing to the oppression of the laws, it is impossible to say. They are much worse treated than the poor in England." At Castle Caldwell, Fermanagh, "the people," he says, "are remark 66 |