ment.

next day the queen was prevailed upon to turn him out, though the seals were not delivered till yesterday. It was likewise said, that Mrs. Masham is forbid the court; but this I have no assurance of Seven lords of the whig party are appointed to examine Gregg, who lies condemned in Newgate; and a certain lord of the council told me yesterday, that there are endeavours to bring in Harley as a party in that business, and to carry it as far as an impeachAll this business has been much fomented by a lord whom Harley had been chiefly instrumental in impeaching some years ago. The secretary always dreaded him, and made all imaginable advances to be reconciled, but could never prevail; which made him say yesterday to some who told it to me, that he had laid his neck under their feet, and they trod upon it. I am just going this morning to visit that lord, who has a very free way of telling what he cares not who hears; and if I can learn any more particulars worth telling, you shall have them, I never in my life saw or heard such divisions and complications of parties as there have been for some time: you sometimes see the extremes of whig and tory driving on the same thing. I have heard the chief whigs blamed by their own party for want of moderation, and I know a whig lord in good employment who voted with the highest tories against the court, and the ministry, with whom he is nearly allied. My lord Peterborow's affair is yet upon the anvil, and what they will beat it out to, no man can tell. It is said that Harley had laid a scheme for an entire new ministry, and the men are named to whom

* See vol. XI, p. 21.

the

the several employments were to be given. And though his project has miscarried, it is reckoned the greatest piece of court skill that has been acted there many years. I have heard nothing since morning, but that the attorney either has laid down, or will do it in a few days.

DR. SWIFT'S ACCOUNT OF HIS MOTHER'S DEATH, 1710.

MEM. On Wednesday, between seven and eight, in the evening, May 10, 1710, I received a letter in my chamber at Laracor (Mr. Percival and John Beaumont being by) from Mrs. Fenton, dated May 9th, with one enclosed, sent from Mrs. Worrall at Leicester to Mrs. Fenton, giving an account, that my dear mother Mrs. Abigail Swift died that morning, Monday, April 24, 1710*, about ten o'clock, after a long sickness, being ill all winter, and lame, and extremely ill a month or six weeks before her death. I have now lost my barrier between me and death; God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it, as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice, and charity, she is there. J. S.

TO

* CC 1710, April 27, Abigail Swift, widow, aged 70 years, "buried." Register of St. Martin's, Leicester.

+ This memorandum is copied from one of the account books, which Dr. Swift always made up yearly, and on each page entered minutely all his receipts and expenses in every month, beginning his year from Nov. 1. He observed the same method all his life

TO DR. FRANCIS ATTERBURY, DEAN OF

CHRIST CHURCH.

SIR,

SEPT. 1, 1711.

I

CONGRATULATE with the college, the university, and the kingdom, and condole with myself, upon your new dignity*. The virtue I would affect,

time till his last illness. At the foot of that page which includes his expenses in the month of May 1710, at his glebe house in Laracor, in the county of Meath, where he was then resident, are the above remarkable words; which show at the same time his filial piety, and the religious use which he thought it his duty to make of that melancholy event. He always treated his mother, during her life, with the utmost duty and affection; and she sometimes came to Ireland, to visit him after his settlement at Laracor. She lodged at Mr. Brent's the printer, in George's lane, Dublin;' and once asked her landlady, “Whether she could keep a "secret?" Who replied, "She could very well." Upon which, she enjoined her not to make the matter publick, which she was now going to communicate to her. "I have a spark in this town, "that I carried on a correspondence with while I was in England. "He will be here presently, to pay his addresses; for he has heard "by this time of my arrival. But I would not have the matter "known." Soon after this, a rap was heard at the door; and Dr. Swift walked up stairs. Mrs. Brent retired; but, after a little time, she was called; and then Mrs. Swift introduced her visitor, and said, “This is my spark I was telling you of: this is my "lover; and indeed the only one I shall ever admit to pay their "addresses to me." The doctor smiled at his mother's humour, and afterward payed his duty to her every day unsuspected by Mrs. Brent, whom he invited some years afterward to take care of his family affairs, when he became dean of St. Patrick's. And when she died, he continued her daughter (Mrs. Ridgeway, then a poor widow) in the same office.

* The deanery of Christ Church to which Dr. Atterbury was promoted from that of Carlisle.

by

by putting my own interests out of the case, has failed me in this juncture. I only consider that I shall want your conversation, your friendship, your protection, and your good offices, when I can least spare them. I would have come among the crowd of

As the intimacy between these two great men had not then been of long standing, it may be amusing to trace its rise and progress. About four months before the date of this letter, Swift had taken lodgings at Chelsea. "I got here," says he, "with Patrick "and my portmantua, for sixpence, and pay six shillings a week "for one silly room, with confounded coarse sheets. I lodge just "over against Dr. Atterbury's house; and yet perhaps I shall not "like the place the better for that." Journal to Stella, April 26, 1711." Mr. Harley excused his coming, and Atterbury was not "there [at the Westminster dinner]; and I cared not for the rest." May 1." I have just now a compliment from dean Atterbury's "lady, to command the garden and library, and whatever the house affords; but the dean is in town with his convocation.”” Ibid. "I sent over to Mrs. Atterbury, to know whether I might "wait on her, but she is gone a visiting: we have exchanged some compliments; but I have not seen her yet." May 2. (6 -I did not go to town to day, it was so terrible rainy; nor have "I stirred out of my room till eight this evening; when I crossed "the way, to see Mrs. Atterbury, and thank her for her civilities. "She would needs send me some veal and small beer and ale to "day at dinner." May 3.-" Dr. Freind came this morning to "visit Atterbury's lady and children, as physician; and persuaded

me to go to town in his chariot." May 9.-" Since I came "home, I have been sitting with the prolocutor, dean Atterbury, "who is my neighbour over the way, but generally keeps in town "with his convocation." May 14.-" I dined with Mr. Prior "to day, at his house, with dean Atterbury and others." May 16. -“I sat with dean Atterbury till one o'clock, after I came home." "May 18.-"I stayed at home till five o'clock, and dined with "dean Atterbury; then went by water to Mr. Harley's, where the "Saturday's club was met." May 19.-" This is the first wet "walk I have had in a month's time that I came here; however, I "got to bed, after a short visit to Atterbury." May 24.-" My "lord [Oxford] set me down at a coffeehouse, where I waited for

the

of those who make you compliments on this occasion, if I could have brought a cheerful countenance with me. I am full of envy. It is too much, in so bad

the dean of Carlisle's chariot, to bring me to Chelsea; for it has "rained prodigiously all this afternoon. The dean did not come "himself, but sent me his chariot; which has cost me two shil"lings to the coachman; and so I am got home; and Lord knows "what is become of Patrick!" May 25." It was bloody hot walking to day; and I was so lazy I dined where my new gown "was, at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, and came back like a fool, and the "dean of Carlisle has sitten with me till eleven." May 28."I am proposing to my lord to erect a society or academy for cor"recting and settling our language; that we may not perpetually "be changing as we do. He enters mightily into it; so does the ❝ dean of Carlisle." June 22.-" Dr. Gastrell and I dined by "invitation with the dean of Carlisle." June 23." They still "keep my neighbour Atterbury in suspense about the deanery of "Christ Church, which has been above six months vacant; and "he is heartily angry." June 26." This is the last night I lie " at Chelsea; and I got home early, and sat two hours with the "dean, and ate victuals, having had a very scurvy dinner." July 4. "This day I left Chelsea for good." July 5.-" I walked to "Chelsea, and was there by nine this morning; and the dean of "Carlisle and I crossed the water to Battersea, and went in his "chariot to Greenwich, where we dined at Dr. Gastrell's, and "passed the afternoon at Lewisham, at the dean of Canterbury's; " and there I saw Moll Stanhope, who is grown monstrously tall, "but not so handsome as formerly. It is the first little rambling "journey I have had this summer about London; and they are the "agreeablest pastimes one can have, in a friend's coach and good "company." July 14.-" Dean Atterbury sent to me, to dine "with him at Chelsea; I refused his coach, and walked ; and am "come back by seven." July 19.-" The dean of Carlisle sat "with me to day till three." Aug. 21." I walked to day to "Chelsea, and dined with the dean of Carlisle, who is laid up "with the gout. It is now fixed, that he is to be dean of Christ "Church in Oxford. I was advising him to use his interest to "prevent any misunderstanding between our ministers; but he is "too wise to meddle, though he fears the thing and the conse

"6 quences