ion not soaring so high) yet I am too good a witness of the
situation they have been in for thirty years past; the veneration paid
them by the people, the high esteem they are in among the prime nobility
and gentry, the particular marks of favour and distinction they receive
from the Court; the weight and consequence of their interest, added to
their great zeal and application for preventing any hardships their
country might suffer from England, wisely considering that their own
fortunes and honours were embarked in the same bottom.

THE

BLUNDERS, DEFICIENCIES, DISTRESSES,

AND MISFORTUNES OF QUILCA.

PROPOSED TO CONTAIN ONE AND TWENTY VOLUMES IN QUARTO

_Begun April 20, 1724. To be continued Weekly, if due Encouragement be
given._

NOTE.

Swift's friends in Ireland were not many. He had no high opinion of
the people with whom he was compelled to live. But among those who
displeased him least, to use the phrase he employed in writing to
Pope, was a kindly and warm-hearted scholar named Sheridan.
Sheridan must have taken Swift's fancy, since they spent much time
together and wrote each other verses and nonsense rhymes. He had
failed in his attempt to keep up a school in Dublin, and refused
the headmastership of the school of Armagh which Lord Primate
Lindsay had offered him, through Swift's efforts. Swift however
obtained for him, from Carteret, one of the chaplaincies of the
Lord-Lieutenant and a small living near Cork. Unfortunately
Sheridan was struck off from the list of chaplains on the
information of one Richard Tighe who reported that Sheridan, on the
anniversary of the accession of the House of Hanover, had preached
from the text "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Poor
Sheridan had been totally unconscious of committing any
indiscretion, but he could not deny the fact.

It was at Quilca, a small county village, near Kells, that Sheridan
was accustomed to spend his vacations with his family at a small
house he owned there. Swift used often to use this house, at
Sheridan's desire, and spent many days there in quiet enjoyment
with Mrs. Dingley and Esther Johnson. The place and his life there
he has attempted to describe in the following piece; but the
description may also stand, as Scott observes, as "no bad
supplement to Swift's account of Ireland."