some puzzling characters" (Deane Swift).

9 Sir Robert Worsley, Bart., married, in 1690, Frances, only daughter
of the first Viscount Weymouth. Their daughter Frances married Lord
Carteret (see Letter 12, note 22) in 1710. In a letter to Colonel Hunter
in March 1709 Swift spoke of Lady (then Mrs.) Worsley as one of the
principal beauties in town. See, too, Swift's letter to her of April 19,
1730: "My Lady Carteret has been the best queen we have known in Ireland
these many years; yet is she mortally hated by all the young girls,
because (and it is your fault) she is handsomer than all of them
together."

10 See Letter 3, note 1.

11 See Letter 5, note 17.

12 William Stratford, son of Nicholas Stratford, Bishop of Chester, was
Archdeacon of Richmond and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, until his
death in 1729.

13 See Letter 3, note 22.

14 James, third Earl of Berkeley (1680-1736), whom Swift calls a "young
rake" (see Letter 16, note 15). The young Countess of Berkeley was
only sixteen on her marriage. In 1714 she was appointed a lady of the
bed-chamber to Caroline, Princess of Wales, and she died of smallpox
in 1717, aged twenty-two. The Earl was an Admiral, and saw much
service between 1701 and 1710; under George I. he was First Lord of the
Admiralty.

15 Edward Wettenhall was Bishop of Kilmore from 1699 to 1713.

16 In the Dedication to The Tale of a Tub Swift had addressed Somers in
very different terms: "There is no virtue, either in public or private
life, which some circumstances of your own have not often produced upon
the stage of the world."

17 Their lodgings, opposite to St. Mary's Church in Stafford Street,
Dublin.

LETTER 15.

1 The Stamp Act was not passed until June 1712: see the Journal for Aug.
7, 1712.

2 Both in St. James's Park. The Canal was formed by Charles II. from
several small ponds, and Rosamond's Pond was a sheet of water in the
south-west corner of the Park, "long consecrated," as Warburton said,
"to disastrous love and elegiac poetry." It is often mentioned as a
place of assignation in Restoration plays. Evelyn (Diary, Dec. 1, 1662)
describes the "scheets" used on the Canal.

3 Mrs. Beaumont.

4 The first direct mention of Hester Vanhomrigh. She is referred to
only in two other places in the Journal (Feb. 14, 1710-11, and Aug, 14,
1711).

5 See Letter 3, note 17.

6 No. 27, by Swift himself.

7 No. 7 of Harrison's series.

8 The printers of the original Tat