Published in 1728, and the impetus behind Swift's An Answer to a Paper,Called AMemorial (above, pp. 27–39).

THE MEMORIAL Of the Poor INHABITANTS, TRADESMEN, and LABOURERS of the Kingdom of IRELAND.

Most Humbly sheweth,

That last Year, 1727, there was a very great Scarcity of Bread Corn That the Grainerys were exhausted; and were it not for the Supplys from Great- Britain, many of the Poor would have perished for want of Bread, which was so Dear in most Places, that Multitudes have sunk themselves so far in Debt for the support of their Familys, that they are now reduced to Beggary.

A Famine among the Poor, has often been the Occasion of Pestilential and contagious Distempers, whereby the Rich have become sharers in the general Calamity, as it happened of late in some of the Danish and Swedish Dominions, and other Places.

When Provisions fail, Trade and Industry ceases, Lands become waste; thus Landlords and Rich Men may soon be on the Level with the Poor Tennants and Cottiers.

People in Extremity often Robb, Plunder and Steal, rather than Starve; so that few will Escape it's dismal Effects.

Many were forced last Year to fall too soon upon their early Corn and Potatoes; and it is certain, that by the Wetness of the Season, heavy Rains, and other Accidents, a great part of the last Year's Crop of Corn was so hungary and Weak, that there is more than a third Part wanting of the usual Product as in other Years; and it is fear’d, that encouraging Tillage for the time to come, will not relieve the present Necessities of the Poor; and that the Merchants will not of themselves Import in due time, such Quantities of Grain, as may be Sufficient.

That the Price of Corn is risen so high in Great-Britain, that there is no hopes of Relief from thence as formerly; and we will need many more, than was last Year imported.

There is a good Premium offered for Exportation of Corn out of Great- Britain, and there is something allowed to that Purpose in this Kingdom, in favour of Tillage, when Corn is very Cheap.

MR. DOSSON, as we know, was meditative, and the present occasion could only minister to that side of his nature, especially as, so far at least as the observation of his daughters went, it had not urged him into uncontrollable movement. But the truth is that the intensity, or rather the continuity, of his meditations did engender an act which was not perceived by these young ladies, though its consequences presently became definite enough. While he waited for the Proberts to arrive in a phalanx and noted that they failed to do so he had plenty of time to ask himself—and also to ask Delia— questions about Mr. Flack. So far as they were addressed to his daughter they were promptly answered, for Delia had been ready from the first, as we have seen, to pronounce upon the conduct of the young journalist. Her view of it was clearer every hour; there was a difference however in the course of action which she judged this view to demand. At first he was to be blown up for the mess he had got them into (profitless as the process might be and vain the satisfaction); he was to be visited with the harshest chastisement that the sense of violated confidence could inflict. Now he was simply to be dropped, to be cut, to be let alone to his dying day: the girl quickly recognised that this was a much more distinguished way of showing displeasure. It was in this manner that she characterised it, in her frequent conversations with her father, if that can be called conversation which consisted of his serenely smoking while she poured forth arguments which combined both variety and repetition. The same cause will produce consequences the most diverse: a truth according to which the catastrophe that made Delia express freely the hope that she might never again see so much as the end of Mr. Flack's nose had just the opposite effect upon her father. The one thing he wanted positively to do at present was to let his eyes travel over his young friend's whole person: it seemed to him that that would really make him feel better.

Headnote

Composed after July, 1733; published c. September 1733; copy text 1733 (see Textual Account).

The death of the incumbent Samuel Burton in July 1733 ensured the second Parliamentary by-election in Dublin in a very short time, and created a fevered political atmosphere. Humphrey French, the Lord-Mayor of Dublin from 1732 to 1733, impressed Swift greatly, as can be seen in Advice to the Free-men of Dublin, an endorsement of French's successful candidacy asMP for Dublin City.

The Advice is another example of Swift's close involvement in Dublin corporation politics: the first candidate to declare, John Macarell (who was eventually replaced by a member of the corporation), already held the office of register of the barracks, and was therefore a placeman; hence Swift's support for the ‘patriot’ French against him (see Introduction, p. xcviii).

The parliamentary franchise for the Dublin city constituency was in the hands of the freemen and freeholders.Although there is no surviving indication of the relative proportions of each, it may well be that freemen were in the majority. In any case, freemen, as inhabitants of the city, would be more likely to appreciate the municipal achievements of an aldermanic candidate. Moreover, Swift's constituency might have been with the freemen, as he had written so often in support of artisans.

Swift's argument first appeared as a broadsheet (its appearance was recorded in the Dublin Journal, 29 September 1733).

ADVICE TO THE FREE-MEN OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN IN THE CHOICE OF A MEMBER TO REPRESENT THEM IN PARLIAMENT.

Those few Writers, who, since the Death of Alderman Burton, have employed their Pens in giving Advice to our Citizens how they should proceed in electing a new Representative for the next Sessions, having laid aside their Pens; I have Reason to hope, that all true Lovers of their Country in general, and particularly those who have any Regard for the Priviledges and Liberties of this great and ancient City, will think a second and a third time, before they come to a final Determination upon what Person they resolve to fix their Choice.

I am told, there are only two Persons who set up for Candidates; one, is the present Lord Mayor, and the other, a Gentleman, of good Esteem, an Alderman of the City, a Merchant of Reputation, and possess’d of a considerable Office under the Crown.

Hints for Intelligencer Papers, and Maxims Examined

Headnote

Composed 1728–9; copy text Rylands EnglishMS659 (see Textual Account).

These extant manuscript notes and ideas date from 1728–9, and are part of the Piozzi papers in the John Rylands Library, Manchester (Rylands English MS 659). Included in the possible ideas for issues of the Intelligencer, and the origins of Maxims Controlled in Ireland, are incidental proverbial observations and aphorisms.

The notes and their origins are discussed by J. L. Clifford and Irvin Ehrenpreis, ‘Swiftiana in Rylands English MS 659 and Related Documents’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 37 (1955), 368–92.

HINTS FOR INTELLIGENCER PAPERS

[MSS 659 (9)]

No great matter for the bulk of women, since the Men are as foolish & ignorant.

——

Begin. A person of Quality a little absolute, a man of tact and letters who well knew how to support his opinions, which were generally right, fell into one, which I thought he held in a sense not sufficiently limited., although he hadmany old proverbs andmaxims on his side, which carry the authority of ages with him that women shoud only regard their Children & family &c.

——

My practice of advising Ldys to read, and what;2 andmy way of instructing young Misses.

——

I used to stay a month or two. the Country desolate, the Neighbourhood scarce and not very inviting.

——

A Companion for life to a man of Sense especially without Employmnt, and violent lover of the Country, should have a reasonable companion., who could distinguish a man of Sense &c, and relish good conversation without being talkative, positive or assuming

——

It would make the women love home better, and able to teach their Daughters.

——

The Lady was a considerable heiress used too fondly, live in Town had that kind of Education which is called the best, learning Italian, French, Musick and Singing, all wch she forgot &c. | fell into play, visits, assemblies &c.

——

No French Romances., and few plays, for young Ladyes

——

How hard for a woman to live solitary and not read;

——

A generall inspection into family affairs right: but not to be a Hous keeper &c. any more than an Architect should have his hand: in mortar.

Headnote

Composed April–May 1729; published 1765; copy text SwJ 390 (see Textual Account).

One of the four unpublished pieces on contemporary Irish problems composed in the spring of 1729, An Answer to Several Letters from Unknown Persons was apparently written in April or May 1729 in response to a letter on the Irish economy from ‘Andrew Trueman’ and ‘Patrick Layfield’ (published in the Dublin Weekly Journal for 7 June 1729, sometime after it was sent to Swift; see below, Appendix E, pp. 365–74). Intelligencer, no. 19 is an earlier response to another letter, not extant, but presumed to be from the same source (see above, p. 74).

The Answer to Several Letters from Unknown Persons is chiefly concerned with the factors holding Ireland back from free participation in a modern economy: these include restrictions on trade, and limited access to preferments, jobs or careers for even the most talented, enlightened and ambitious of its inhabitants. Swift also bemoans that so much of Ireland's possible revenue money is sent overseas, in the form of remittances to absentee landlords and office-holders. In passing, he also criticises Presbyterians, and defends the church and the (perennially unpopular) institution of tithes. Underlying his arguments is a wider refutation of those who make projections for the improvement of Ireland based on the wealth of its natural resources, as this ignores the constitutional limitations which burden the state, and prevent the possibility of amelioration.

ANSWER TO SEVERAL LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN PERSONS

Gentlemen,

I am inclined to think that I received a Letter from you two last Summer, directed to Dublin, while I was in the Country,1 whither it was sent me, and I ordered an answ[er] to it to be printed, but it seems [it] had little effect, and I suppose this will have not much more. But, the heart of this People is waxed gross, and their Ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed.

This 1733 pamphlet attempts to refute the claims made in Intelligencer 19 concerning Irish emigration to America (above pp. 94–7). It was published in New York, and thus represents an unusually early American response to Swift. Although its authorship is unknown, it is possible that it was written by James Alexander, the editor of the New York Journal (which shared the same publisher, John Peter Zenger), and a supporter of the Lewis Morris faction, or ‘Country party’, inNew York, which had a strongDissenting constituency. See MichaelKammen: ColonialNewYork:AHistory,New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975, pp. 203–7. An abridged version was printed as Appendix K of Woolley, Intelligencer.

To the Author of those Intelligencers printed at Dublin, to which is prefixed the following Motto,

Being a Defence of the Plantations against the virulent Aspersions of that Writer, and such as copy after him.

Though your Works put in a noisy Claim to a Resemblance of this Masterly Picture, yet they can have no Title to it in the Eyes of competent Judges, if from Distance or Misinformation you suffer your self to be deceived in Facts: For then, what you would seem to intend for gentle pleasing Reformation, becomes undeserved Scandal and bitter Reproach; and consequently, Reflections arising from Facts falsely introduced, such as have no Foundation in Truth, will destroy the Character which they are meant to support.

I SHALL make no Apology for so late an Answer, because it was promised that the Cause of the Plantations should have been undertaken by a more able Pen; but that Promise is not perform’d as yet: And moreover you will please to observe, that this Letter is from North America, where we receive all the Productions of Europe from the last Hand;3 and the Fame of your Intelligencers had reach’d me long before I could obtain a Sight of them.

Your 6th and 19th Numbers contain a melancholy Description of Ireland and its Inhabitants; but upon this Subject, and without one just Cause assign’d.

John Nourse (bap. 1705, d. 1780), bookseller, specialized in language books, contemporary foreign literature, and scientific books. Based at the Lamb without Temple Bar, near the Strand, he would become bookseller to the Society for the Encouragement of Learning and then bookseller to the king, 1762–80. Not only was Nourse's shop an important venue for scientific discussion in London, it was an important node in the Enlightenment republic of letters; he had trade connections in Paris, The Hague and Leiden. Nourse disseminated key English texts abroad and published translations of significant European authors for British audiences – notably Voltaire. William Griffin had been forced to sell his interest in Goldsmith's History of Earth, and Animated Nature (for which he had already given ￡500 to Goldsmith by way of advance) to Nourse, who eventually published the eight-volume work on 1 July 1774.

Here Goldsmith is providing an aspiring author with a letter of introduction, an indication of Goldsmith's status – or, at the very least, his perceived status – among London booksellers. John Andrews (1736–1809), historian, would become best known for his History of the War with America, France, Spain, and Holland, 4 vols. (London: Printed for John Fielding and John Jarvis, 1785–6). The History of the Revolutions of Denmark, the text referred to here by Goldsmith and which Nourse published in April 1774, was his first publication. The introductory note ‘To the Reader’ observes: ‘Denmark having by the remarkable Events which happened in that Kingdom, during the Course of the last Year, attracted the Attention of all Europe, and particularly of the British Nation, from the Family Connexion subsisting between the two Crowns’ (1) makes clear that Andrews was exploiting interest in the shocking events surrounding the divorce and expulsion from Denmark of Queen Caroline Matilda – sister to George III – in 1772, events which captivated the British public. Goldsmith's interest in Andrews's book may also have been piqued by his personal recollection of King Christian VII's visit in 1768 and the masquerade for which he sought tickets for the Hornecks (see Letter 26).

George Colman the Elder (bap. 1732, d. 1794), playwright and theatre manager, had his greatest success with The Clandestine Marriage (Drury Lane, 1766), which he co-wrote with David Garrick. Colman then became part of Covent Garden’s management team, along with Thomas Harris, John Rutherford and William Powell, in 1767. He committed ￡15,000 for his share of the royal patent and seems to have taken primary responsibility for managing the theatre's day-to-day affairs. Goldsmith had initially courted David Garrick of Drury Lane to represent his first play The Good Natur’d Man which he completed in spring 1767. Garrick's reluctance and objections had inflamed Goldsmith and so he sent the manuscript to Colman: his acceptance of the piece without his partners’ acquiescence may have been a cause of dispute between them, settled in a lawsuit in Colman's favour in 1769. The letter's expression of appreciation to Colman is heartfelt, as are the bitter references to Garrick's previous equivocation. Balderston notes that Goldsmith’s finances were in a parlous state as is evidenced by the fact that he had borrowed ￡10 from Newbery on a promissory note on 7 July, even though he still had a note of ￡48, dating from 11 October 1763, still unpaid. Goldsmith had refused to subjugate himself to Garrick's wish for flattery in order to get his play accepted and he also rejected the Drury Lane manager's suggestions for improvements to the manuscript. His willingness in this letter to accede to any amendments that Colman might request betrays his eagerness to have the play performed, or might indicate a desire to spite Garrick, whatever the cost.

The copy-text is the manuscript in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It was first published by Forster in 1848. It is addressed ‘To | George Colman Esqr. | Richmond.’ It is possibly postmarked 20 July although the ‘2’ is not clearly visible. The folio is also marked, in a different hand, ‘Dr Goldsmith to Colman’. Balderston notes that it was found among the papers of David Morris (1770?–1842) who gradually took over the management of the Haymarket from his brother-inlaw George Colman the Younger (1762–1836) during the 1810s.

Goldsmith was preparing an edition of the Spectator for an Irish publisher, William Wilson (c. 1745–1801), who was once described by Charlemont, the first president of the Royal Irish Academy, as ‘the most spirited printer in this spiritless City’. Wilson published Dublin editions of popular novels such as The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) and Robinson Crusoe (1781) and supplied books in bulk to Marsh's Library in Dublin, Ireland's first public library. He edited the Dublin Directory 1772–1801, an important overview of Dublin's commercial activity initiated by his father, Peter, in 1751. A letter from Wilson to Goldsmith sounded him out on the idea of an Irish edition of the Spectator and asked him for his terms. Wilson did eventually publish an eight-volume edition in 1778. Prior’s list of Goldsmith's books (II: 583) also includes an eight-volume edition of the Spectator (1729).

The copy-text is the manuscript in the British Library. It was first published by Balderston in 1928. It is addressed, ‘To | The Revd Doctor Percy.’ ‘Sent’ is inserted with a caret, in a different hand and in pencil after ‘I have’ in the final sentence.

Ill call or send on Sunday morning, being constrain’d for time.

Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) was an artist and art theorist who was the founding president of the Royal Academy. He also established the Club and this is where his intimacy with Goldsmith developed, the pair having first met in 1761 through their mutual friend Johnson. Reynolds, also a bachelor, was a great champion of Goldsmith throughout his career, encouraging him to practise medicine again in 1765, advocating on behalf of The Good Natur’d Man, and even making Goldsmith Professor of Ancient History at the Royal Academy, much to his friend's delight, as we can see in Letter 29 above. This faith in Goldsmith's abilities was warmly acknowledged in The Deserted Village's dedication to Reynolds, which imagined him as a surrogate brother. Reynolds also featured in Retaliation, one of Goldsmith's final poems.

This letter and the one following describe a trip to Paris taken by Goldsmith and the Horneck sisters and their mother, probably at the behest of Reynolds. They travelled to the French capital via Lille before returning to England. The trip, according to Prior, lasted six weeks in total and, despite the reasonably energetic tone of the first letter, appears to have been a failure. Money, as often, seems to have been at the heart of the difficulty. At a dinner with John Ridge, an Irish lawyer (the ‘anchovy’ of Retaliation), Goldsmith was asked for his views on such trips. He replied, more than a little bitterly, ‘I recommend it by all means to the rich if they are without the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they are without the sense of feeling’ (P, II: 297). As the following letter reveals, this letter was never sent.

The copy-text is Balderston’s; her transcription was taken from the original in the possession of Constance Meade (Percy's great-granddaughter) which was inserted in her album and not deposited at the British Library with the rest of her Goldsmith letters. Its current location is unknown. It was first published by Percy in 1801. It has no address. The letter was given by Reynolds to Boswell and then on to Thomas Percy, confirmed by a marginal note ‘Original letter of Dr. Goldsmith to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who gave it to me. James Boswell’.

Isaac Jackman (1752?–1831), Irish journalist and playwright, moved from Dublin to London for a financially advantageous marriage. After his wife died – and her annuity stopped – Jackman began to write for the stage. He had a poorly received comic opera The Milesian staged at Drury Lane in 1777 before going on to moderate success with All the World's a Stage (1777), The Divorce (1781) and a two-act burletta Hero and Leander (1787). He edited the Morning Post for a period between 1791 and 1795. Jackman may have had radical tendencies: John Thelwall sent him ‘some Songs and other writings, calculated to rouse the Nation to a sense of its rights’ in the early 1790s, presumably in his capacity as newspaper editor.

This final poignant letter speaks to an important facet of Goldsmith's life in London as a point of contact and introduction to London for many Irish migrants. William Hodson might be the most obvious example but Goldsmith's sense of responsibility to the newly arrived stretched well beyond his familial duties, as Robert Day reported to Prior. Goldsmith was an important figure of inspiration for a new generation of Irish playwrights working in London, such as John O’Keeffe (1747–1833), Leonard MacNally (1752–1820), Dennis O’Bryen (1755–1832), and indeed Jackman, whose play The Milesian featured ‘Charles Marlove’ in homage to the character in She Stoops to Conquer.

The copy-text is a photocopy of the manuscript in the British Library and has never been published. The location of the original is unknown. Our dating of the letter in March is speculative, though the year 1774 appears to have been marked on the original in another hand. It was likely written as Goldsmith was in his final illness, and as Jackman was attempting to establish himself in the theatre scene at the time by contacting the Irish author of She Stoops to Conquer.

Goldsmith's letter to the St. James's Chronicle; Or, the British Evening-Post was prompted by two separate letters the newspaper had recently printed. The first was an almost apologetic correction from ‘D. H.’ in a letter printed in the issue for 12–14 May. Goldsmith had endorsed the recent publication of Blainville's Travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, 3 vols. (London: J. Johnson, B. Davenport and T. Cadell, 1767). The various advertisements for this work claimed that it had never been published, a claim that was exposed as spurious by the letter-writer. ‘D. H.’ had ‘too much Respect for Dr. Goldsmith to suffer him to authorise so pitiful an Artifice’. The various advertisements for Blainville's Travels in the St. James's Chronicle and other newspapers do not, however, contain any reference to Goldsmith so it is not clear how his endorsement was publicized. In any event, Goldsmith owns up to his error in his letter and is happy to concede his mistake.

The second, more serious accusation, was an anonymous letter, often attributed to William Kenrick, in its issue for 18–21 July 1767. Kenrick had replaced Goldsmith as chief reviewer for the Monthly Review and had written a caustic review of Goldsmith's An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning (1759), probably at the instigation of Ralph Griffiths, the proprietor. ‘DETECTOR’ accuses Goldsmith of plagiarism: the substance of his claim is that Goldsmith’s poem ‘Edwin and Angelina’ was inappropriately derived from a ballad in Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). The letter is reproduced here:

Bennet Langton (bap. 1736–1801) became friendly with Johnson due to his great admiration for the Rambler. He was also a close friend of Topham Beauclerk. Langton was an original member of the Club and also rose to the rank of major in the Lincolnshire militia. In 1770 he married Mary Lloyd (1743–1820), the widow of John Leslie, Earl of Rothes (1698?–1767) and the Lady Rothes referred to in the letter. A well-regarded Greek scholar despite an acute lack of publications, he succeeded Johnson as Professor of Ancient Literature at the Royal Academy in 1788. In this letter Goldsmith declined an invitation to visit Langton and his wife at their home in Lincolnshire. It is also the first time Goldsmith alludes to his comic masterpiece, She Stoops to Conquer. Langton's letter of invitation (also in the British Library) is given in full here:

Edward Mills was Goldsmith's cousin, the son of Charles Goldsmith's sister. Mills did not respond in any way to Goldsmith's request, as the later letter to Henry Goldsmith shows. This letter is introduced with thoughts upon what would become a quintessentially Goldsmithian opposition of ambition and domestic contentment. Mills, it seems, had forsaken a career at the bar in Dublin – or, more probably and profitably, London – and there is a little needling, possibly, in Goldsmith’s imagining his cousin's lost glories as enhancing his own. Mills has chosen instead his own smaller circle of acquaintance, the ‘cultivation of his paternal acres’. There is an awkwardness of tone in this letter as Goldsmith tries to establish, or re-establish, a connection with Mills only to set up his own request that Mills help to collect Irish subscriptions for Goldsmith's forthcoming Enquiry into the Present state of Polite Learning in Europe, which would be published anonymously in April 1759. Dated 7 August, this is the first letter of a series which Goldsmith wrote to relatives and friends in Ireland seeking such subscriptions in order to preempt Irish piracy.

The copy-text is the manuscript in the British Library. It was first published by Percy in 1801. It is addressed ‘To Edward Mills Esqr. | near | Roscommon | Ireland’ and postmarked 17 August. The bracketed portions, worn away in the manuscript, are supplied by Percy, except where otherwise noted.