A NEW EDITION, IN TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES.

CORRECTED AND REVISED

BY JOHN NICHOLS, F. A. S.

EDINBURGH AND PERTH.

VOLUME XXI.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM DURELL AND CO.

JOURNAL TO STELLA.*

LETTER I.t

Chester, Sept. 2, 1710. JOE‡ will give you an account of me till I got into the boat, after which the rogues made a new bargain, and forced me to give them two crowns, and talked as if

* These letters to Stella, or Mrs. Johnson, were all written in a series from the time of Dr. Swift's landing at Chester, in September, 1710, until his return to Ireland in June, 1713, upon being made dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. The letters were all very carefully preserved by Stella; and at her death, if not before, taken back by Dr. Swift; for what end we know not, unless it were to compare the current news of the times with that history of the queen which he writ at Windsor in the year 1713: they were sometimes addressed to Mrs. Johnson, and sometimes to Mrs. Dingley, who was a relation of the Temple family, and friend to Mrs. Johnson. Both these ladies went over to Ireland upon Swift's invitation in the year 1701, and lodged constantly together. D. S.

+ Endorsed by Dr. Swift, "M. D. received this September 9.-Letters to Ireland from Sept. 1710, begun soon after the change of Ministry.-Nothing in this." N.

Mr. Joseph Beaumont, merchant, of Trim, whose name frequently occurs in these papers. He was a venerable, handsome, grayheaded man, of quick and various natural abilities, but not improved by learning: his forte was mathematics, which he applied to some useful purposes in the linen trade, but chiefly to the investigation of the longitude; which was supposed to have occasioned a lunacy, with which he was seized in Dublin about the year 1718; whence he was brought home to Trim, and recovered his understanding. But some years af. ter, having relapsed into his former malady, he cut his throat in a fit of distraction. D. S.

VOL. XXI.