The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 09 / Contributions to The Tatler, The Examiner, The Spectator, and The Intelligencer

by Jonathan Swift

SIR,

Dining yesterday with Mr. South-British, and Mr. William North-Briton two gentlemen, who, before you ordered it otherwise,[2] were known by the names of Mr. English and Mr. William Scott. Among other things, the maid of the house (who in her time I believe may have been a North-British warming-pan) brought us up a dish of North-British collops. We liked our entertainment very well, only we observed the table-cloth, being not so fine as we could have wished, was North-British cloth: But the worst of it was, we were disturbed all dinner-time by the noise of the children, who were playing in the paved court at North-British hoppers; so we paid our North-Briton[3] sooner than we designed, and took coach to North-Britain yard, about which place most of us live. We had indeed gone a-foot, only we were under some apprehensions lest a North-British mist should wet a South-British man to the skin.

We think this matter properly expressed, according to the accuracy of the new style settled by you in one of your late papers. You will please to give your opinion upon it to,

Sir, Your most humble servants,

J.S. M.P. N.R.

[Footnote 1: This letter appeared originally under the heading: "From my own Apartment, December I." [T.S.]

[Footnote 2: In his "Journal to Stella" (December 2, 1710) Swift writes: "Steele, the rogue, has done the impudentest thing in the world. He said something in a 'Tatler,' that we ought to use the word Great Britain, and not England, in common conversation, as, the finest lady in Great Britain, &c. Upon this Rowe, Prior, and I, sent him a letter, turning this into ridicule. He has to-day printed the letter, and signed it J.S., M.P. and N.R. the first letters of our names. Congreve told me to-day, he smoked it immediately." The passage referred to by Swift, was a letter, signed Scoto-Britannus, printed in No. 241 of "The Tatler," in which it was objected that a gentleman ended every sentence with the words, "the best of any man in England," and called upon him to "mend his phrase, and be hereafter the wisest of any man in Great Britain." Writing to Alderman Barber, under date August 8, 1738, Swift remarks: "The modern phrase 'Great Britain' is only to distinguish it from Little Britain where old clothes and old books are to be bought and sold." [T.S.]

[Footnote 3: We paid our scot; i.e., our share of the reckoning. [T.S.]