[45b] See p. [28]. No copy of these verses is known.
[45c] Henry Alexander, fifth Earl of Stirling, who died without issue in 1739. His sister, Lady Judith Alexander, married Sir William Trumbull, Pope’s friend.
[46] “These words, notwithstanding their great obscurity at present, were very clear and intelligible to Mrs. Johnson: they referred to conversations, which passed between her and Dr. Tisdall seven or eight years before; when the Doctor, who was not only a learned and faithful divine, but a zealous Church-Tory, frequently entertained her with Convocation disputes. This gentleman, in the year 1704, paid his addresses to Mrs. Johnson” (Deane Swift). The Rev. William Tisdall was made D.D. in 1707. Swift never forgave Tisdall’s proposal to marry Esther Johnson in 1704, and often gave expression to his contempt for him. In 1706 Tisdall married, and was appointed Vicar of Kerry and Ruavon; in 1712 he became Vicar of Belfast. He published several controversial pieces, directed against Presbyterians and other Dissenters.
[47a] No. 193 of the Tatler, for July 4, 1710, contained a letter from Downes the Prompter in ridicule of Harley’s newly formed Ministry. This letter, the authorship of which Steele disavowed, was probably by Anthony Henley.
[48a] William Berkeley, fourth Baron Berkeley of Stratton, was sworn of the Privy Council in September 1710, and was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He married Frances, youngest daughter of Sir John Temple, of East Sheen, Surrey, and died in 1740.
[48b] Probably the widow of Sir William Temple’s son, John Temple (see p. [5]). She was Mary Duplessis, daughter of Duplessis Rambouillet, a Huguenot.
[48c] The Rev. James Sartre, who married Addison’s sister Dorothy, was Prebendary and Archdeacon of Westminster. He had formerly been French pastor at Montpelier. After his death in 1713 his widow married a Mr. Combe, and lived until 1750.
[48d] William Congreve’s last play was produced in 1700. In 1710, when he was forty, he published a collected edition of his works. Swift and Congreve had been schoolfellows at Kilkenny, and they had both been pupils of St. George Ashe—afterwards Bishop of Clogher—at Trinity College, Dublin. On Congreve’s death, in 1729, Swift wrote, “I loved him from my youth.”
[49b] Dean Sterne.