[134a] James, third Earl of Berkeley (1680–1736), whom Swift calls a “young rake” (see p. [151]). 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.
[134b] Edward Wettenhall was Bishop of Kilmore from 1699 to 1713.
[134c] 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.”
[136] Their lodgings, opposite to St. Mary’s Church in Stafford Street, Dublin.
[138a] The Stamp Act was not passed until June 1712: see the Journal for Aug. 7, 1712.
[138b] 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.
[139a] Mrs. Beaumont.
[139b] 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).