[9] The publichouse at the point thus named on the ordnance map is now (I regret to say) called the Jolly Farmer.
[10] The most direct statement to this effect was made in an article in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1757. It professes to speak with authority, but includes such palpable blunders as to carry little weight.
[11] I am not certain whether this means 1681 or 1681-82. I have assumed the former date in mentioning Stella’s age; but the other is equally possible.
[12] Wotton first accused Swift of borrowing the idea of the battle from a French book, by one Coutray, called Histoire Poétique de la Guerre nouvellement declarée entre les Anciens et Modernes. Swift declared (I have no doubt truly) that he had never seen or heard of this book. But Coutray, like Swift, uses the scheme of a mock Homeric battle. The book is prose, but begins with a poem. The resemblance is much closer than Mr. Forster’s language would imply; but I agree with him that it does not justify Johnson and Scott in regarding it as more than a natural coincidence. Every detail is different.
[13] This was a treatise by Thomas, twin brother of Henry Vaughan, the “Silurist.” It led to a controversy with Henry More. Vaughan was a Rosicrucian. Swift’s contempt for mysteries is characteristic. Sendivogus was a famous alchemist (1566-1646).
[14] See Forster, p. 117.
[15] He was in England from April to September in 1701, from April to November in 1702, from November 1703 till May 1704, for an uncertain part of 1705, and again for over fifteen months from the end of 1707 till the beginning of 1709.
[16] Mr. Forster found the original MS., and gives us the exact numbers: 96 omitted, 44 added, 22 altered. The whole was 178 lines after the omissions.
[17] See letter to Peterborough, May 6, 1711.
[18] In most of their principles the two parties seem to have shifted opinions since their institution in the reign of Charles II. Examiner, No. 43. May 31, 1711.