pleasure, when I hear of a mortality in any country parish or village, where the wretches are forced to pay for a filthy cabin, and two ridges of potatoes, treble the worth; brought up to steal or beg, for want of work; to whom death would be the best thing to be wished for on account both of themselves and the public.1

Among all taxes imposed by the legislature, those upon luxury are universally allowed to be the most equitable, and beneficial to the subject; and the commonest reasoner on government might fill a volume with arguments on the subject. Yet here again, by the singular fate of Ireland, this maxim is utterly false; and the putting it in practice may have such pernicious a consequence, as, I certainly believe, the thoughts of the proposers were not able to reach.

The miseries we suffer by our absentees, are of a far more extensive nature than seems to be commonly understood. I must vindicate myself to the reader so far, as to declare solemnly, that what I shall say of those lords and squires, doth not arise from the least regard I have for their understandings, their virtues, or their persons: for, although I have not the honour of the least acquaintance with any one among them, (my ambition not soaring so high) yet I am too good a witness of the situation they have been in for thirty years past; the veneration paid them by the people, the high esteem they are in among the prime nobility and gentry, the particular marks of favour and distinction they receive from the Court; the weight and consequence of their interest, added to their great zeal and application for preventing any hardships their country might suffer from England, wisely considering that their own fortunes and honours were embarked in the same bottom.

'See Swift's terrible satire on the "Modest Proposal for preventing Children of Poor People from being a burthen." [T. S.]

THE

BLUNDERS, DEFICIENCIES, DISTRESSES, AND MISFORTUNES OF QUILCA.

PROPOSED TO CONTAIN ONE AND TWENTY VOLUMES IN QUARTO.

Begun April 20, 1724. To be contined Weekly, if due Encouragement be giv.

NOTE.

SWIFT's friends in Ireland were not many. He had no high opinion of the people with whom he was compelled to live. But among those who displeased him least, to use the phrase he employed in writing to Pope, was a kindly and warm-hearted scholar named Sheridan. Sheridan must have taken Swift's fancy, since they spent much time together and wrote each other verses and nonsense rhymes. He had failed in his attempt to keep up a school in Dublin, and refused the headmastership of the school of Armagh which Lord Primate Lindsay had offered him, through Swift's efforts. Swift however obtained for him, from Carteret, one of the chaplaincies of the Lord-Lieutenant and a small living near Cork. Unfortunately Sheridan was struck off from the list of chaplains on the information of one Richard Tighe who reported that Sheridan, on the anniversary of the accession of the House of Hanover, had preached from the text "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Poor Sheridan had been totally unconscious of committing any indiscretion, but he could not deny the fact.

It was at Quilca, a small county village, near Kells, that Sheridan was accustomed to spend his vacations with his family at a small house he owned there. Swift used often to use this house, at Sheridan's desire, and spent many days there in quiet enjoyment with Mrs. Dingley and Esther Johnson. The place and his life there he has attempted to describe in the following piece; but the description may also stand, as Scott observes, as 66 no bad supplement to Swift's account of Ireland."

The text here given is based on that printed in the eighth volume of the Edinburgh edition of 1761.

[T. S.]

THE

BLUNDERS, DEFICIENCIES, DISTRESSES,

AND MISFORTUNES OF QUILCA.'

UT one lock and a half in the whole house.

BUT

The key of the garden door lost.

The empty bottles all uncleanable.

The vessels for drink few and leaky.

The new house all going to ruin before it is finished. One hinge of the street door broke off, and the people forced to go out and come in at the back-door.

The door of the Dean's bed-chamber full of large chinks. The beaufet letting in so much wind that it almost blows out the candles.

The Dean's bed threatening every night to fall under him.

The little table loose and broken in the joints.

The passages open over head, by which the cats pass continually into the cellar, and eat the victuals; for which one was tried, condemned, and executed by the sword.

The large table in a very tottering condition.

But one chair in the house fit for sitting on, and that in a very ill state of health.

The kitchen perpetually crowded with savages.

Not a bit of mutton to be had in the country.

Want of beds, and a mutiny thereupon among the servants, till supplied from Kells.

An egregious want of all the most common necessary utensils.

Not a bit of turf in this cold weather; and Mrs. Johnson'

A small country village about seven miles from Kells. [T. S.] 2 Esther Johnson. [T. S.]