[140] Referring to the silks, laces, and dress of the extravagant women.  See pp. 139, 198, 199. [T.  S.]

[141] The chief source of income in Ireland came from the pasture lands on which cattle were bred.  The cattle were imported to England.  The English landlords, however, taking alarm, discovered to the Crown that this importation of Irish cattle was lowering English rents.  Two Acts passed in 1665 and 1680 fully met the wishes of the landlords, and ruined absolutely the Irish cattle trade.  Prevented thus from breeding cattle, the Irish turned to the breeding of sheep, and established, in a very short time, an excellent trade in wool.  How England ruined this industry also may be seen from note on p. 158. [T.  S.]

[142] Alluding to the facilities afforded for the recruiting of the French army in Ireland. [T.  S.]

[143] The King of France. [T.  S.]

[144] Buttermilk.  The quotation from Virgil aptly applies to the food of the Irish peasants, who, in the words of Skelton, bled their cattle and boiled their blood with sorrel to make a food. [T.  S.]

[145] At Christ Church.  See note prefixed to this tract. [T.  S.]

[146] Sheridan, in his life of Swift, gives an instance of this which is quoted by Scott.  Carteret had appointed Sheridan one of his domestic chaplains, and the two would often spend hours together, or, in company with Swift, exchanging talk and knowledge.  When Sheridan had one of the Greek tragedies performed by the scholars of the school he kept, Carteret wished to read the play over with him before the performance.  At this reading Sheridan was surprised at the ease with which his patron could translate the original, and, asking him how he came to know it so well, Carteret told him “that when he was envoy in Denmark, he had been for a long time confined to his chamber, partly by illness, and partly by the severity of the weather; and having but few books with him, he had read Sophocles over and over so often as to be almost able to repeat the whole verbatim, which impressed it ever after indelibly on his memory.” [T.  S.]

[147] This refers to Richard Tighe, the gentleman who informed on poor Sheridan for preaching from the text on the anniversary of King George’s accession, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”  It was on this information that Sheridan lost his living.  Swift never afterwards missed an opportunity to ridicule Tighe, and he has lampooned that individual in several poems.  In “The Legion Club” Swift calls him Dick Fitzbaker, alluding to his descent from one of Cromwell’s contractors, who supplied the army with bread. [T.  S.]

[148] “The worst of times” was the expression used by the Whigs when they referred to Oxford’s administration in the last four years of Queen Anne’s reign. [T.  S.]

[149] A famous rope-dancer of that time. [H.]