[162] Sheridan wrote a poem displeasing to Swift, which Swift thus animadverts on in the “History of the Second Solomon”:  “Having lain many years under the obloquy of a high Tory and a Jacobite, upon the present Queen’s birthday, he [Dr. Sheridan] writ a song to be performed before the government and those who attended them, in praise of the Queen and King, on the common topics of her beauty, wit, family, love of England, and all other virtues, wherein the King and the royal children were sharers.  It was very hard to avoid the common topics.  A young collegian who had done the same job the year before, got some reputation on account of his wit.  Solomon would needs vie with him, by which he lost the esteem of his old friends the Tories, and got not the least interest with the Whigs, for they are now too strong to want advocates of that kind; and, therefore, one of the lords-justices reading the verses in some company, said, ‘Ah, doctor, this shall not do.’  His name was at length in the title-page; and he did this without the knowledge or advice of one living soul, as he himself confesseth.” [T.  S.]

[163] Dr. Stopford, Bishop of Cloyne, one of Swift’s intimate friends.  Stopford always acknowledged that he owed his advancement entirely to Swift’s kindness.  He wrote an elegant Latin tribute to Swift, given by Scott in an appendix to the “Life.”  With Delany and others he was one of Swift’s executors.

[164] Delany was a ripe scholar and much esteemed by Swift, though the latter had occasion to rebuke him for attempting to court favour with the Castle people, and for an attack on the “Intelligencer,” a journal which Swift and Sheridan had started.  Delany, however, was a little jealous of Sheridan’s favour with the Dean.  He was afterwards Chancellor of St Patrick’s, and wrote a life of Swift. [T.  S.]

[165] Sir Constantine Phipps, Lord Chancellor of Ireland when Queen Anne died. [Orig.  Note.]

[166] Swift himself. [T.  S.]

[167] Dr. William King, who died a year or so before Swift wrote. [T.  S.]

[168] In 1724, two under-graduates were expelled from Trinity College for alleged insolence to the provost.  Dr. Delany espoused their cause with such warmth that it drew upon him very inconvenient consequences, and he was at length obliged to give satisfaction to the college by a formal acknowledgment of his offence. [S.]

[169] A very good friend of Swift, at whose place at Gosford, in the county of Antrim, Swift would often stay for months together.  The reference here is to the project for converting a large house, called Hamilton’s Bawn, situated about two miles from Sir Arthur Acheson’s seat, into a barrack.  The project gave rise to Swift’s poem, entitled, “The Grand Question Debated,” given by Scott in vol. xv., p. 171. [T.  S.]

[170] Most of these expressions explain themselves.  “Termagants” was applied to resisters, as used in the old morality plays.  “Iconoclasts,” the name given to those who defaced King William’s statue.  “White-rosalists,” given to those who wore the Stuart badge on the 10th of June, the day of the Pretender’s birthday. [T.  S.]