The Poems of Jonathan Swift

-Mrs. Frances Harris's Petition

1699

This, the most humorous example of vers de societe in the English language, well illustrates the position of a parson in a family of distinction at that period.--W. E. B.

[Footnote 1: The Earl of Berkeley and the Earl of Galway.]

[Footnote 2: Lady Betty Berkeley, afterwards Germaine.]

[Footnote 3: Wife to one of the footmen.]

[Footnote 4: The Earl of Berkeley's valet.]

[Footnote 5: The old deaf housekeeper.]

[Footnote 6: Galway.]

[Footnote 7: The Earl of Drogheda, who, with the primate, was to succeed the two earls, then lords justices of Ireland.]

[Footnote 8: Clerk of the kitchen.]

[Footnote 9: Ferris; whom the poet terms in his Journal to Stella, 21st Dec., 1710, a "beast," and a "Scoundrel dog." See "Prose Works," ii, p. 79--W. E. B.]

[Footnote 10: A usual saying of hers.--Swift.]

[Footnote 11: Swift.]

[Footnote 12: Dr. Bolton, one of the chaplains.--Faulkner.]

[Footnote 13: A cant word of Lord and Lady Berkeley to Mrs. Harris.]

[Footnote 14: Swift elsewhere terms his own calling a trade. See his letter to Pope, 29th Sept., 1725, cited in Introduction to Gulliver, "Prose Works," vol. viii, p. xxv.--W. E. B.]