VI - Fragment of a Preface for Directions to Servants

Summary

Headnote

This transcription of a lost fragment,made for SirWalter Scott by Theophilus Swift (who had inherited Swift papers from his father, Deane Swift), may represent an earlier stage of composition than the two more substantial manuscripts now extant, since several of the topics that it sets out are developed in substantially different ways in those manuscripts and in the published text. The fragment also indicates topics that would not be included in any other extant form of the work (the income range of relevant households; the circumstances of the former footman’smarriage and appointment to the revenue; rules of precedence; and an idea, not followed through, for the arrangement and styling of the text). The notes, which Scott describes as ‘a fragment of an intended preface’, are indeed most closely related to the prefatory ‘Rules that Concern All Servants in General’. Intriguingly, Scott indicates that the transcription is taken from ‘the original draft of the instructions’, suggesting that the manuscript was authorial: its relation to other known manuscripts is unclear. For Gil Blas, see Headnote to Directions.

The text is taken from a footnote to Scott (1824), where it follows a group of anecdotes about Swift's dealings with servants. The sentence ‘Add the directions … in a different letter’ is evidently Swift's note on a possible arrangement that was not in the end pursued: it proposes grouping ‘directions without reason’ (as contrasted, presumably, with those for which perverse rationalisations are supplied) into a final section distinguished by a different fount.

FRAGMENT OF A PREFACE FOR DIRECTIONS TO SERVANTS

The following is a fragment of an intended preface. It occurs in the original draft of the instructions, but is in many places effaced and illegible. I am indebted to Mr Theophilus Swift for a copy of that which remains intelligible.

* * * [Two or three words wanting.] A Preface to Servants.

I have calculated these directions chiefly for town-servants; yet have here and there scattered some proper for the country. I have likewise considered some things only for private families, from £400 to £1000 per annum; but others for great persons and gentlemen of plentiful estates.

I left my master, who had got the house-maid with child, and he gave me a portion to marry her, and got me an office in the customs.