V - Notes for Polite Conversation

Summary

Headnote

The groups of notes distinguished as A and B span the long period over which Swift gathered and shaped his materials for Polite Conversation. They are discussed by George Mayhew in ‘Two Entries of 1702–3 for Swift's “Polite Conversation”, 1738’ and ‘Swift's Anglo-Latin Games and a Fragment of “Polite Conversation” in Manuscript’. The present text of A is transcribed from Swift's account book for 1702–3, and that of B from autograph notes dated by Mayhew to c. 1735. The present transcription of B differs slightly from Mayhew’s; Davis includes only a partial transcription (of B only), not clearly distinguishing annotation from text.

A is written on the back cover of an account book, which Swift had turned upside down to commence an ‘Account of my Livings’ from the back (as distinct from the personal accounts that begin from the front and occupy most of the book); and B is written upside down on a single page among assorted jottings, in a cramped and often obscure hand, with signs that Swift added to it on more than one occasion: the heading ‘Polite’ for this page supports the connection with Polite Conversation. Both A and B show Swift apparently collecting material much in the way that Wagstaff describes, collecting real sayings from real conversations (if not in a dedicated notebook), rather than transcribing them from printed collections as had been suggested by Jarrell: ‘I always kept a large Table-Book in my Pocket; and as soon as I left the Company, I immediately entred the choicest Expressions that passed during the Visit.’

The material in A effectively pushes back into the earliest years of the century the date at which Swift can be shown to have begun collecting; and the material in B shows that he was still adding to his collection in the 1730s, shortly before publication in 1738: cf.Wagstaff's statement that ‘For these last six or seven Years, I have not been able to add above nine valuable Sentences to enrich my Collection: From whence I conclude, that what remains, will amount only to a Trifle.’