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Replies to Minor Queries.
_Sir Gammer Vans_ (Vol. ii., pp 89. 280.).--The story related by S. G. is
the same that I inquired after, and I admire the accuracy of his memory,
for his version is, for the greater part, _literally_ the same that I heard
in Ireland sixty years ago. A few passages, as that about _hipper
switches_, I do not recollect; and one or two that I remember are
wanting--the one, that the narrator was received in "a little _oak_
parlour" of, I forget what, different character; the other, that Sir
Gammer's "mother," or "aunt, was a justice of peace, and his sister a
captain of horse." I find that Goldsmith's allusion is to this last
passage, with some variation. Tony Lumpkin tells Marlow that Hardcastle
will endeavour to persuade him that "his mother was an alderman and his
aunt a justice of peace." (_She Stoops to Conquer_, A. i. _sub fine_.) I
have not been able to find the allusion in Swift; nor can I see how it
could have been a _political_ satire. It seems rather to be a mere tissue
of incongruities and contradictions--of Irish bulls, in short, woven into a
narrative to make folks laugh; and it is much of the same character as many
other pieces of ingenious nonsense with which Swift and Sheridan used to
amuse each other.