dom from affectation. The story of her introduction to the dean, as told afterwards by Mrs. Pilkington, is full of humorous entertainment. ‘Is this poor little child married?’ was Swift's first remark. ‘God help her!’ In the evening Swift made her read to him his own ‘Annals of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne,’ asking her most particularly whether she understood every word; for, said he, ‘I would have it intelligent to the meanest capacity; and if you comprehend it, 'tis possible everybody may.’ For a time she was undoubtedly a great favourite of Swift, and her sprightly reminiscences, in spite of the disdain with which they are treated by some of Swift's biographers, constitute one of the chief sources of authority as to Swift's later years. It is Mrs. Pilkington who tells us of Swift's personal habits, of his manners with his servants, of his dealings with roguish workmen, of his memory of Hudibras, so accurate that he could repeat every line from beginning to end. Thackeray was quite justified in the extensive use he made of her anecdotes in his sketch of Swift in ‘English Humourists,’ for the internal evidence of their authenticity is quite conclusive. The apologetic portions of her memoirs are much less worthy of credence.
The latter half of Mrs. Pilkington's life was extremely unfortunate. In 1732 Swift procured her husband an appointment in London, whither he proceeded without his wife. Literary jealousies are said to have alienated the pair. Later, however, Mrs. Pilkington joined her husband, and, according to her own account, found him living a life of profligacy. She soon returned to Ireland, with her own reputation somewhat tarnished. Her father died in 1734, and she shortly afterwards gave her husband a good pretext for disembarrassing himself of his wife, being found entertaining a man in her bedroom between two and three o'clock in the morning. Swift, writing to Alderman Barber [see under Barber, Mary], put her case in a nutshell: ‘She was taken in the fact by her own husband; he is now suing for a divorce and will not get it; she is suing for a maintenance, and he has none to give her.’ After strange adventures she came to England and settled in London. Colley Cibber interested himself in her story, and she managed for a time to beg sufficient for a livelihood. In 1748, however, she was sued for debt and imprisoned in the Marshalsea. Upon her release, again owing to the good offices of Cibber, she set to work to compile her ‘Memoirs,’ and doubtless did not spare any efforts to blackmail some of her old patrons. The work first appeared at Dublin, in two volumes, as ‘Memoirs of Mrs. Lætitia Pilkington, wife to the Rev. Matthew Pilkington, written by herself. Wherein are occasionally interspersed all her Poems, with Anecdotes of several eminent persons living and dead’ (1748). The work attracted a fair amount of attention, and the portions relating to Swift were extensively pillaged by newspapers and magazines; a third edition appeared at London in 1754, with an additional volume edited by her son, John Carteret Pilkington. After launching her ‘Memoirs,’ Mrs. Pilkington started a small bookshop in St. James's Street, but the venture does not seem to have succeeded, for she once more made her way over to Ireland, and died in Dublin on 29 Aug. 1750. Among those who befriended her in her last years were Samuel Richardson, Sir Robert King, and Lord Kingsborough. ‘The celebrated Mrs. Pilkington's Jests, or the Cabinet of Wit and Humour,’ was published posthumously in 1751; 2nd edit., with additions, 1765. It was claimed for this curious repertory of the broadest jests that when in manuscript it had been perused by Swift, and had elicited from him a laugh. In her ‘Memoirs,’ however, Mrs. Pilkington explicitly states that she had never seen Swift laugh. Her ‘Poems’ were included in ‘Poems by Eminent Ladies’ (2 vols. London, 1755). Her burlesque, entitled ‘The Turkish Court, or the London Prentice,’ which was acted at Capel Court, Dublin, in 1748, was never printed.
Matthew Pilkington (fl. 1733), the husband of Lætitia, was also a poet, having published in 1730 ‘Poems on Several Occasions’ (Dublin, 8vo), of which a second edition, revised by Swift, and containing some additional pieces, appeared in London in 1731, with commendatory verses by William Dunkin. Swift, who afterwards had occasion to change his opinion of Pilkington, wrote, in July 1732, to his old friend, Alderman Barber (then lord-mayor elect), soliciting the post of chaplain to the lord-mayor for his protégé, and as soon as this request was complied with, Swift wrote strongly on his behalf to Pope: ‘The young man,’ he wrote of Pilkington, ‘is the most hopeful we have. A book of his poems was printed in London. Dr. Delany is one of his patrons. He is married, and had children, and makes about 100l. a year, on which he lives decently. The utmost stretch of his ambition is to gather up as much superfluous money as will give him a sight of you and half an hour of your presence; after which he will return home in full satisfaction, and in proper time die in peace.’ On the strength of this exordium,
