collation made by Mr. Ryland for his edition of 1897. Where these authorities
differ I have usually found myself in agreement with Mr. Ryland, but I have
felt justified in accepting some of Forster's readings which were rejected by
him as uncertain; and the examination of the manuscripts has enabled me to
make some additions and corrections of my own. Swift's writing is extremely
small, and abounds in abbreviations. The difficulty of arriving at the true
reading is therefore considerable, apart from the erasures.

The remainder of the Journal, consisting of the first forty letters, was
published in 1768 by Deane Swift, Dr. Swift's second cousin. These letters
had been given to Mrs. Whiteway in 1788, and by her to her son-in-law, Deane
Swift. The originals have been lost, with the exception of the first, which,
by some accident, is in the British Museum; but it is evident that Deane Swift
took even greater liberties with the text than Hawkesworth. He substituted
for "Ppt" the word "Stella," a name which Swift seems not to have used until
some years later; he adopted the name "Presto" for Swift, and in other ways
tried to give a greater literary finish to the letters. The whole of the
correspondence was first brought together, under the title of the "Journal to
Stella", in Sheridan's edition of 1784.

Previous editions of the Journal have been but slightly annotated. Swift's
letters abound with allusions to people of all classes with whom he came in
contact in London, and to others known to Esther Johnson in Ireland; and a
large proportion of these persons have been passed over in discreet silence by
Sir Walter Scott and others. The task of the annotator has, of course, been
made easier of late years by the publication of contemporary journals and
letters, and of useful works of reference dealing with Parliament, the Army,
the Church, the Civil Service, and the like, besides the invaluable Dictionary
of National Biography. I have also been assisted by a collection of MS. notes
kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Thomas Seccombe. I have aimed at brevity