Incredibly rare handwritten letter fragments by Swift penned on both sides of two slips, unsigned, measuring approximately 5 x 4.25 together, [December 17, 1734]. Using the epistolary correspondence from Swift’s collected works we have pieced together a more complete transcription, the absent portions transcribed in brackets: “The weather yesterday being very fine, I [rode] to Howth house, and as I was getting on [horseback] to return, I was seized with so cruel a [fit of] that giddyness wh[ich at times hath pursued] me from my youth [that I was forced to lie] down on a bed in [the empty house for two hours,] before I was in [a condition to ride. However I] got here safe, b[ut am this morning very weak, as I always have been for many days after such] fits, and in pain for fear of another this day, which makes me write to you while I am able [although it be morning…If this accident] had not fallen out, I intended to have [begun] my journey towards you this day, because [I prophesied] a fine parcell of weather from [yesterday;] but I was deceived, and must have [waited] to a better season. Pray God protect [you and your family. I know] not whether [you have children, nor did] I ever see [your lady, or your house; so that] I never did beg an [invitation so much against the rules of] common good [manners, to one so much a str]anger as you have [been against my will to me;] I am therefore bound in gratitude and by inclination to assure you that I am with much Esteem and Truth." One word from an absent page is also present on another fragment, “physicians.” Includes a cover addressed in another hand "To the rev'd Mr. Blashford at the rev'd Mr. Gorbet's at Delgeny near Killcoole.” In good condition, with separations to fragile folds, foxing, and chipping to edges.
Swift was plagued by fits of 'giddiness'—now believed to have been Meniere's disease—throughout his life, beginning around age twenty. He suffered frequent episodes characterized by varying degrees of vertigo, deafness, tinnitus, loss of balance, headaches, and nausea, often recording these bouts in his journals and notebooks. As he aged he described himself as walking 'like a drunken man,' and he had increasing trouble with deafness lasting days at a time. So debilitating was this illness that by the 1720s Swift began to 'believe that this giddiness is the disorder which will at last get the better of me.' Death became an ever more prominent theme in his work, most obvious in 'Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,' an obituary for himself written in 1731. At the hand of this sickness his literary output became less and less, his mental state began to dramatically decline, and it severely affected his day-to-day life. Despite the fragmentary nature of this letter today, it is an exceedingly scarce example of the great author's handwriting regarding one of the most important—though tragic—influences on his life.
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