ABSTRACT
Among the bitterest of Swift’s preoccupations in this season was Henrietta Howard, whom he had met in 1726 and whom he was to mention for the last time we know of in 1737. Their friendship could hardly have been avoided. Not only did she have qualities which always excited his interest, but she also belonged to the circle of his most eminent friends: Arbuthnot, Gay, Pope, Peterborough, Bolingbroke, Lady Betty Germaine, and the Duchess of Queens-berry. Peterborough is said to have composed the well-known verses, ‘I said to my heart’, for Mrs Howard. Pope described her in ‘On a Certain Lady at Court’. Her second husband was to be George Berkeley, whom Swift had known as a child in the family of his father the Earl of Berkeley. With this marriage she would become Lady Betty’s sister-in-law.
