The Ladies Butler, daughters of the Duke of Ormond. Of them, and their friendship for Swift, we hear much in the Journal, especially on the death of one of them — the Lady Ashburnham.
'When I lived in England,' says Swift in a letter to Miss Hoadley, dated 4th June 1734, 'once every year I issued out an edict, commanding that all ladies of wit, sense, merit, and quality, who had an ambition to be acquainted with me, should make the first advances at their peril: which edict, you may believe, was universally obeyed.'