While Swift was enjoying the reputation of his new work the 86 news of the King's death arrived; and he kissed the hands of the new King and Queen three days after their accession '.

By the Queen, when she was Princess, he had been treated 87 with some distinction, and was well received by her in her exaltation; but whether she gave hopes which she never took care to satisfy, or he formed expectations which she never meant to raise, the event was that he always afterwards thought on her with malevolence, and particularly charged her with breaking her promise of some medals which she engaged to send him.

I know not whether she had not in her turn some reason for 88 complaint. A letter was sent her, not so much entreating as requiring her patronage of Mrs. Barber, an ingenious Irishwoman, who was then begging subscriptions for her Poenis. To this letter was subscribed the name of Swift, and it has all the appearances of his diction and sentiments; but it was not written. in his hand, and had some little improprieties. When he was charged with this letter he laid hold of the inaccuracies, and urged the improbability of the accusation, but never denied it: he shuffles between cowardice and veracity, and talks big when he says nothing 2.

He seemed desirous enough of recommencing courtier, and 89 endeavoured to gain the kindness of Mrs. Howard, remembering what Mrs. Masham had performed in former times, but his flatteries were, like those of the other wits, unsuccessful; the lady either wanted power, or had no ambition of poetical immortality 3.

He was seized not long afterwards by a fit of giddiness', and again heard of the sickness and danger of Mrs. Johnson 2. He then left the house of Pope, as it seems, with very little ceremony, finding that 'two sick friends cannot live together 3,' and did not write to him till he found himself at Chester.

He returned to a home of sorrow: poor Stella was sinking into the grave, and, after a languishing decay of about two months, died in her forty-fourth year on January 28, 1728. How much he wished her life his papers shew; nor can it be doubted that he dreaded the death of her whom he loved most, aggravated by the consciousness that himself had hastened it.

Beauty and the power of pleasing, the greatest external advan

tages that woman can desire or possess, were fatal to the unfortunate Stella. The man whom she had the misfortune to love was, as Delany observes, fond of singularity', and desirous to make a mode of happiness for himself, different from the general course of things and order of Providence. From the time of her arrival in Ireland he seems resolved to keep her in his power, and therefore hindered a match sufficiently advantageous by accumulating unreasonable demands and prescribing conditions that could not be performed 2. While she was at her own disposal he did not consider his possession as secure; resentment, ambition, or caprice might separate them; he was therefore resolved to make 'assurance double sure 3,' and to appropriate her by a private marriage, to which he had annexed the expectation of all the pleasures of perfect friendship, without the uneasiness of conjugal restraint. But with this state poor Stella was not satisfied; she never was treated as a wife, and to the world she had the appearance of a mistress 5. She lived sullenly on, in hope that in time he would own and receive her; but the time did not come till the change of his manners and depravation of his mind made her tell him, when he offered to acknowledge her,

I

1 Delany, p. 62.

2 An Irish clergyman, Dr. William Tisdall, informed Swift that he was a suitor for her hand. He replied on April 20, 1704:-'If my fortunes and humour served me to think of that state [marriage], I should certainly, among all persons on earth, make your choice.' He added:-' I did not conceive you were then rich enough to make yourself and her happy and easy. . . . But the objection of your fortune being removed, I declare I have no other.' Works, xv. 274.

According to Deane Swift, he insisted that Tisdall should live in Dublin, keep a coach for his wife, and settle 100 a year on her for pinmoney. [Essay upon Swift's life, 1755, p. 89.] The match,' writes Sheridan, was not broken off by any artifice of Swift's. The refusal came from Mrs. Johnson.' Swift's Works, 1803, ii. 10. See also Craik,

p. 116.

5 Bolingbroke wrote to him in 1724:- Set your foot on the continent; I dare promise that you will in a fortnight have gone back the ten years you lament so much.... With what pleasure should I hear you "Inter vina fugam Stellae moerere

protervae *"'!' Ib. xvi. 442.

In 1725 he wrote:-'Your star will probably hinder you' from coming to England.' Ib. p. 464.

A year before her death he wrote:'My wife sends you some fans . . which you will dispose of to the present Stella, whoever she be.' Ib. xvii. 95.

* 'Inter vina fugam Cynarae,' &c. HORACE, Epis. i. 7. 28.

93

94

that 'it was too late '.' She then gave up herself to sorrowful resentment, and died under the tyranny of him by whom she was in the highest degree loved and honoured.

What were her claims to this excentrick tenderness, by which the laws of nature were violated to retain her, curiosity will inquire; but how shall it be gratified? Swift was a lover; his testimony may be suspected. Delany and the Irish saw with Swift's eyes and therefore add little confirmation. That she was virtuous, beautiful, and elegant in a very high degree, such admiration from such a lover makes it very probable; but she had not much literature, for she could not spell her own language; and of her wit, so loudly vaunted 3, the smart sayings which Swift himself has collected afford no splendid specimen *.

The reader of Swift's Letter to a Lady on her Marriage may be allowed to doubt whether his opinion of female excellence ought implicitly to be admitted; for if his general thoughts on women were such as he exhibits, a very little sense in a lady would enrapture and a very little virtue would astonish him.

'Johnson's authority is Delany (p. 56), who says that the offer was made some years before her death. 'It was then, she said, "too late "; and therefore better that they should live on, as they had hitherto done.' Craik, p. 530.

Scott also reports this anecdote which he had from Deane Swift's son, Theophilus, who professed to have it from Mrs. Whiteway. The scene is transferred to her death-bed. 'She heard the Dean say, "Well, my dear, if you wish it, it shall be owned," to which Stella answered with a sigh, "It is too late." The word marriage was not mentioned, but there can remain no doubt that such was the secret to be owned.' Works, i. 332. For an account by Sheridan of Swift's meeting the request by leaving the room and never returning see Works, ed. 1803, ii. 61, and Craik, p. 530.

2 Swift wrote to her on Oct. 23, 1711: Here is a full and true account of Stella's new spelling.' The list contains such misspelling as straingers, houer, immagin, merrit, phamphlets, bussiness. Against these words she wrote the correct spelling.

Works, ii. 381. See also ib. p. 417, and Works, 1803, xvi. 142 n.

3 'I have often heard a competent judge declare that he never passed one day in Stella's society wherein he did not hear her say something which he would wish to remember to the last day of his life.' Delany, p. 66.

'Some of us,' wrote Swift, 'have written down several of her sayings, or what the French call bons mots, wherein she excelled beyond belief.' Ib. ix. 277. For the collection--twelve in number-see ib. p. 286. See also ante, ADDISON, 120.

On Swift's birthday in 1721 she sent him a copy of verses ending :'Late dying, may you cast a shred Of your rich mantle o'er my head; To bear with dignity my sorrow One day alone, then die to-morrow.' Works, xiv. 469.

5 Ib. ix. 202. Pope wrote to Swift in 1736- Mrs. Blount says she will be agreeable many years hence, for she has learned that secret from some receipts of your writing.' The allusion is to this Letter. Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 353

Stella's supremacy, therefore, was perhaps only local; she was great because her associates were little '.

In some Remarks lately published on the Life of Swift this 95 marriage is mentioned as fabulous or doubtful2; but alas! poor Stella, as Dr. Madden told me, related her melancholy story to Dr. Sheridan when he attended her as a clergyman to prepare her for death 3; and Delany tells it not with doubt but only with regret. Swift never mentioned her without a sigh*.

The rest of his life was spent in Ireland, in a country to which 96 not even power almost despotick, nor flattery almost idolatrous, could reconcile him 5. He sometimes wished to visit England, but always found some reason of delay. He tells Pope, in the decline of life, that he hopes once more to see him; 'but if not,' says he, ' we must part, as all human beings have parted ".'

After the death of Stella his benevolence was contracted and 97 his severity exasperated; he drove his acquaintance from his table and wondered why he was deserted'. But he continued his attention to the publick, and wrote from time to time such directions, admonitions, or censures as the exigency of affairs, in his opinion, made proper, and nothing fell from his pen in vain.

In a short poem on the Presbyterians, whom he always 98 regarded with detestation, he bestowed one stricture upon Bettes

2

For the ignorance of women at this time see ante, MILTON, 135 n. 3. Ante, SWIFT, 70. Cunningham (Lives of the Poets, ii. 185) refers to a paper by Dr. Lyons, printed by Nichols in 1779, in a supplemental volume to Swift's Works. [The reference is to Biographical Anecdotes of Dean Swift in the first volume of the three supplementary volumes to Hawkesworth's Swift, printed from MS. annotations in an interleaved copy of his Life of Swift. Supplement to Hawkesworth's Swift, vol. i. Intro. pp. xvii, xxxii.]

3 For three prayers by Swift 'used by him for Mrs. Johnson in her last sickness' see ib. ix. 289. Sheridan's son gives a somewhat different account. Swift's Works, 1803, ii. 61.

4

Orrery, p. 28. 'Dr. Tuke,' writes Scott, has a lock of her hair, on the envelope of which is written in Swift's hand, "Only a woman's hair."' Works, i. 223 n.

G. M. Berkeley records (Literary Relics, Preface, pp. xxviii, liv) that when Swift first saw Mrs. Hearne, Stella's niece, 'he was so struck with the strong resemblance she bore to Stella that he uttered a deep groan.' This was some years after Stella's death.

5

Ante, SWIFT, 66. He wrote to Bolingbroke from Dublin on March 21, 1729-30:-'You think, as I ought to think, that it is time for me to have done with the world; and so I would if I could get into a better, before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' Works, xvii. 236. [See Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 188, for the date of this letter.]

⚫ Letter of Oct. 12, 1727. Ib. xvii. 143; quoted by Johnson. Boswell's Johnson, iii. 312.

7

Delany, p. 144; Deane Swift, pp. 181, 308.