And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written beautifully regarding her, "That doesn't surprise me," said Mrs. Stella, for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." A woman—a true woman! Would you have had one of them forgive the other? 66 In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Dr. Tuke, of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words: Only a woman's hair." An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cynical indifference. See the various notions of critics! Do those words indicate indifference or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you ever hear or read four words more pathetic? Only a woman's hair: only love, only fidelity, only purity, innocence, beauty; only the the Liffey. In this sequestered spot, according to the old gardener's account, the Dean and Vanessa used often to sit, with books and writingmaterials on the table before them."- SCOTT's Swift, vol. i. pp. 246-7. But Miss Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which she found herself, determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union with the object of her affections -to the hope of which she had clung amid every vicissitude of his conduct towards her. The most probable bar was his undefined connection with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must have been perfectly known to her, had, doubtless, long excited her secret jealousy, although only a single hint to that purpose is to be found in their correspondence, and that so early as 1713, when she writes to him-then in Ireland - If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to tell me so, except 'tis what is inconsistent with mine.' Her silence and patience under this state of uncertainty for no less than eight years, must have been partly owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, to the weak state of her rival's health, which, from year to year, seemed to announce speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa's impatience prevailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, requesting to know the nature of that connection. Stella, in reply, informed her of her marriage with the Dean; and full of the highest resentment against Swift for having given another female such a right in him as Miss Vanhomrigh's inquiries implied, she sent to him her rival's letter of interrogation, and, without seeing him, or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of Mr. Ford, near Dublin. Every reader knows the consequence. Swift, in one of those paroxysms of fury to which he was liable, both from temper and disease, rode instantly to Marley Abbey. As he entered the apartment, the sternness of his countenance, which was peculiarly formed to express the fiercer passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table, and, instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed yet cherished hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks." SCOTT. tenderest heart in the world stricken and wounded, and passed away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, love insulted, and pitiless desertion: - only that lock of hair left; and memory and remorse, for the guilty, lonely wretch, shuddering over the grave of his victim. And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. Treasures of wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that man have had locked up in the caverns of his gloomy heart, and shown fitfully to one or two whom he took in there. But it was not good to visit that place. People did not remain there long, and suffered for having been there.* He shrank away from all affections sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa both died near him, and away from him. He had not heart enough to see them die. He broke from his fastest friend, Sheridan; he slunk away from his fondest admirer, Pope. His laugh jars on one's ears after sevenscore years. He was always alone — alone and gnashing in the darkness, except when Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that went, silence and utter night closed over him. An immense genius: an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man he seems to me, that thinking of him is like thinking of an empire falling. We have other great names to mention none I think, however, so great or so gloomy. *M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne compagnie. Il n'a pas, à la vérité, la gaîté du premier, mais il a toute la finesse, la raison, le choix, le bon goût qui manquent à notre curé de Meudon. Ses vers sont d'un goût singulier, et presque inimitable; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage en vers et en prose; mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage dans son pays.". VOLTAIRE: Lettres sur les Anglais. Let. 22. CONGREVE AND ADDISON. A GREAT number of years ago, before the passing of the Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debatingclub, called the "Union;" and I remember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of the Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the University Debating-Club, and that if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thomson of Trinity, would rise in their might, and draping themselves in their gowns, rally round the monarchy, or hurl defiance at priests and kings, with the majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mirabeau, fancying all the while that the great nobleman's emissary was listening to the debate from the back benches, where he was sitting with the family seat in his pocket. Indeed, the legend said that one or two young Cambridge men, orators of the " Union," were actually caught up thence, and carried down to Cornwall or old Sarum, and so into Parliament. And many a young fellow deserted the jogtrot University curriculum, to hang on in the dust behind the fervid wheels of the parliamentary chariot. Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of Peers and Members of Parliament in Anne's and George's time? Were they all in the army, or hunting in the country, or boxing the watch? How was it that the young gentlemen from the University got such a prodigious number of places? A lad composed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch or Trinity, in which the death of a great personage was bemoaned, the French king assailed, the Dutch or Prince Eugene complimented, or the reverse; and the party in power was presently to provide for the young poet; and a commissionership, or a post in the Stamps, or the secretaryship of an Embassy, or a clerkship in the Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A wonderful fruit-bearing rod was that of Busby's. What have men of letters got in our time? Think, not only of Swift, a king fit to rule in any time or empire-but Addison, Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John Dennis, and many others, who got public employment, and pretty little pickings out of the public purse.* The wits of whose names we shall treat in this lecture and two following, all (save one) touched the King's coin, and had, at some period of their lives, a happy quarterday coming round for them. They all began at school or college in the regular way, producing panegyrics upon public characters, what were called odes upon public events, battles, sieges, court marriages and deaths, in which the gods of Olympus and the tragic muse were fatigued with invocations, according to the fashion of the time in France and in England." Aid us, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo," cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or Marlborough. "Accourez, chastes nymphes du Permesse," says Boileau, celebrating the Grand Monarch. "Des sons que ma lyre enfante marquez en bien la cadence, et vous vents, faites silence! je vais parler de Louis!" Schoolboys' themes and foundation exer cises are the only relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The Olympians are left quite undisturbed in their mountain. What *The following is a conspectus of them: ADDISON. -Commissioner of Appeals; Under Secretary of State; Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Keeper of the Records in Ireland; Lord of Trade; and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, successively. Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague; Gentleman of the Bed- CONGREVE.Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches; Commissioner for Wine Licenses; place in the Pipe Office; post in the Custom House; Secretary of Jamaica. GAY.-Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to Han man of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country news paper, would now think of writing a congratulatory ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a nobleman? In the past century the young gentlemen of the Universities all exercised themselves at these queer compositions; and some got fame, and some gained patrons and places for life, and many more took nothing by these efforts of what they were pleased to call their muses. William Congreve's* Pindaric Odes are still to be found in "Johnson's Poets," that now unfrequented poets'-corner, in which so many forgotten bigwigs have a niche; but though he was also voted to be one of the greatest tragic poets of any day, it was Congreve's wit and humor which first recommended him to courtly fortune. And it is recorded that his first play, the "Old Bachelor," brought our author to the notice of that great patron of English muses, Charles Montague Lord Halifax who, being desirous to place so eminent a wit in a state of ease and tranquillity, instantly made him one of the Commissioners for licensing hackney-coaches, bestowed on him soon after a place in the Pipe Office, and likewise a post in the Custom House of the value of 6007. A commissionership of hackney-coaches - a post in the Custom House-a place in the Pipe Office, and all for writing a comedy! Doesn't it sound like a fable, that place in the Pipe Office?"Ah, l'heureux temps que celui de ces fables!" Men of letters there still be: but I doubt whether any Pipe Offices are left. The public has smoked them long ago. Words, like men, pass current for a while with the public, He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Rich. ard Congreve, Esq., of Congreve and Stretton in Staffordshire a very ancient family. ↑ "PIPE.-Pipa, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the great roll. Pipe Office is an office in which a person called the Clerk of the Pipe makes out leases of Crown lands, by warrant from the Lord Treasurer, or Commissioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of the Exchequer. "Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c." — REES : Cylcoped. Art. PIPE. Pipe Office. — Spelman thinks so called, because the papers were kept in a large pipe or cask. "These be at last brought into that office of Her Majesty's Exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, do call the pipe.... because the whole receipt is finally conveyed into it by means of divers small pipes or quills.'BACON: The Office of Alienations." [We are indebted to Richardson's Dictionary for this fragment of erudition. But a modern man of letters can know little on these points-by experience.] |