The Journal to Stella Part 1

The Journal to Stella.

by Jonathan Swift.

PREFACE

The history of the publication of the Journal to Stella is somewhat curious. On Swift's death twenty-five of the letters, forming the closing portion of the series, fell into the hands of Dr. Lyon, a clergyman who had been in charge of Swift for some years. The letters pa.s.sed to a man named Wilkes, who sold them for publication. They accordingly appeared in 1766 in the tenth volume of Dr. Hawkesworth's quarto edition of Swift's works; but the editor made many changes in the text, including a suppression of most of the "little language." The publishers, however, fortunately for us, were public-spirited enough to give the ma.n.u.scripts (with one exception) to the British Museum, where, after many years, they were examined by John Forster, who printed in his unfinished "Life of Swift" numerous pa.s.sages from the originals, showing the manner in which the text had been tampered with by Hawkesworth.

Swift himself, too, in his later years, obliterated many words and sentences in the letters, and Forster was able to restore not a few of these omissions. His zeal, however, sometimes led him to make guesses at words which are quite undecipherable. Besides Forster's work, I have had the benefit of the careful collation made by Mr. Ryland for his edition of 1897. Where these authorities differ I have usually found myself in agreement with Mr. Ryland, but I have felt justified in accepting some of Forster's readings which were rejected by him as uncertain; and the examination of the ma.n.u.scripts has enabled me to make some additions and corrections of my own. Swift's writing is extremely small, and abounds in abbreviations. The difficulty of arriving at the true reading is therefore considerable, apart from the erasures.

The remainder of the Journal, consisting of the first forty letters, was published in 1768 by Deane Swift, Dr. Swift's second cousin. These letters had been given to Mrs. Whiteway in 1788, and by her to her son-in-law, Deane Swift. The originals have been lost, with the exception of the first, which, by some accident, is in the British Museum; but it is evident that Deane Swift took even greater liberties with the text than Hawkesworth. He subst.i.tuted for "Ppt" the word "Stella," a name which Swift seems not to have used until some years later; he adopted the name "Presto" for Swift, and in other ways tried to give a greater literary finish to the letters. The whole of the correspondence was first brought together, under the t.i.tle of the "Journal to Stella", in Sheridan's edition of 1784.

Previous editions of the Journal have been but slightly annotated.

Swift's letters abound with allusions to people of all cla.s.ses with whom he came in contact in London, and to others known to Esther Johnson in Ireland; and a large proportion of these persons have been pa.s.sed over in discreet silence by Sir Walter Scott and others. The task of the annotator has, of course, been made easier of late years by the publication of contemporary journals and letters, and of useful works of reference dealing with Parliament, the Army, the Church, the Civil Service, and the like, besides the invaluable Dictionary of National Biography. I have also been a.s.sisted by a collection of MS. notes kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Thomas Seccombe. I have aimed at brevity and relevance, but it is hoped that the reader will find all the information that is necessary. Here and there a name has baffled research, but I have been able to give definite particulars of a very large number of people--n.o.blemen and ladies in society in London or Dublin, Members of Parliament, doctors, clergymen, Government officials, and others who have hitherto been but names to the reader of the Journal. I have corrected a good many errors in the older notes, but in dealing with so large a number of persons, some of whom it is difficult to identify, I cannot hope that I myself have escaped pitfalls.

G. A. A.

INTRODUCTION.

When Swift began to write the letters known as the Journal to Stella, he was forty-two years of age, and Esther Johnson twenty-nine. Perhaps the most useful introduction to the correspondence will be a brief setting forth of what is known of their friends.h.i.+p from Stella's childhood, the more specially as the question has been obscured by many a.s.sertions and theories resting on a very slender basis of fact.

Jonathan Swift, born in 1667 after his father's death, was educated by his uncle G.o.dwin, and after a not very successful career at Trinity College, Dublin, went to stay with his mother, Abigail Erick, at Leicester. Mrs. Swift feared that her son would fall in love with a girl named Betty Jones, but, as Swift told a friend, he had had experience enough "not to think of marriage till I settle my fortune in the world, which I am sure will not be in some years; and even then, I am so hard to please that I suppose I shall put it off to the other world." Soon afterwards an opening for Swift presented itself. Sir William Temple, now living in retirement at Moor Park, near Farnham, had been, like his father, Master of the Irish Rolls, and had thus become acquainted with Swift's uncle G.o.dwin. Moreover, Lady Temple was related to Mrs. Swift, as Lord Orrery tells us. Thanks to these facts, the application to Sir William Temple was successful, and Swift went to live at Moor Park before the end of 1689. There he read to Temple, wrote for him, and kept his accounts, and growing into confidence with his employer, "was often trusted with matters of great importance." The story--afterwards improved upon by Lord Macaulay--that Swift received only 20 pounds and his board, and was not allowed to sit at table with his master, is wholly untrustworthy. Within three years of their first intercourse, Temple had introduced his secretary to William the Third, and sent him to London to urge the King to consent to a bill for triennial Parliaments.

When Swift took up his residence at Moor Park he found there a little girl of eight, daughter of a merchant named Edward Johnson, who had died young. Swift says that Esther Johnson was born on March 18, 1681; in the parish register of Richmond,(1) which shows that she was baptized on March 20, 1680-81, her name is given as Hester; but she signed her will "Esther," the name by which she was always known. Swift says, "Her father was a younger brother of a good family in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, her mother of a lower degree; and indeed she had little to boast in her birth." Mrs. Johnson had two children, Esther and Ann, and lived at Moor Park as companion to Lady Giffard, Temple's widowed sister. Another member of the household, afterwards to be Esther's constant companion, was Rebecca Dingley, a relative of the Temple family.(2) She was a year or two older than Swift.

The lonely young man of twenty-two was both playfellow and teacher of the delicate child of eight. How he taught her to write has been charmingly brought before us in the painting exhibited by Miss d.i.c.ksee at the Royal Academy a few years ago; he advised her what books to read, and instructed her, as he says, "in the principles of honour and virtue, from which she never swerved in any one action or moment of her life."

By 1694 Swift had grown tired of his position, and finding that Temple, who valued his services, was slow in finding him preferment, he left Moor Park in order to carry out his resolve to go into the Church. He was ordained, and obtained the prebend of Kilroot, near Belfast, where he carried on a flirtation with a Miss Waring, whom he called Varina.

But in May 1696 Temple made proposals which induced Swift to return to Moor Park, where he was employed in preparing Temple's memoirs and correspondence for publication, and in supporting the side taken by Temple in the Letters of Phalaris controversy by writing The Battle of the Books, which was, however, not published until 1704. On his return to Temple's house, Swift found his old playmate grown from a sickly child into a girl of fifteen, in perfect health. She came, he says, to be "looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection."

On his death in January 1699, Temple left a will,(3) dated 1694, directing the payment of 20 pounds each, with half a year's wages, to Bridget Johnson "and all my other servants"; and leaving a lease of some land in Monistown, County Wicklow, to Esther Johnson, "servant to my sister Giffard." By a codicil of February 1698, Temple left 100 pounds to "Mr. Jonathan Swift, now living with me." It may be added that by her will of 1722, proved in the following year, Lady Giffard gave 20 pounds to Mrs. Moss--Mrs. Bridget Johnson, who had married Richard Mose or Moss, Lady Giffard's steward. The will proceeds: "To Mrs. Hester (sic) Johnson I give 10 pounds, with the 100 pounds I put into the Exchequer for her life and my own, and declare the 100 pounds to be hers which I am told is there in my name upon the survivors.h.i.+p, and for which she has constantly sent over her certificate and received the interest. I give her besides my two little silver candlesticks."

Temple left in Swift's hands the task of publis.h.i.+ng his posthumous works, a duty which afterwards led to a quarrel with Lady Giffard and other members of the family. Many years later Swift told Lord Palmerston that he stopped at Moor Park solely for the benefit of Temple's conversation and advice, and the opportunity of pursuing his studies. At Temple's death he was "as far to seek as ever." In the summer of 1699, however, he was offered and accepted the post of secretary and chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, one of the Lords Justices, but when he reached Ireland he found that the secretarys.h.i.+p had been given to another. He soon, however, obtained the living of Laracor, Agher, and Rathbeggan, and the prebend of Dunlavin in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The total value of these preferments was about 230 pounds a year, an income which Miss Waring seems to have thought enough to justify him in marrying. Swift's reply to the lady whom he had "singled out at first from the rest of women" could only have been written with the intention of breaking off the connection, and accordingly we hear no more of poor Varina.

At Laracor, a mile or two from Trim, and twenty miles from Dublin, Swift ministered to a congregation of about fifteen persons, and had abundant leisure for cultivating his garden, making a ca.n.a.l (after the Dutch fas.h.i.+on of Moor Park), planting willows, and rebuilding the vicarage. As chaplain to Lord Berkeley, he spent much of his time in Dublin. He was on intimate terms with Lady Berkeley and her daughters, one of whom is best known by her married name of Lady Betty Germaine; and through them he had access to the fas.h.i.+onable society of Dublin. When Lord Berkeley returned to England in April 1701, Swift, after taking his Doctor's degree at Dublin, went with him, and soon afterwards published, anonymously, a political pamphlet, A Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome. When he returned to Ireland in September he was accompanied by Stella--to give Esther Johnson the name by which she is best known--and her friend Mrs. Dingley. Stella's fortune was about 1500 pounds, and the property Temple had left her was in County Wicklow. Swift, very much for his "own satisfaction, who had few friends or acquaintance in Ireland," persuaded Stella--now twenty years old--that living was cheaper there than in England, and that a better return was obtainable on money. The ladies took his advice, and made Ireland their home. At first they felt themselves strangers in Dublin; "the adventure looked so like a frolic," Swift says, "the censure held for some time as if there were a secret history in such a removal: which however soon blew off by her excellent conduct." Swift took every step that was possible to avoid scandal. When he was away, the ladies occupied his rooms; when he returned, they went into their own lodgings.

When he was absent, they often stopped at the vicarage at Laracor, but if he were there, they moved to Trim, where they visited the vicar, Dr.

Raymond, or lived in lodgings in the town or neighbourhood. Swift was never with Stella except in the presence of a third person, and in 1726 he said that he had not seen her in a morning "these dozen years, except once or twice in a journey."

During a visit to England in the winter of 1703-4 we find Swift in correspondence with the Rev. William Tisdall, a Dublin inc.u.mbent whom he had formerly known at Belfast. Tisdall was on friendly terms with Stella and Mrs. Dingley, and Swift sent messages to them through him. "Pray put them upon reading," he wrote, "and be always teaching something to Mrs. Johnson, because she is good at comprehending, remembering and retaining." But the correspondence soon took a different turn. Tisdall paid his addresses to Stella, and charged Swift with opposing his suit.

Tisdall's letters are missing, but Swift's reply of April 20, 1704, puts things sufficiently clearly. "My conjecture is," he says, "that you think I obstructed your inclinations to please my own, and that my intentions were the same with yours. In answer to all which I will, upon my conscience and honour, tell you the naked truth. First, I think I have said to you before that, if my fortunes and humour served me to think of that state, I should certainly, among all persons upon earth, make your choice; because I never saw that person whose conversation I entirely valued but hers; this was the utmost I ever gave way to. And secondly, I must a.s.sure you sincerely that this regard of mine never once entered into my head to be an impediment to you." He had thought Tisdall not rich enough to marry; "but the objection of your fortune being removed, I declare I have no other; nor shall any consideration of my own misfortune, in losing so good a friend and companion as her, prevail on me, against her interest and settlement in the world, since it is held so necessary and convenient a thing for ladies to marry, and that time takes off from the l.u.s.tre of virgins in all other eyes but mine. I appeal to my letters to herself whether I was your friend or not in the whole concern, though the part I designed to act in it was purely pa.s.sive." He had even thought "it could not be decently broken," without disadvantage to the lady's credit, since he supposed it was known to the town; and he had always spoken of her in a manner far from discouraging.

Though he knew many ladies of rank, he had "nowhere met with an humour, a wit, or conversation so agreeable, a better portion of good sense, or a truer judgment of men or things." He envied Tisdall his prudence and temper, and love of peace and settlement, "the reverse of which has been the great uneasiness of my life, and is likely to continue so."

This letter has been quoted at some length because of its great importance. It is obviously capable of various interpretations, and some, like Dr. Johnson, have concluded that Swift was resolved to keep Stella in his power, and therefore prevented an advantageous match by making unreasonable demands. I cannot see any ground for this interpretation, though it is probable that Tisdall's appearance as a suitor was sufficiently annoying. There is no evidence that Stella viewed Tisdall's proposal with any favour, unless it can be held to be furnished by Swift's belief that the town thought--rightly or wrongly--that there was an engagement. In any case, there could be no mistake in future with regard to Swift's att.i.tude towards Stella. She was dearer to him than anyone else, and his feeling for her would not change, but for marriage he had neither fortune nor humour. Tisdall consoled himself by marrying another lady two years afterwards; and though for a long time Swift entertained for him feelings of dislike, in later life their relations improved, and Tisdall was one of the witnesses to Swift's will.

The Tale of a Tub was published in 1704, and Swift was soon in constant intercourse with Addison and the other wits. While he was in England in 1705, Stella and Mrs. Dingley made a short visit to London. This and a similar visit in 1708 are the only occasions on which Stella is known to have left Ireland after taking up her residence in that country. Swift's influence over women was always very striking. Most of the toasts of the day were his friends, and he insisted that any lady of wit and quality who desired his acquaintance should make the first advances. This, he says--writing in 1730--had been an established rule for over twenty years. In 1708 a dispute on this question with one toast, Mrs. Long, was referred for settlement to Ginckel Vanhomrigh, the son of the house where it was proposed that the meeting should take place; and by the decision--which was in Swift's favour--"Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her fair daughter Hessy" were forbidden to aid Mrs. Long in her disobedience for the future. This is the first that we hear of Hester or Esther Vanhomrigh, who was afterwards to play so marked a part in the story of Swift's life. Born on February 14, 1690, she was now eighteen. Her father, Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dublin merchant of Dutch origin, had died in 1703, leaving his wife a fortune of some sixteen thousand pounds. On the income from this money Mrs. Vanhomrigh, with her two daughters, Hester and Mary, were able to mix in fas.h.i.+onable society in London. Swift was introduced to them by Sir Andrew Fountaine early in 1708, but evidently Stella did not make their acquaintance, nor indeed hear much, if anything, of them until the time of the Journal.

Swift's visit to London in 1707-9 had for its object the obtaining for the Irish Church of the surrender by the Crown of the First-Fruits and Twentieths, which brought in about 2500 pounds a year. Nothing came of Swift's interviews with the Whig statesmen, and after many disappointments he returned to Laracor (June 1709), and conversed with none but Stella and her card-playing friends, and Addison, now secretary to Lord Wharton.(4) Next year came the fall of the Whigs, and a request to Swift from the Irish bishops that he would renew the application for the First-Fruits, in the hope that there would be greater success with the Tories. Swift reached London in September 1710, and began the series of letters, giving details of the events of each day, which now form the Journal to Stella. "I will write something every day to MD," he says, "and make it a sort of journal; and when it is full I will send it, whether MD writes or no; and so that will be pretty; and I shall always be in conversation with MD, and MD with Presto." It is interesting to note that by way of caution these letters were usually addressed to Mrs.

Dingley, and not to Stella.

The story of Swift's growing intimacy with the Tory leaders, of the success of his mission, of the increasing coolness towards older acquaintances, and of his services to the Government, can best be read in the Journal itself. In the meantime the intimacy with the Vanhomrighs grew rapidly. They were near neighbours of Swift's, and in a few weeks after his arrival in town we find frequent allusions to the dinners at their house (where he kept his best gown and periwig), sometimes with the explanation that he went there "out of mere listlessness," or because it was wet, or because another engagement had broken down. Only thrice does he mention the "eldest daughter": once on her birthday; once on the occasion of a trick played him, when he received a message that she was suddenly very ill ("I rattled off the daughter"); and once to state that she was come of age, and was going to Ireland to look after her fortune. There is evidence that "Miss Essy," or Vanessa, to give her the name by which she will always be known, was in correspondence with Swift in July 1710--while he was still in Ireland--and in the spring of 1711;(5) and early in 1711 Stella seems to have expressed surprise at Swift's intimacy with the family, for in February he replied, "You say they are of no consequence; why, they keep as good female company as I do male; I see all the drabs of quality at this end of the town with them." In the autumn Swift seems to have thought that Vanessa was keeping company with a certain Hatton, but Mrs. Long--possibly meaning to give him a warning hint--remarked that if this were so "she is not the girl I took her for; but to me she seems melancholy."

In 1712 occasional letters took the place of the daily journal to "MD,"

but there is no change in the affectionate style in which Swift wrote.

In the spring he had a long illness, which affected him, indeed, throughout the year. Other reasons which he gives for the falling off in his correspondence are his numerous business engagements, and the hope of being able to send some good news of an appointment for himself.

There is only one letter to Stella between July 19 and September 15, and Dr. Birkbeck Hill argues that the poem "Cadenus and Vanessa" was composed at that time.(6) If this be so, it must have been altered next year, because it was not until 1713 that Swift was made a Dean. Writing on April 19, 1726, Swift said that the poem "was written at Windsor near fourteen years ago, and dated: it was a task performed on a frolic among some ladies, and she it was addressed to died some time ago in Dublin, and on her death the copy shewn by her executor." Several copies were in circulation, and he was indifferent what was done with it; it was "only a cavalier business," and if those who would not give allowances were malicious, it was only what he had long expected.

From this letter it would appear that this remarkable poem was written in the summer of 1712; whereas the t.i.tle-page of the pamphlet says it was "written at Windsor, 1713." Swift visited Windsor in both years, but he had more leisure in 1712, and we know that Vanessa was also at Windsor in that year. In that year, too, he was forty-four, the age mentioned in the poem. Neither Swift nor Vanessa forgot this intercourse: years afterwards Swift wrote to her, "Go over the scenes of Windsor.... Cad thinks often of these"; and again, "Remember the indisposition at Windsor." We know that this poem was revised in 1719, when in all probability Swift added the lines to which most exception can be taken. Cadenus was to be Vanessa's instructor:--

"His conduct might have made him styled A father, and the nymph his child."

He had "grown old in politics and wit," and "in every scene had kept his heart," so that he now "understood not what was love." But he had written much, and Vanessa admired his wit. Cadenus found that her thoughts wandered--

"Though she seemed to listen more To all he spoke than e'er before."

When she confessed her love, he was filled with "shame, disappointment, guilt, surprise." He had aimed only at cultivating the mind, and had hardly known whether she was young or old. But he was flattered, and though he could not give her love, he offered her friends.h.i.+p, "with grat.i.tude, respect, esteem." Vanessa took him at his word, and said she would now be tutor, though he was not apt to learn:--

"But what success Vanessa met Is to the world a secret yet.

Whether the nymph to please her swain Talks in a high romantic strain; Or whether he at last descends To act with less seraphic ends; Or, to compound the business, whether They temper love and books together, Must never to mankind be told, Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold."

Such is the poem as we now have it, written, it must be remembered, for Vanessa's private perusal. It is to be regretted, for her own sake, that she did not destroy it.

Swift received the reward of his services to the Government--the Deanery of St. Patrick's, Dublin--in April 1713. Disappointed at what he regarded as exile, he left London in June. Vanessa immediately began to send him letters which brought home to him the extent of her pa.s.sion; and she hinted at jealousy in the words, "If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to tell me so, except 'tis what is inconsistent with my own." In his reply Swift dwelt upon the dreariness of his surroundings at Laracor, and reminded her that he had said he would endeavour to forget everything in England, and would write as seldom as he could.

Swift was back again in the political strife in London in September, taking Oxford's part in the quarrel between that statesman and Bolingbroke. On the fall of the Tories at the death of Queen Anne, he saw that all was over, and retired to Ireland, not to return again for twelve years. In the meantime the intimacy with Vanessa had been renewed. Her mother had died, leaving debts, and she pressed Swift for advice in the management of her affairs. When she suggested coming to Ireland, where she had property, he told her that if she took this step he would "see her very seldom." However, she took up her abode at Celbridge, only a few miles from Dublin. Swift gave her many cautions, out of "the perfect esteem and friends.h.i.+p" he felt for her, but he often visited her. She was dissatisfied, however, begging him to speak kindly, and at least to counterfeit his former indulgent friends.h.i.+p. "What can be wrong," she wrote, "in seeing and advising an unhappy young woman?

You cannot but know that your frowns make my life unsupportable."

Sometimes he treated the matter lightly; sometimes he showed annoyance; sometimes he a.s.sured her of his esteem and love, but urged her not to make herself or him "unhappy by imaginations." He was uniformly unsuccessful in stopping Vanessa's importunity. He endeavoured, she said, by severities to force her from him; she knew she was the cause of uneasy reflections to him; but nothing would lessen her "inexpressible pa.s.sion."

Unfortunately he failed--partly no doubt from mistaken considerations of kindness, partly because he shrank from losing her affection--to take effective steps to put an end to Vanessa's hopes. It would have been better if he had unhesitatingly made it clear to her that he could not return her pa.s.sion, and that if she could not be satisfied with friends.h.i.+p the intimacy must cease. To quote Sir Henry Craik, "The friends.h.i.+p had begun in literary guidance: it was strengthened by flattery: it lived on a cold and almost stern repression, fed by confidences as to literary schemes, and by occasional literary compliments: but it never came to have a real hold over Swift's heart."

With 1716 we come to the alleged marriage with Stella. In 1752, seven years after Swift's death, Lord Orrery, in his Remarks on Swift, said that Stella was "the concealed, but undoubted, wife of Dr. Swift....

If my informations are right, she was married to Dr. Swift in the year 1716, by Dr. Ashe, then Bishop of Clogher." Ten years earlier, in 1742, in a letter to Deane Swift which I have not seen quoted before, Orrery spoke of the advantage of a wife to a man in his declining years; "nor had the Dean felt a blow, or wanted a companion, had he been married, or, in other words, had Stella lived." What this means is not at all clear. In 1754, Dr. Delany, an old friend of Swift's, wrote, in comment upon Orrery's Remarks, "Your account of his marriage is, I am satisfied, true." In 1789, George Monck Berkeley, in his Literary Relics, said that Swift and Stella were married by Dr. Ashe, "who himself related the circ.u.mstances to Bishop Berkeley, by whose relict the story was communicated to me." Dr. Ashe cannot have told Bishop Berkeley by word of mouth, because Ashe died in 1717, the year after the supposed marriage, and Berkeley was then still abroad. But Berkeley was at the time tutor to Ashe's son, and may therefore have been informed by letter, though it is difficult to believe that Ashe would write about such a secret so soon after the event. Thomas Sheridan, on information received from his father, Dr. Sheridan, Swift's friend, accepted the story of the marriage in his book (1784), adding particulars which are of very doubtful authenticity; and Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, says that Dr. Madden told him that Stella had related her "melancholy story" to Dr. Sheridan before her death. On the other hand, Dr. Lyon, Swift's attendant in his later years, disbelieved the story of the marriage, which was, he said, "founded only on hearsay"; and Mrs.

Dingley "laughed at it as an idle tale," founded on suspicion.

Sir Henry Craik is satisfied with the evidence for the marriage. Mr.

Leslie Stephen is of opinion that it is inconclusive, and Forster could find no evidence that is at all reasonably sufficient; while Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, Mr. Churton Collins, and others are strongly of opinion that no such marriage ever took place. A full discussion of the evidence would involve the consideration of the reliability of the witnesses, and the probability of their having authentic information, and would be out of place here. My own opinion is that the evidence for the marriage is very far from convincing, and this view seems to be confirmed by all that we know from his own letters of Swift's relations with Stella. It has been suggested that she was pained by reports of Swift's intercourse with Vanessa, and felt that his feelings towards herself were growing colder; but this is surmise, and no satisfactory explanation has been given to account for a form of marriage being gone through after so many years of the closest friends.h.i.+p. There is no reason to suppose that there was at the time any gossip in circulation about Stella, and if her reputation was in question, a marriage of which the secret was carefully kept would obviously be of no benefit to her. Moreover, we are told that there was no change in their mode of life; if they were married, what reason could there be for keeping it a secret, or for denying themselves the closer relations.h.i.+p of marriage? The only possible benefit to Stella was that Swift would be prevented marrying anyone else. It is impossible, of course, to disprove a marriage which we are told was secretly performed, without banns or licence or witnesses; but we may reasonably require strong evidence for so startling a step. If we reject the tale, the story of Swift's connection with Stella is at least intelligible; while the acceptance of this marriage introduces many puzzling circ.u.mstances, and makes it necessary to believe that during the remainder of Stella's life Swift repeatedly spoke of his wife as a friend, and of himself as one who had never married.(7) What right have we to put aside Swift's plain and repeated statements? Moreover, his att.i.tude towards Vanessa for the remaining years of her life becomes much more culpable if we are to believe that he had given Stella the claim of a wife upon him.(8)

From 1719 onwards we have a series of poems to Stella, written chiefly in celebration of her birthday. She was now thirty-eight (Swift says, "Thirty-four--we shan't dispute a year or more"), and the verses abound in laughing allusions to her advancing years and wasting form. Hers was "an angel's face a little cracked," but all men would crowd to her door when she was fourscore. His verses to her had always been

"Without one word of Cupid's darts, Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts; With friends.h.i.+p and esteem possessed, I ne'er admitted Love a guest."

Her only fault was that she could not bear the lightest touch of blame.

Her wit and sense, her loving care in illness--to which he owed that fact that he was alive to say it--made her the "best pattern of true friends." She replied, in lines written on Swift's birthday in 1721, that she was his pupil and humble friend. He had trained her judgment and refined her fancy and taste:--

"You taught how I might youth prolong By knowing what was right and wrong; How from my heart to bring supplies Of l.u.s.tre to my fading eyes; How soon a beauteous mind repairs The loss of changed or falling hairs; How wit and virtue from within Send out a smoothness o'er the skin Your lectures could my fancy fix, And I can please at thirty-six."

In 1723 Vanessa is said to have written to Stella or to Swift--there are discrepancies in the versions given by Sheridan and Lord Orrery, both of whom are unreliable--asking whether the report that they were married was true. Swift, we are told, rode to Celbridge, threw down Vanessa's letter in a great rage, and left without speaking a word.(9) Vanessa, whose health had been failing for some time, died shortly afterwards, having cancelled a will in Swift's favour. She left "Cadenus and Vanessa" for publication, and when someone said that she must have been a remarkable woman to inspire such a poem, Stella replied that it was well known that the Dean could write finely upon a broomstick.