He gone, the rank infection still remains, The purging flames were better far employ'd, Than when old Sodom was, or Troynovant destroy'd. Sinks down of this infernal paradise, Down come the lofty roofs, the cedar burns, The carvings crackle and the marbles rive, That theatre produced an action truly great, Of kings deposed, most faithful annals tell, And slaughter'd monarchs would a volume swell. tyrants executed one.t Another copy of verses, written about the same period in a lady's ivory table-book," are curious, as the first specimen of that peculiar talent which Swift possessed, of ridiculing the vain, frivolous, and common-place topics of general society. Meantime, amid the ease of a literary life, and with the prospects which Temple's confirmed friendship appeared to open to him, Swift was imperceptibly laying the foundation for a train of misery, which was to em The Banqueting-house, built upon a plan by the celebrated Inigo Jones, alone escaped the conflagration. It is unnecessary to add, that in front of this structure Charles I. was beheaded. The last line originally ran On this day tyrants executed one; But the first three words are blotted out, and the word "memorandum" written below them. Swift's Works, Vol. XIV. p. 52. bitter his future years; for it was during his second residence at Moorpark, that he formed his acquaintance with Esther Johnson, better known by the poetical name of Stella. And before entering upon this ominous part of his history, it is necessary to notice some previous circumstances, which have been reserved to this place. While Swift pursued his studies at Trinity College as a secluded and indigent scholar, his intercourse with female society was probably much limited. On his return to Leicestershire, his mother appears to have had some apprehensions of his forming an imprudent attachment to a young woman of their neighbourhood,* fears which Swift himself treats as visionary, in a letter to a friend. As that letter forms a sort of index to the views with which he frequented female society, and to his plans of settling in life, the reader will excuse an extract. He alludes to his "cold temper, and unconfined humour," as sufficient hinderances to any imprudent attachment. He mentions his resolutions not to think of marriage until his fortune was settled in the world, and hints, that, even then, he would be so hard to please, he might probably put it off till doomsday. But he charges these appearances of at See a Letter to Dr. Worrall, 16th January 1728-9.-" When I went a lad to my mother, after the Revolution, she brought me acquainted with a family, where there was a daughter, with whom I was acquainted. My prudent mother was afraid 1 should be in love with her but when I went to London she married an innkeep. er in Loughborough, in that county, by whom she had several children."-Swift's Works, Vol. XVII. p. 220. The name of this fair seducer was Betty Jones, who, by her marriage above mentioned, became Mrs. Perkins of the George Inn. Her daughter afterwards claimed Swift's protection, and was befriended by him. Letter to the Reverend John Kendall, dated 11th February 1691-2, Swift's Works, Vol. XV. p. 251. A singular anecdote is told, which seems to show, that, at a late period of life, he retained his sentiments concerning early marriages. "A young clergyman, the son of a bishop in Ireland, having married without the knowledge of his friends, it gave umbrage to his family, and his father refused to see him. The Dean being in company with him some time after, said he would tell him a story: When I was a schoolboy at Kilkenny, and in the lower form, I longed very much to have a horse of my own to ride on. tachment, which his friend had deemed symptoms of passion, to an active and restless temper, incapable of enduring idleness, and, therefore, catching at such opportunities of amusement as most readily occurred, and frequently seeking and finding it in the sort of insignificant gallantry, which he had used towards the girl in question; a habit, he adds, to be laid aside, whenever he began to take sober resolutions, and which, should he enter the church, he would not find it hard to lay down in the porch. Swift proved unable to keep the promise which, doubtless, he had made to himself, as well as to his friend; and it is probably to a habit, at first indulged merely from vanity, or for the sake of amusement, that we are to trace the well-known circumstances which embittered his life, and impaired his reputation. His next attachment assumed a more serious complexion. It was contracted in Ireland, and the object was Jane Waryng, the sister of his ancient college companion, whom by a cold poetical conceit he has termed Varina. From the letter* which he wrote to that lady, 29th April 1696, his passion appears to have been deep and serious, with too much of the tragic mood to accord exactly with his account of those petty intrigues, in which One day I saw a poor man leading a very mangy lean horse out of the town to kill him for the skin. I asked the man if he would sell him, which he readily consented to, upon my offering him somewhat more than the price of the hide, which was all the money had in the world. I immediately got on him, to the great envy of some of my schoolfellows, and to the ridicule of others, and rode him about the town. The horse soon tired and laid down. As I had no stable to put him into, nor any money to pay for his sustenance, I began to find out what a foolish bargain I had made, and cried heartily for the loss of my cash; but the horse dying soon after upon the spot, gave me some relief." To this the young clergyman answered, Sir, your story is very good, and applicable to my case; I own I deserve such a rebuke ;' and then burst into a flood of tears. The Dean made no reply, but went the next day to the lord-lieutenant, and prevailed on him to give the young gentleman a small living, then vacant, for his immediate support and not long after brought about a reconciliation between his father and him,” *Swift's Works, Vol. XV. p. 262. Cadenus, common forms apart, On the contrary, the letter to Varina proposes, in the most pressing terms, matrimony as a "just and honourable action, which would furnish health to her, and unspeakable happiness to both." It is a pleading of vehemence and exclamation, containing a solemn offer to forego every prospect of interest for the sake of Varina; and a pathetic complaint, that her love was more fatal than her cruelty. Another letter, which we find addressed to the same lady, is addressed to Miss Jane Waryng (no longer Varina) and is written in a very different tone from the first. Four years had now elapsed, an interval in which much may have happened to abate the original warmth of Swift's passion; nor is it perhaps very fair, ignorant as we are of what had occurred in the interim, to pass a severe sentence upon his conduct, when, after being mortified by Varina's cruelty during so long a period, he seems to have been a little startled by her sudden offer of capitulation. It is, however, certain, that, just when the lover, worn out by neglect, or disgusted by uncertainty, began to grow cool in his suit, the lady, a case not altogether without example, became pressing and categorical in her enquiries what had altered the style of her admirer's letters. In reply, Swift charges Varina with want of affection, and indifference, states his own income in a most dismal point of view, yet intimates he might well pretend to a better fortune than she was possessed of. He is so far from retaining his former opinion as to the effects of a happy union, that he enquires whether the physicians had got over some scruples they appeared to entertain on the subject of her health. Lastly, he demands peremptorily to know whether she could undertake to manage their domestic affairs, with an income of rather less than three hundred pounds a-year; whether she would engage to follow the methods he should point out for the improvement of her mind; whether she could bend all her affections to the same direction which he should give his own, and so govern her passions, however justly provoked, as at all times to resume her good humour at his approach; and, finally, whether she could account the place where he resided, more welcome than courts and cities without him? These premises agreed, (as indispensable to please those, who, like himself, were "deeply read in the world,") he intimates his willingness to wed her, though without personal beauty or large fortune. It must re-. main uncertain whether the positive requisites, or the proffered abatements, were least acceptable to the lady; but, under all circumstances, she must have been totally divested of pride and delicacy, if she could, upon such terms, have exacted from her reluctant lover, the faith which he seemed so unwilling to plight. Thus separated Swift and Varina. Much, as we have already noticed, may no doubt have happened, in the course of their correspondence, to alter his opinion of that lady, or lead him to imagine that, in delaying a positive answer to his proposals, she was trifling with his passion. But ere she was dismissed from the scene, he had learned to know one with whom much of the good and evil of his future life was to be inseparably blended. Esther Johnson, who purchased, by a life of prolonged hopes and disappointed affection, a poetical immortality under the name of Stella, became first known to Swift during his second residence with Sir William Temple. The birth of Stella has been carefully investigated, with the hopes of discovering something that might render a mysterious and romantic history yet more romantic. But there are no sound reasons for supposing that she had other parents than her reputed father and mother, the former the younger brother of a good family in Nottinghamshire, and by profession a merchant in London, the latter a woman of acute and penetrating talents, the friend and companion of Lady Gifford, Temple's favourite sister, and cherished by her with particular respect and regard until the end of her life. Johnson, the father, died soon after Stella's birth, but Mrs. Johnson and her two daughters were inmates of Moorpark for several years. General interest was |