The benefit was indeed great; he had rescued Ireland from 81 a very oppressive and predatory invasion: and the popularity which he had gained he was diligent to keep by appearing forward and zealous on every occasion where the publick interest was supposed to be involved. Nor did he much scruple to boast his influence; for when, upon some attempts to regulate the coin, Archbishop Boulter, then one of the Justices', accused him of exasperating the people, he exculpated himself by saying, 'If I had lifted up my finger, they would have torn you to pieces.' But the pleasure of popularity was soon interrupted by domestick 82 misery. Mrs. Johnson, whose conversation was to him the great softener of the ills of life, began in the year of the Drapier's triumph to decline 2; and two years afterwards was so wasted with sickness that her recovery was considered as hopeless. Swift was then in England 3, and had been invited by Lord 83 Bolingbroke to pass the winter with him in France'; but this call of calamity hastened him to Ireland, where perhaps his I walk the streets, and so do my lower friends, from whom, and from whom alone, I have a thousand hats and blessings upon old scores, which those we call the gentry have forgot.' Works, xix. 33. See also ib. xvii. 123, xix. 4. A few years after his death Dr. John Lyon was one of the Committee, along with Judge Marshall and Faulkner the printer, that used to meet in Sheridan's house on the Blind Quay (nearly opposite Stella's old lodgings) for the purpose of getting up a national memorial to the Dean. The effort came to nothing.' W. G. Carroll's Succession of Clergy, &c., p. 26. For The Drapier's Triumph, an allegorical picture by Vertue, see Letters to Chetwode, p. 175. 'The Lords Justices. Ante, TIC- But if I say the word-take care of For Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh, see ib. vi. 420; post, A. PHILIPS, 28; Craik, p. 363, and Boswell's Johnson, i. 318. 2 Orrery, p. 27. Swift, in a prayer written on Oct. 17, 1727, describes her as ' afflicted with a long, constant, weakly state of health.' Works, ix. 291. 3 Pope wrote on March 22, 17256:—' He [Swift] is in perfect health and spirits, the joy of all here who know him, as he was eleven years ago.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), viii. 221. * Swift wrote on July 8, 1726, that he would certainly have accepted the invitation, 'if Mrs. Johnson were not so out of order.' Works, xvii. 39. ... 5 He did not hasten back at once. He knew of her danger by July 15, on which day he wrote:-'I am determined not to go to Ireland, to find her just dead or dying.. I have (till I know farther) fixed on August 15 to set out for Ireland.' Ib. xvii. 41. He started on Aug. 17. Ib. p. 50. In all his distress he gave a thought to scandal. If, during his absence, she came to Dublin she 'should be lodged in some airy healthy part, and not in the Deanery: which besides, you know, cannot but be a very improper thing for that house to breathe her last in.' Ib. p. 40. 84 presence contributed to restore her to imperfect and tottering health. He was now so much at ease that (1727) he returned to England', where he collected three volumes of Miscellanies in conjunction with Pope, who prefixed a querulous and apologetical Preface 2. 85 This important year sent likewise into the world Gulliver's Travels3, a production so new and strange that it filled the reader with a mingled emotion of merriment and amazement. It was received with such avidity that the price of the first edition was raised before the second could be made; it was read by the high and the low, the learned and illiterate. Criticism was for a while lost in wonder: no rules of judgement were applied to a book written in open defiance of truth and regularity. But when distinctions came to be made the part which gave least pleasure was that which describes the Flying Island, and that which gave most disgust must be the history of the Houyhnhnms 5. * On April 8 he wrote:-' I am just going for England.' Works, xvii. 100. In the Spiritual Quixote (1773, iii. 217) Wildgoose finds in The George in the Tree, a public-house near Menden [Meriden] on the Chester road, the following inscription on the parlour window-pane : J. S. D. S. P. D. hospes ignotus, Patriae (ut nunc est) plusquam vellet notus, Tempestate pulsus, A.D. 17-. 2 Post, POPE, 141. Ford described these Miscellanies to Swift in 1733 as 'that jumble with Pope, &c., in three volumes, which put me in a rage whenever I meet them.' Works, xviii. 158. See also ib. xvii. 88, 98, 117, and Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 84. 'The copy-right money was divided between Pope, Arbuthnot, Gay and Swift; but Swift's portion was sent to the widow of a Dublin bookseller.' N.&Q. I S. xii. 198. See also post, POPE, 141 N. 3 See Appendix H. It has been the conversation of the whole town,' wrote Gay. 16. xvii. 81. See ante, GAY, 31. 5 Arbuthnot wrote to Swift :-'I tell you freely, the part of the projectors is the least brilliant.' Ib. xvii. 71. Gay and Pope wrote:-'As to other critics, they think the flying island is the least entertaining;—it is agreed that part was not writ by the same hand, though this has its defenders.' lb. p. 83; Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vii. 90. Voltaire wrote from England on Feb. 2, 1726-7:-'Le second tome roule sur des choses particulières à l'Angleterre et indifférentes à la France. Le premier tome est fait pour plaire à toutes les nations.' Euvres, xlvi. 157. ... Dr. Young wrote of it :-' Before a character is established merit makes fame; afterwards fame makes merit. Swift is not commended for this piece, but this piece for Swift.' Young's Works, 1770, iv. 283. 'I wondered to hear Johnson say of it:-"When once you have thought of big men 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 1. 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". 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. 90 91 He was seized not long afterwards by a fit of giddiness', and again heard of the sickness and danger of Mrs. Johnson. 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. 92 Beauty and the power of pleasing, the greatest external advan Swift wrote to her on July 24:-'You well know that when I had an intention to go to France, about the time that the late King died, I desired your opinion (not as you were a courtier) whether I should go or not; and that you absolutely forbid me...; wherein I confess I was your dupe, as well as somebody else's; and for want of that journey I fell sick, and was forced to return hither to my unenvied home.' Works, xvii. p. 371. She replied on Sept. 25:-'If I cannot justify the advice I gave you from the success of it, I gave you my reasons for it, and it was your business to have judged of my capacity by the solidity of my arguments.' lb. p. 392. See also ib. pp. 107, 124, 131, 221, 312, 406. Horace Walpole mentions Lady Betty Germain's defence of Lady Suffolk [Mrs. Howard] 'against that brute who hated everybody that he hoped would get him a mitre, and did not.' Letters, iv. 505. For her defence in a letter to Swift see Works, xviii. 74. Lady M. W. Montagu wrote of Swift:-'We see him making a servile court where he had any interested views, and meanly abusive when they were disappointed.' Letters, Letters, 1837, iii. 18. She had the insolence to add that 'had it not been for the good nature of these very mortals they [Swift and Pope] contemn, these two superior beings were entitled by their birth and hereditary fortune to be only a couple of link-boys.' I Works, xvii. 130. On Aug. 19, 1727, he wrote:--'I have a hundred oceans rolling in my ears, into which no sense has been poured this fortnight. 16. p. 133. * On Aug. 29, 1727, he wrote of her from Pope's house:-'I expect the most fatal news that can ever come to me, unless I should be put to death for some ignominious crime.' Ib. p. 134. On Oct. 12 he wrote to Pope, not from Chester but Dublin: 'Two sick friends never did well together.' lb. p. 144. This same year he wrote to him: 'Pope has the talent well to speak, But not to reach the ear; A while they on each other look, Then different studies choose; The Dean sits plodding on a book, Pope walks, and courts the Muse.' Ib. xiv. 198. For his Journal from Chester to Holyhead see Craik, p. 537. He began a brief account of 'her life and character' with the following entry: This day, being Sunday, January 28, 1727-8, about eight o'clock at night, a servant brought me a note with an account of the death of the truest, most virtuous, and valuable friend that I, or perhaps any other person, was ever blessed with.' Works, ix. 274. 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. 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. 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, 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. 3' But yet I'll make assurance double sure.' Macbeth, iv. 1. 83. 4 Ante, SWIFT, 70. He wrote about her to a friend, when she was thought to be dying:-'Dear Jim, pardon me, I know not what I am saying; but believe me that violent friendship is much more lasting, and as much engaging, as violent love.' Works, xvii. 44. 5 Bolingbroke wrote to him in 1724:- Set foot on the contiyour nent; 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. |