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 friendship from Stella’s
childhood, the more specially as the question has been obscured by many
assertions 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 Godwin, 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 Godwin. 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 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, {0a} 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 Nottinghamshire, 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. {0b} 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 Dicksee 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, {0c} dated 1694,
directing the payment of £20 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 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 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, with the £100 I put into the Exchequer for her life and my own,
and declare the £100 to be hers which I am told is there in my name upon
the survivorship, 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 publishing 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 secretaryship 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 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 canal (after the Dutch
fashion 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 fashionable 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, 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 incumbent 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 assure 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 lustre 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 passive.” 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 attitude 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 fashionable 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 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.
{0d} 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; {0e} 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. {0f} 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 title-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 friendship, “with
gratitude, 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 passion; 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 friendship” 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 friendship. “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 assured 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
passion.”
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 passion, and that if she could not be satisfied with
friendship the intimacy must cease. To quote Sir Henry Craik, “The
friendship 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
circumstances 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 friendship. 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
relationship 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 circumstances,
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. {0g} What right have we to put aside Swift’s
plain and repeated statements? Moreover, his attitude 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. {0h}
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 friendship 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 lustre 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. {0i} 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.
Soon after this tragedy Swift became engrossed in the Irish agitation
which led to the publication of the _Drapier’s Letters_, and in 1726 he
paid a long-deferred visit to London, taking with him the manuscript of
_Gulliver’s Travels_. While in England he was harassed by bad news of
Stella, who had been in continued ill-health for some years. His letters
to friends in Dublin show how greatly he suffered. To the Rev. John
Worrall he wrote, in a letter which he begged him to burn, “What you tell
me of Mrs. Johnson I have long expected with great oppression and
heaviness of heart. We have been perfect friends these thirty-five
years. Upon my advice they both came to Ireland, and have been ever
since my constant companions; and the remainder of my life will be a very
melancholy scene, when one of them is gone, whom I most esteemed, upon
the score of every good quality that can possibly recommend a human
creature.” He would not for the world be present at her death: “I should
be a trouble to her, and a torment to myself.” If Stella came to Dublin,
he begged that she might be lodged in some airy, healthy part, and not in
the Deanery, where too it would be improper for her to die. “There is
not a greater folly,” he thinks, “than to contract too great and intimate
a friendship, which must always leave the survivor miserable.” To Dr.
Stopford he wrote in similar terms of the “younger of the two” “oldest
and dearest friends I have in the world.” “This was a person of my own
rearing and instructing from childhood, who excelled in every good
quality that can possibly accomplish a human creature. . . . I know not
what I am saying; but believe me that violent friendship is much more
lasting and as much engaging as violent love.” To Dr. Sheridan he said,
“I look upon this to be the greatest event that can ever happen to me;
but all my preparation will not suffice to make me bear it like a
philosopher nor altogether like a Christian. There hath been the most
intimate friendship between us from our childhood, and the greatest merit
on her side that ever was in one human creature towards another.” {0j}
Pope alludes in a letter to Sheridan to the illness of Swift’s
“particular friend,” but with the exception of another reference by Pope,
and of a curiously flippant remark by Bolingbroke, the subject is nowhere
mentioned in Swift’s correspondence with his literary and fashionable
friends in London.
Swift crossed to Ireland in August, fearing the worst; but Stella
rallied, and in the spring of 1727 he returned to London. In August,
however, there came alarming news, when Swift was himself suffering from
giddiness and deafness. To Dr. Sheridan he wrote that the last act of
life was always a tragedy at best: “it is a bitter aggravation to have
one’s best friend go before one.” Life was indifferent to him; if he
recovered from his disorder it would only be to feel the loss of “that
person for whose sake only life was worth preserving. I brought both
those friends over that we might be happy together as long as God should
please; the knot is broken, and the remaining person you know has ill
answered the end; and the other, who is now to be lost, is all that was
valuable.” To Worrall he again wrote (in Latin) that Stella ought not to
be lodged at the Deanery; he had enemies who would place a bad
interpretation upon it if she died there.
Swift left London for Dublin in September; he was detained some days at
Holyhead by stress of weather, and in the private journal which he kept
during that time he speaks of the suspense he was in about his “dearest
friend.” {0k} In December Stella made a will—signed “Esther Johnson,
spinster”—disposing of her property in the manner Swift had suggested.
Her allusions to Swift are incompatible with any such feeling of
resentment as is suggested by Sheridan. She died on January 28, 1728.
Swift could not bear to be present, but on the night of her death he
began to write his very interesting _Character of Mrs. Johnson_, from
which passages have already been quoted. He there calls her “the truest,
most virtuous and valuable friend that I, or perhaps any other person,
was ever blessed with.” Combined with excellent gifts of the mind, “she
had a gracefulness, somewhat more than human, in every motion, word, and
action. Never was so happy a conjunction of civility, freedom, easiness,
and sincerity.” Everyone treated her with marked respect, yet everyone
was at ease in her society. She preserved her wit, judgment, and
vivacity to the last, but often complained of her memory. She chose men
rather than women for her companions, “the usual topic of ladies’
discourse being such as she had little knowledge of and less relish.”
“Honour, truth, liberality, good nature, and modesty were the virtues she
chiefly possessed, and most valued in her acquaintance.” In some Prayers
used by Swift during her last sickness, he begged for pity for “the
mournful friends of Thy distressed servant, who sink under the weight of
her present condition, and the fear of losing the most valuable of our
friends.” He was too ill to be present at the funeral at St. Patrick’s.
Afterwards, we are told, a lock of her hair was found in his desk,
wrapped in a paper bearing the words, “Only a woman’s hair.”
Swift continued to produce pamphlets manifesting growing misanthropy,
though he showed many kindnesses to people who stood in need of help. He
seems to have given Mrs. Dingley fifty guineas a year, pretending that it
came from a fund for which he was trustee. The mental decay which he had
always feared—“I shall be like that tree,” he once said, “I shall die at
the top”—became marked about 1738. Paralysis was followed by aphasia,
and after acute pain, followed by a long period of apathy, death relieved
him in October 1745. He was buried by Stella’s side, in accordance with
his wishes. The bulk of his fortune was left to found a hospital for
idiots and lunatics.
There has been much rather fruitless discussion respecting the reason or
reasons why Swift did not marry Stella; for if there was any marriage, it
was nothing more than a form. Some have supposed that Swift resolved to
remain unmarried because the insanity of an uncle and the fits and
giddiness to which he was always subject led him to fear insanity in his
own case. Others, looking rather to physical causes, have dwelt upon his
coldness of temperament and indisposition to love; upon the repugnance he
often showed towards marriage, and the tone of some of the verses on the
subject written in his later years. Others, again, have found a cause in
his parsimonious habits, in his dread of poverty, the effects of which he
had himself felt, and in the smallness of his income, at least until he
was middle-aged. {0l} It may well be that one or all of these things
influenced Swift’s action. We cannot say more. He himself, as we have
seen, said, as early as 1704, that if his humour and means had permitted
him to think of marriage, his choice would have been Stella. Perhaps,
however, there is not much mystery in the matter. Swift seems to have
been wanting in passion; probably he was satisfied with the affection
which Stella gave him, and did not wish for more. Such an attachment as
his usually results in marriage, but not necessarily. It is not
sufficiently remembered that the affection began in Stella’s childhood.
They were “perfect friends” for nearly forty years, and her advancing
years in no way lessened his love, which was independent of beauty.
Whether Stella was satisfied, who shall say? Mrs. Oliphant thought that
few women would be disposed to pity Stella, or think her life one of
blight or injury. Mr. Leslie Stephen says, “She might and probably did
regard his friendship as a full equivalent for the sacrifice. . . . Is
it better to be the most intimate friend of a man of genius or the wife
of a commonplace Tisdall?” Whatever we may surmise, there is nothing to
prove that she was disappointed. She was the one star which brightened
Swift’s storm-tossed course; it is well that she was spared seeing the
wreck at the end.
* * * * *
The _Journal to Stella_ is interesting from many points of view: for its
bearing upon Swift’s relations with Stella and upon his own character;
for the light which it throws upon the history of the time and upon
prominent men of the day; and for the illustrations it contains of the
social life of people of various classes in London and elsewhere. The
fact that it was written without any thought of publication is one of its
greatest attractions. Swift jotted down his opinions, his hopes, his
disappointments, without thought of their being seen by anybody but his
correspondents. The letters are transparently natural. It has been said
more than once that the _Journal_, by the nature of the case, contains no
full-length portraits, and hardly any sketches. Swift mentions the
people he met, but rarely stops to draw a picture of them. But though
this is true, the casual remarks which he makes often give a vivid
impression of what he thought of the person of whom he is speaking, and
in many cases those few words form a chief part of our general estimate
of the man. There are but few people of note at the time who are not
mentioned in these pages. We see Queen Anne holding a Drawing-room in
her bedroom: “she looked at us round with her fan in her mouth, and once
a minute said about three words to some that were nearest her.” We see
Harley, afterwards the Earl of Oxford, “a pure trifler,” who was always
putting off important business; Bolingbroke, “a thorough rake”; the
prudent Lord Dartmouth, the other Secretary of State, from whom Swift
could never “work out a dinner.” There is Marlborough, “covetous as
Hell, and ambitious as the prince of it,” yet a great general and unduly
pressed by the Tories; and the volatile Earl of Peterborough, “above
fifty, and as active as one of five-and-twenty”—“the ramblingest lying
rogue on earth.” We meet poor Congreve, nearly blind, and in fear of
losing his commissionership; the kindly Arbuthnot, the Queen’s physician;
Addison, whom Swift met more and more rarely, busy with the preparation
and production of _Cato_; Steele, careless as ever, neglecting important
appointments, and “governed by his wife most abominably”; Prior, poet and
diplomatist, with a “lean carcass”; and young Berkeley of Trinity
College, Dublin, “a very ingenious man and great philosopher,” whom Swift
determined to favour as much as he could. Mrs. Masham, the Duchess of
Somerset, the Duchess of Shrewsbury, the Duchess of Hamilton, Lady Betty
Germaine, and many other ladies appear with more or less distinctness;
besides a host of people of less note, of whom we often know little but
what Swift tells us.
Swift throws much light, too, on the daily life of his time. The bellman
on his nightly rounds, calling “Paaast twelvvve o’clock”; the dinner at
three, or at the latest, four; the meetings at coffee-houses; the
book-sales; the visit to the London sights—the lions at the Tower,
Bedlam, the tombs in Westminster Abbey, and the puppet-show; the terrible
Mohocks, of whom Swift stood in so much fear; the polite “howdees” sent
to friends by footmen; these and more are all described in the _Journal_.
We read of curious habits and practices of fashionable ladies; of the
snuff used by Mrs. Dingley and others; of the jokes—“bites,” puns, and
the like—indulged in by polite persons. When Swift lodged at Chelsea, he
reached London either by boat, or by coach,—which was sometimes full when
he wanted it,—or by walking across the “Five Fields,” not without fear of
robbers at night. The going to or from Ireland was a serious matter;
after the long journey by road came the voyage (weather permitting) of
some fifteen hours, with the risk of being seized or pursued by French
privateers; and when Ireland was reached the roads were of the worst. We
have glimpses of fashionable society in Dublin, of the quiet life at
Laracor and Trim, and of the drinking of the waters at Wexford, where
visitors had to put up with primitive arrangements: “Mrs. Dingley never
saw such a place in her life.”
Swift’s own characteristics come out in the clearest manner in the
_Journal_, which gives all his hopes and fears during three busy years.
He was pleased to find on his arrival in London how great a value was set
on his friendship by both political parties: “The Whigs were ravished to
see me, and would lay hold on me as a twig while they are drowning;” but
Godolphin’s coldness enraged him, so that he was “almost vowing
vengeance.” Next day he talked treason heartily against the Whigs, their
baseness and ingratitude, and went home full of schemes of revenge. “The
Tories drily tell me I may make my fortune, if I please; but I do not
understand them, or rather, I _do_ understand them.” He realised that
the Tories might not be more grateful than others, but he thought they
were pursuing the true interests of the public, and was glad to
contribute what was in his power. His vanity was gratified by Harley
inviting him to the private dinners with St. John and Harcourt which were
given on Saturdays, and by their calling him Jonathan; but he did not
hope too much from their friendship: “I said I believed they would leave
me Jonathan, as they found me . . . but I care not.”
Of Swift’s frugal habits there is abundant evidence in the _Journal_.
When he came to town he took rooms on a first floor, “a dining-room and
bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week; plaguy dear, but I spend nothing
for eating, never go to a tavern, and very seldom in a coach; yet after
all it will be expensive.” In November he mentions that he had a fire:
“I am spending my second half-bushel of coals.” In another place he
says, “People have so left the town, that I am at a loss for a dinner. . . .
It cost me eighteenpence in coach-hire before I could find a place
to dine in.” Elsewhere we find: “This paper does not cost me a farthing:
I have it from the Secretary’s office.” He often complains of having to
take a coach owing to the dirty condition of the streets: “This rain
ruins me in coach-hire; I walked away sixpennyworth, and came within a
shilling length, and then took a coach, and got a lift back for nothing.”
{0m}
Swift’s arrogance—the arrogance, sometimes, of a man who is morbidly
suspicious that he may be patronised—is shown in the manner in which he
speaks of the grand ladies with whom he came in contact. He calls the
Duke of Ormond’s daughters “insolent drabs,” and talks of his “mistress,
Ophy Butler’s wife, who is grown a little charmless.” When the Duchess
of Shrewsbury reproached him for not dining with her, Swift said that was
not so soon done; he expected more advances from ladies, especially
duchesses. On another occasion he was to have supped at Lady
Ashburnham’s, “but the drab did not call for us in her coach, as she
promised, but sent for us, and so I sent my excuses.” The arrogance was,
however, often only on the surface. It is evident that Swift was very
kind in many cases. He felt deeply for Mrs. Long in her misfortunes,
living and dying in an obscure country town. On the last illness of the
poet Harrison he says, “I am very much afflicted for him, as he is my own
creature. . . . I was afraid to knock at the door; my mind misgave me.”
He was “heartily sorry for poor Mrs. Parnell’s death; she seemed to be an
excellent good-natured young woman, and I believe the poor lad is much
afflicted; they appeared to live perfectly well together.” Afterwards he
helped Parnell by introducing him to Bolingbroke and Oxford. He found
kind words for Mrs. Manley in her illness, and Lady Ashburnham’s death
was “extremely moving. . . . She was my greatest favourite, and I am in
excessive concern for her loss.” Lastly, he was extraordinarily patient
towards his servant Patrick, who drank, stopped out at night, and in many
ways tried Swift’s temper. There were good points about Patrick, but no
doubt the great consideration which Swift showed him was due in part to
the fact that he was a favourite of the ladies in Dublin, and had Mrs.
Vanhomrigh to intercede for him.
But for the best example of the kindly side of Swift’s nature, we must
turn to what he tells us in the _Journal_ about Stella herself. The
“little language” which Swift used when writing to her was the language
he employed when playing with Stella as a little child at Moor Park.
Thackeray, who was not much in sympathy with Swift, said that he knew of
“nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of
these notes.” Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they
were no longer alone, but “a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD.”
In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth “just as if
he were speaking it.” {0n}
Though Mrs. Dingley is constantly associated with Stella in the
affectionate greetings in the _Journal_, she seems to have been included
merely as a cloak to enable him to express the more freely his affection
for her companion. Such phrases as “saucy girls,” “sirrahs,”
“sauceboxes,” and the like, are often applied to both; and sometimes
Swift certainly writes as if the one were as dear to him as the other;
thus we find, “Farewell, my dearest lives and delights, I love you better
than ever, if possible, as hope saved, I do, and ever will. . . . I can
count upon nothing, nor will, but upon MD’s love and kindness. . . . And
so farewell, dearest MD, Stella, Dingley, Presto, all together, now and
for ever, all together.” But as a rule, notwithstanding Swift’s caution,
the greetings intended for Stella alone are easily distinguishable in
tone. He often refers to her weak eyes and delicate health. Thus he
writes, “The chocolate is a present, madam, for Stella. Don’t read this,
you little rogue, with your little eyes; but give it to Dingley, pray
now; and I will write as plain as the skies.” And again, “God Almighty
bless poor Stella, and her eyes and head: what shall we do to cure them,
poor dear life?” Or, “Now to Stella’s little postscript; and I am almost
crazed that you vex yourself for not writing. Can’t you dictate to
Dingley, and not strain your dear little eyes? I am sure ’tis the grief
of my soul to think you are out of order.” They had been keeping his
birthday; Swift wished he had been with them, rather than in London,
where he had no manner of pleasure: “I say Amen with all my heart and
vitals, that we may never be asunder again ten days together while poor
Presto lives.” A few days later he says, “I wish I were at Laracor, with
dear charming MD,” and again, “Farewell, dearest beloved MD, and love
poor poor Presto, who has not had one happy day since he left you.” “I
will say no more, but beg you to be easy till Fortune takes his course,
and to believe MD’s felicity is the great goal I aim at in all my
pursuits.” “How does Stella look, Madam Dingley?” he asks; “pretty well,
a handsome young woman still? Will she pass in a crowd? Will she make a
figure in a country church?” Elsewhere he writes, on receipt of a
letter, “God Almighty bless poor dear Stella, and send her a great many
birthdays, all happy and healthy and wealthy, and with me ever together,
and never asunder again, unless by chance. . . . I can hardly imagine
you absent when I am reading your letter or writing to you. No, faith,
you are just here upon this little paper, and therefore I see and talk
with you every evening constantly, and sometimes in the morning.” The
letters lay under Swift’s pillow, and he fondled them as if he were
caressing Stella’s hand.
Of Stella herself we naturally have no direct account in the _Journal_,
but we hear a good deal of her life in Ireland, and can picture what she
was. Among her friends in and about Trim and Laracor were Dr. Raymond,
the vicar of Trim, and his wife, the Garret Wesleys, the Percevals, and
Mr. Warburton, Swift’s curate. At Dublin there were Archdeacon Walls and
his family; Alderman Stoyte, his wife and sister-in-law; Dean Sterne and
the Irish Postmaster-General, Isaac Manley. For years these friends
formed a club which met in Dublin at each other’s houses, to sup and play
cards (“ombre and claret, and toasted oranges”), and we have frequent
allusions to Stella’s indifferent play, and the money which she lost,
much to Mrs. Dingley’s chagrin: “Poor Dingley fretted to see Stella lose
that four and elevenpence t’other night.” Mrs. Dingley herself could
hardly play well enough to hold the cards while Stella went into the next
room. If at dinner the mutton was underdone, and “poor Stella cannot
eat, poor dear rogue,” then “Dingley is so vexed.” Swift was for ever
urging Stella to walk and ride; she was “naturally a stout walker,” and
“Dingley would do well enough if her petticoats were pinned up.” And we
see Stella setting out on and returning from her ride, with her riband
and mask: “Ah, that riding to Laracor gives me short sighs as well as
you,” he says; “all the days I have passed here have been dirt to those.”
If the _Journal_ shows us some of Swift’s less attractive qualities, it
shows still more how great a store of humour, tenderness, and affection
there was in him. In these letters we see his very soul; in his literary
work we are seldom moved to anything but admiration of his wit and
genius. Such daily outpourings could never have been written for
publication, they were meant only for one who understood him perfectly;
and everything that we know of Stella—her kindliness, her wit, her
vivacity, her loyalty—shows that she was worthy of the confidence.