and there. Swift saw Vanessa, sometimes with that "something awful in his
looks which struck her dumb," sometimes with words of perplexed kindness;
he persuaded her to go out, to read, to amuse herself; he introduced
clergymen to her--one of them afterwards Archbishop of Cashel--as suitors
for her hand; he induced her to leave Dublin, and go to her property at
Selbridge, about twelve miles from Dublin, where now and then he went to
visit her, where she used to plant laurels against every time of his
coming, and where "Vanessa's bower," in which she and the Dean used to
sit, with books and writing materials before them, during those happy
visits, was long an object of interest to tourists; he wrote kindly
letters to her, some in French, praising her talents, her conversation,
and her writing, and saying that he found in her "_tout ce que la nature
a donnee a un mortel, l'honneur, la vertu, le bon sens, l'esprit, la
douceur, l'agrement et la fermete d'ame_." All did not suffice; and one
has to fancy, during those long years, the restless beatings, on the one
hand, of that impassioned woman's heart, now lying as cold
undistinguishable ashes in some Irish grave, and, on the other hand, the
distraction, and anger, and daily terror, of the man she clung to. For,
somehow or other, there _was_ an element of terror mingled with the
affair. What it was is beyond easy scrutiny, though possibly the data
exist if they were well sifted. The ordinary story is that some time in
the midst of those entanglements with Vanessa, and in consequence of their
effects on the rival-relationship--Stella having been brought almost to
death's door by the anxieties caused her by Vanessa's proximity, and by
her own equivocal position in society--the form of marriage was gone
through by Swift and Stella, and they became legally husband and wife,
although with an engagement that the matter should remain secret, and that
there should be no change in their manner of living. The year 1716, when
Swift was forty-nine years of age, and Stella thirty-two, is assigned as
the date of this event; and the ceremony is said to have been performed in
the garden of the deanery by the Bishop of Clogher. But more mystery
remains. "Immediately subsequent to the ceremony," says Sir Walter Scott,
"Swift's state of mind appears to have been dreadful. Delany (as I have
learned from a friend of his widow) said that about the time it was
supposed to have taken place he observed Swift to be extremely gloomy and
agitated--so much so that he went to Archbishop King to mention his
apprehensions. On entering the library, Swift rushed out with a
countenance of distraction, and passed him without speaking. He found the
archbishop in tears, and, upon asking the reason, he said, 'You have just
met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness
you must never ask a question.'" What are we to make of this? Nay more,
what are we to make of it when we find that the alleged marriage of Swift
with Stella, with which Scott connects the story, is after all denied by
some as resting on no sufficient evidence: even Dr. Delany, though he
believed in the marriage, and supposed it to have taken place about the
time of this remarkable interview with the archbishop, having no certain
information on the subject? If we assume a secret marriage with Stella,
indeed, the subsequent portion of the Vanessa story becomes more
explicable. On this assumption we are to imagine Swift continuing his
letters to Vanessa, and his occasional visits to her at Selbridge on the
old footing, for some years after the marriage, with the undivulged secret
ever in his mind, increasing tenfold his former awkwardness in
encountering her presence. And so we come to the year 1720, when, as the
following scraps will show, a new paroxysm on the part of Vanessa brought
on a new crisis in their relations.
_Miss Vanhomrigh to Swift: Selbridge, 1720._ "Believe me, it is with
the utmost regret that I now write to you, because I know your
good-nature such that you cannot see any human creature miserable
without being sensibly touched. Yet what can I do? I must either
unload my heart, and tell you all its griefs, or sink under the
inexpressible distress I now suffer by your prodigious neglect of me.
It is now ten long weeks since I saw you, and in all that time I have
never received but one letter from you, and a little note with an
excuse. Oh, have you forgot me? You endeavour by severities to force
me from you. Nor can I blame you; for, with the utmost distress and
confusion, I behold myself the cause of uneasy reflections to you.
Yet I cannot comfort you, but here declare that it is not in the
power of art, time, or accident, to lessen the inexpressible passion
I have for ----. Put my passion under the utmost restraint, send me
as distant from you as the earth will allow; yet you cannot banish
those charming ideas which will ever stick by me whilst I have the
use of memory. Nor is the love I bear you only seated in my soul; for
there is not a single atom of my frame that is not blended with it.
Therefore do not flatter yourself that separation will ever change my
sentiments; for I find myself unquiet in the midst of silence, and my
heart is at once pierced with sorrow and love. For Heaven's sake,
tell me what has caused this prodigious change in you which I have
found of late."
_Miss Vanhomrigh to Swift: Dublin, 1720._ * * "I believe you thought
I only rallied when I told you the other night that I would pester
you with letters. Once more I advise you, if you have any regard for
your quiet, to alter your behaviour quickly; for I do assure you I
have too much spirit to sit down contented with this treatment.
Because I love frankness extremely, I here tell you now that I have
determined to try all manner of human arts to reclaim you; and, if
all these fail, I am resolved to have recourse to the black one,
which, it is said, never does. Now see what inconveniency you will
bring both yourself and me unto * *. When I undertake a thing, I
don't love to do it by halves."
_Swift to Miss Vanhomrigh: Dublin, 1720._ "If you write as you do, I
shall come the seldomer on purpose to be pleased with your letters,
which I never look into without wondering how a brat that cannot read
can possibly write so well. * * Raillery apart, I think it
inconvenient, for a hundred reasons, that I should make your house a
sort of constant dwelling-place. I will certainly come as often as I
conveniently can; but my health and the perpetual run of ill weather
hinder me from going out in the morning, and my afternoons are taken
up I know not how; so that I am in rebellion with a hundred people
besides yourself for not seeing them. For the rest, you need make use
of no other black art besides your ink. It is a pity your eyes are
not black, or I would have said the same; but you are a white witch,
and can do no mischief."
_Swift to Miss Vanhomrigh: Dublin, 1720._ "I received your letter
when some company was with me on Saturday night, and it put me in
such confusion that I could not tell what to do. This morning a woman
who does business for me told me she heard I was in love with one,
naming you, and twenty particulars; that little master ---- and I
visited you, and that the Archbishop did so; and that you had
abundance of wit, &c. I ever feared the tattle of this nasty town,
and told you so; and that was the reason why I said to you long ago
that I would see you seldom when you were in Ireland; and I must beg
you to be easy, if, for some time, I visit you seldomer, and not in
so particular a manner."
_Miss Vanhomrigh to Swift: Selbridge, 1720._ * * "Solitude is
unsupportable to a mind which is not easy. I have worn out my days in
sighing and my nights in watching and thinking of ----, who thinks
not of me. How many letters shall I send you before I receive an
answer? * * Oh that I could hope to see you here, or that I could go
to you! I was born with violent passions, which terminate all in
one--that inexpressible passion I have for you. * * Surely you cannot
possibly be so taken up but you might command a moment to write to me
and force your inclinations to so great a charity. I firmly believe,
if I could know your thoughts (which no human creature is capable of
guessing at, because never anyone living thought like you), I should
find you had often in a rage wished me religious, hoping then I
should have paid my devotions to Heaven. But that would not spare
you; for, were I an enthusiast, still you'd be the deity I should
worship. What marks are there of a deity but what you are to be known
by? You are present everywhere; your dear image is always before my
eyes. Sometimes you strike me with that prodigious awe I tremble with
fear; at other times a charming compassion shines through your
countenance, which revives my soul. Is it not more reasonable to
adore a radiant form one has seen than one only described?"
_Swift to Miss Vanhomrigh: Dublin, October 15, 1720._ "All the
morning I am plagued with impertinent visits, below any man of sense
or honour to endure, if it were any way avoidable. Afternoons and
evenings are spent abroad in walking to keep off and avoid spleen as
far as I can; so that, when I am not so good a correspondent as I
could wish, you are not to quarrel and be governor, but to impute it
to my situation, and to conclude infallibly that I have the same
respect and kindness for you I ever professed to have."
_Swift to Miss Vanhomrigh: Gaullstoun, July 5, 1721._ * * "Settle
your affairs, and quit this scoundrel-island, and things will be as
you desire. I can say no more, being called away. _Mais soyez assuree
que jamais personne au monde n'a ete aimee, honoree, estimee, adoree
par votre ami que vous._"
Vanessa did not quit the "scoundrel-island;" but, on the contrary,
remained in it, unmanageable as ever. In 1722, about a year after the date
of the last scrap, the catastrophe came. In a wild fit Vanessa, as the
story is, took the bold step of writing to Stella, insisting on an
explanation of the nature of Swift's engagements to her; Stella placed
the letter in Swift's hands; and Swift, in a paroxysm of fury, rode
instantly to Selbridge, saw Vanessa without speaking, laid a letter on her
table, and rode off again. The letter was Vanessa's death-warrant. Within
a few weeks she was dead, having previously revoked a will in which she
had bequeathed all her fortune to Swift.
Whatever may have been the purport of Vanessa's communication to Stella,
it produced no change in Swift's relations to the latter. The pale pensive
face of Hester Johnson, with her "fine dark eyes" and hair "black as a
raven," was still to be seen on reception-evenings at the deanery, where
also she and Mrs. Dingley would sometimes take up their abode when Swift
was suffering from one of his attacks of vertigo and required to be
nursed. Nay, during those very years in which, as we have just seen, Swift
was attending to the movements to and fro of the more imperious Vanessa in
the background, and assuaging her passion by visits and letters, and
praises of her powers, and professions of his admiration of her beyond all
her sex, he was all the while keeping up the same affectionate style of
intercourse as ever with the more gentle Stella, whose happier lot it was
to be stationed in the centre of his domestic circle, and addressing to
her, in a less forced manner, praises singularly like those he addressed
to her rival. Thus, every year, on Stella's birth-day, he wrote a little
poem in honour of the occasion. Take the one for 1718, beginning thus:--
"Stella this day is thirty-four
(We sha'n't dispute a year or more):
However, Stella, be not troubled;
Although thy size and years be doubled
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green,
So little is thy form declined,
Made up so largely in thy mind."
Stella would reciprocate these compliments by verses on the Dean's
birth-day; and one is struck with the similarity of her acknowledgments of
what the Dean had taught her and done for her to those of Vanessa. Thus,
in 1721,--
"When men began to call me fair,
You interposed your timely care;
You early taught me to despise
The ogling of a coxcomb's eyes;
Show'd where my judgment was misplaced,
Refined my fancy and my 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."
The death of Vanessa in 1722 left Swift from that time entirely Stella's.
How she got over the Vanessa affair in her own mind, when the full extent
of the facts became known to her, can only be guessed. When some one
alluded to the fact that Swift had written beautifully about Vanessa, she
is reported to have said "That doesn't signify, for we all know the Dean
could write beautifully about a broomstick." "A woman, a true woman!" is
Mr. Thackeray's characteristic comment.
To the world's end those who take interest in Swift's life will range
themselves either on the side of Stella or on that of Vanessa. Mr.
Thackeray prefers Stella, but admits that, in doing so, though the
majority of men may be on his side, he will have most women against him.
Which way Swift's _heart_ inclined him it is not difficult to see. Stella
was the main influence of his life; the intimacy with Vanessa was but an
episode. And yet, when he speaks of the two women as a critic, there is a
curious equality in his appreciation of them. Of Stella he used to say
that her wit and judgment were such that "she never failed to say the best
thing that was said wherever she was in company;" and one of his
epistolary compliments to Vanessa is that he had "always remarked that,
neither in general nor in particular conversation, had any word ever
escaped her lips that could by possibility have been better." Some little
differences in his preceptorial treatment of them may be discerned--as
when he finds it necessary to admonish poor Stella for her incorrigibly
bad spelling, no such admonition, apparently, being required for Vanessa;
or when, in praising Stella, he dwells chiefly on her honour and gentle
kindliness, whereas in praising Vanessa he dwells chiefly on her genius
and force of mind. But it is distinctly on record that his regard for both
was founded on his belief that in respect of intellect and culture both
were above the majority of their sex. And here it may be repeated that,
not only from the evidence afforded by the whole story of Swift's
relations to these two women, but also from the evidence of distinct
doctrinal passages scattered through his works, it appears that those who
in the present day maintain the co-equality of the two sexes, and the
right of women to as full and varied an education, and as free a social
use of their powers, as is allowed to men, may claim Swift as a pioneer in
their cause. Both Stella and Vanessa have left their testimony that from
the very first Swift took care to indoctrinate them with peculiar views on
this subject; and both thank him for having done so. Stella even goes
further, and almost urges Swift to do on the great scale what he had done
for her individually:--
"O turn your precepts into laws;
Redeem the woman's ruin'd cause;
Retrieve lost empire to our sex,
That men may bow their rebel necks."
This fact that Swift had a _theory_ on the subject of the proper mode of
treating and educating women, which theory was in antagonism to the ideas
of his time, explains much both in his conduct as a man and in his habits
as a writer.
* * * * *
For the first six years of his exile in Ireland after the death of Queen
Anne, Swift had published nothing of any consequence, and had kept aloof
from politics, except when they were brought to his door by local
quarrels. In 1720, however, he again flashed forth as a political
luminary, in a character that could hardly have been anticipated--that of
an Irish patriot. Taking up the cause of the "scoundrel-island," to which
he belonged by birth, if not by affection, and to which fate had consigned
him in spite of all his efforts, he made that cause his own. Virtually
saying to his old Whig enemies, then in power on the other side of the
water, "Yes, I am an Irishman, and I will show you what an Irishman is,"
he constituted himself the representative of the island, and hurled it,
with all its pent-up mass of rage and wrongs, against Walpole and his
administration. First, in revenge for the commercial wrongs of Ireland
came his _Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures, utterly
Rejecting and Renouncing Everything Wearable that comes from England_;
then, amidst the uproar and danger excited by this proposal, other and
other defiances in the same tone; and lastly, in 1723, on the occasion of
the royal patent to poor William Wood to supply Ireland, without her own
consent, with a hundred and eight thousand pounds' worth of copper
half-pence of English manufacture, the unparalleled _Drapier's Letters_,
which blasted the character of the coppers and asserted the nationality of
Ireland. All Ireland, Catholic as well as Protestant, blessed the Dean of
St. Patrick's; associations were formed for the defence of his person;
and, had Walpole and his Whigs succeeded in bringing him to trial, it
would have been at the expense of an Irish rebellion. From that time till
his death Swift was the true King of Ireland; only when O'Connell arose
did the heart of the nation yield equal veneration to any single chief;
and even at this day the grateful Irish, forgetting his gibes against
them, and forgetting his continual habit of distinguishing between the
Irish population as a whole and the English and Protestant part of it to
which he belonged himself, cherish his memory with loving enthusiasm, and
speak of him as the "great Irishman." Among the phases of Swift's life
this of his having been an Irish patriot and agitator deserves to be
particularly remembered.
In the year 1726 Swift, then in his sixtieth year, and in the full flush
of his new popularity as the champion of Irish nationality, visited
England for the first time since Queen Anne's death. Once there, he was
loth to return; and a considerable portion of the years 1726 and 1727 was
spent by him in or near London. This was the time of the publication of
_Gulliver's Travels_, which had been written some years before, and also
of some _Miscellanies_, which were edited for him by Pope. It was at
Pope's villa at Twickenham that most of his time was spent; and it was
there and at this time that the long friendship between Swift and Pope
ripened into that extreme and affectionate intimacy which they both lived
to acknowledge. Gay, Arbuthnot, and Bolingbroke, now returned from exile,
joined Pope in welcoming their friend. Addison had been dead several
years. Prior was dead, and also Vanbrugh and Parnell. Steele was yet
alive; but between him and Swift there was no longer any tie. Political
and aristocratic acquaintances, old and new, there were in abundance, all
anxious once again to have Swift among them to fight their battles. Old
George I. had not long to live, and the Tories were trying again to come
into power in the train of the Prince of Wales. There were even chances of
an arrangement with Walpole, with possibilities, in that or in some other
way, that Swift should not die a mere Irish dean. These prospects were but
temporary. The old King died; and, contrary to expectation, George II.
retained Walpole and his Whig colleagues. In October, 1727, Swift left
England for the last time. He returned to Dublin just in time to watch
over the death-bed of Stella, who expired, after a lingering illness, in
January, 1728. Swift was then in his sixty-second year.
* * * * *
The story of the remaining seventeen years of Swift's life--for, with all
his maladies, bodily and mental, his strong frame withstood, for all that
time of solitude and gloom, the wear of mortality--is perhaps better known
than any other part of his biography. How his irritability and
eccentricities and avarice grew upon him, so that his friends and servants
had a hard task in humouring him, we learn from the traditions of others;
how his memory began to fail, and other signs of breaking-up began to
appear, we learn from himself;--
"See how the Dean begins to break!
Poor gentleman he droops apace;
You plainly find it in his face.
That old vertigo in his head
Will never leave him till he's dead.
Besides, his memory decays;
He recollects not what he says;
He cannot call his friends to mind,
Forgets the place where last he dined,
Plies you with stories o'er and o'er;
He told them fifty times before."
The fire of his genius, however, was not yet burnt out. Between 1729 and
1736 he continued to throw out satires and lampoons in profusion,
referring to the men and topics of the day, and particularly to the
political affairs of Ireland; and it was during this time that his
_Directions to Servants_, his _Polite Conversation_, and other well-known
facetiae, first saw the light. From the year 1736, however, it was well
known in Dublin that the Dean was no more what he had been, and that his
recovery was not to be looked for. The rest will be best told in the words
of Sir Walter Scott:--
"The last scene was now rapidly approaching, and the stage darkened
ere the curtain fell. From 1736 onward the Dean's fits of periodical
giddiness and deafness had returned with violence; he could neither
enjoy conversation nor amuse himself with writing, and an obstinate
resolution which he had formed not to wear glasses prevented him from
reading. The following dismal letter to Mrs. Whiteway [his cousin,
and chief attendant in his last days] in 1740 is almost the last
document which we possess of the celebrated Swift as a rational and
reflecting being. It awfully foretells the catastrophe which shortly
after took place.
'I have been very miserable all night, and to-day extremely deaf
and full of pain. I am so stupid and confounded that I cannot
express the mortification I am under both in body and mind. All
I can say is that I am not in torture, but I daily and hourly
expect it. Pray let me know how your health is and your family.
I hardly understand one word I write. I am sure my days will be
very few; few and miserable they must be.
'I am, for these few days,
'Yours entirely,
'J. SWIFT.'
'If I do not blunder, it is Saturday, July 26th, 1740.'
"His understanding having totally failed soon after these melancholy
expressions of grief and affection, his first state was that of
violent and furious lunacy. His estate was put under the management
of trustees, and his person confided to the care of Dr. Lyons, a
respectable clergyman, curate to the Rev. Robert King, prebendary of
Dunlavin, one of Swift's executors. This gentleman discharged his
melancholy task with great fidelity, being much and gratefully
attached to the object of his care. From a state of outrageous
frenzy, aggravated by severe bodily suffering, the illustrious Dean
of St. Patrick's sank into the situation of a helpless changeling. In
the course of about three years he is only known to have spoken once
or twice. At length, when this awful moral lesson had subsisted from
1743 until the 19th of October, 1745, it pleased God to release him
from this calamitous situation. He died upon that day without a
single pang, so gently that his attendants were scarce aware of the
moment of his dissolution."
Swift was seventy-eight years of age at the time of his death, having
outlived all his contemporaries of the Queen Anne cluster of wits, with
the exception of Bolingbroke, Ambrose Philips, and Cibber. Congreve had
died in 1729; Steele in the same year; Defoe in 1731; Gay in 1732;
Arbuthnot in 1735; Tickell in 1740; and Pope, who was Swift's junior by
twenty-one years, in 1744. Swift, therefore, is entitled in our literary
histories to the place of patriarch as well as to that of chief among the
Wits of Queen Anne's reign; and he stands nearest to our own day of any of
them whose writings we still read. As late as the year 1820 a person was
alive who had seen Swift as he lay dead in the deanery before his burial,
great crowds going to take their last look of him. "The coffin was open;
he had on his head neither cap nor wig; there was not much hair on the
front or very top, but it was long and thick behind, very white, and was
like flax upon the pillow." Such is the last glimpse we have of Swift on
earth. Exactly ninety years afterwards the coffin was taken up from its
resting-place in the aisle of the cathedral; and the skull of Swift, the
white locks now all mouldered away from it, became an object of
scientific curiosity. Phrenologically, it was a disappointment, the
extreme lowness of the forehead striking everyone, and the so-called
organs of wit, causality, and comparison being scarcely developed at all.
There were peculiarities, however, in the shape of the interior,
indicating larger capacity of brain than would have been inferred from the
external aspect. Stella's coffin was exhumed, and her skull examined at
the same time. The examiners found the skull "a perfect model of symmetry
and beauty."
* * * * *
Have we said too much in declaring that of all the men who illustrated
that period of our literary history which lies between the Revolution of
1688 and the beginning or middle of the reign of George II. Swift alone
(Pope excepted, and he only on certain definite and peculiar grounds)
fulfils to any tolerable extent those conditions which would entitle him
to the epithet of "great," already refused to his age as a whole? We do
not think so. Swift _was_ a great genius; nay, if by _greatness_ we
understand general mass and energy rather than any preconceived
peculiarity of quality, he was the greatest genius of his age. Neither
Addison, nor Steele, nor Pope, nor Defoe, possessed, in anything like the
same degree, that which Goethe and Niebuhr, seeking a name for a certain
attribute found often present, as they thought, in the higher and more
forcible order of historic characters, agreed to call the _demonic_
element. Indeed very few men in our literature, from first to last, have
had so much of this element in them--perhaps the sign and source of all
real greatness--as Swift. In him it was so obvious as to attract notice at
once. "There is something in your looks," wrote Vanessa to him, "so awful
that it strikes me dumb;" and again, "Sometimes you strike me with that
prodigious awe I tremble with fear;" and again, "What marks are there of a
deity that you are not known by?" True, these are the words of a woman
infatuated with love; but there is evidence that, wherever Swift went, and
in whatever society he was, there was this magnetic power in his presence.
Pope felt it; Addison felt it; they all felt it. We question if, among all
our literary celebrities, from first to last, there has been one more
distinguished for being personally formidable to all who came near him.