wife. But such thoughts had now passed away. Disappointment was pressing heavily on him. Defeat had just befallen him, and he had not yet recast his weapons for a new fight, or roused his genius to new efforts. His friends were at a distance, some of them scattered in exile. He felt himself thrust, perhaps permanently, into obscurity. It was scarcely wonderful that thoughts which might have been cherished in other days, when his hopes were high, should now grow dim and fade. He had striven, too, for pecuniary independence as a means by which he might make himself free in action: and the fruit of his long efforts was a burden of debt. We have seen how, prompted by the memory of his early days, and the endless embarrassments with which scanty means torture a proud man, Swift had fixed for himself, with almost morbid pertinacity, a rigid rule of parsimony. That parsimony involved no sordid avarice, because at this very time he was sinking some of his means in a gift to his parish. But it determined him never to entangle either himself, or one dear to him, in the endless petty cares of domestic poverty.

Weighed down by circumstances as he was, many men might have sought the quiet of marriage, as a resting-place from his toils. It was not so with Swift. Defeated, powerless, growing old, attacked on every side by virulent enemies, he set aside, with a morbid self-torture, not so rare that it need astonish us, the quiet comfort that married life might have brought. He exaggerated the difficulties in its way. Nor were other motives wanting to increase his sullen determination. Married life might have seemed to involve an oblivion more complete than his ambition desired, of all the stormy scenes he had left. He might reject the prospect of settling down into the monotonous life of an Irish ecclesiastic, amidst a people whom he despised. He might still see fights before him, where it would be better that he should stand unencumbered and alone. His health, too, was filling him with terrible forebodings: worn by the saeva indignatio that wasted

his life, wearied by the struggle, burdened by warnings of decay, he might feel that side of his nature which a woman's love could touch, leaning more and more to the cold impassiveness, to which it had ever been inclined. Swift tells a friend, even in earlier life, that his temperament was cold, and that this was a safeguard to his heart. His biographers have not unfairly accepted his own account, and have explained by its means the mystery of his relation to Stella. With some reservations this may be true: but the reservations are worth remark. A very little knowledge of human nature tells us, that men do not commonly proclaim their coldness of temperament, when it is so marked as to provoke ridicule rather than inspire respect. Nor are the qualities we find in Swift, exactly those we should expect to find in a nature over which passion had no sway. But without ascribing to Swift all that a strained interpretation of his own words has been thought to convey, we may still find in him one of the most striking instances of a phase of human nature that is not uncommon, where the very force of intellectual passion acts with the expulsive power of a new emotion upon other feelings. It was the consuming intensity of his hate and scorn that left so little room for feelings that with most men are so strong. With the growth of his satiric vehemence, these other feelings became even more straitened and more cold.

To all these motives for Swift's action, we must add the entanglement in which he found himself from suffering Vanessa's passion to live on. This would not argue in Swift any real division of feeling between Stella and Vanessa, and much less any idea of conscious deception of the latter. But he had rashly allowed her passion to continue he knew how quick slander was: and he was certain that his announced marriage would rouse Vanessa's rancour, and make his name a jest. Prudence, natural indeed though scarcely dignified, was added to his other motives for keeping secret the concession that he made to Stella's wish.

On Stella's side, whatever her own hopes had been, it was enough that Swift willed it so. Moulded by his teaching, inured to patience, used to accept his will as law, she submitted to the conditions he imposed. Had she any stings of jealousy, these might now be quieted by the thought that, formal as was her own tie to him, it was closer than any other. But she had, indeed, little choice in the matter. She had asked security for her reputation. Swift gave it; and its secresy was a condition which, harsh as it was, might fairly be said not to lessen its efficacy to soothe her conscientious scruples.

She bowed to the conditions, and allowed no outward sign, at least, of her discontent, to shew itself. Their intercourse remained at once as limited, and yet as easy, as before. She was addressed by Swift, and addressed him, in a tone of cordial and often affectionate friendliness. To the world no change appeared in her manner to him who had been "her early and her only guide," and whose wife she now was.

Swift's determination may have been mistaken, morbid, even callous: but this need not lessen our reverence for Stella's devotion. It was not hers to criticise his motives: it was hers only to be loyal to his decision. She knew that the secret of her rightful place as his wife was safe in the keeping of a very few chosen friends. Before her death others might share it : in the end the world might know it: but meanwhile it need go no further.

A few years later-about the year 1723-Swift's decision seems to have relented. It is to that year that it seems proper to assign a story which we may infer to have been told to Dr. Sheridan by Stella on her death-bed. She then announced to one whose honesty she could entirely trust, the secret of her life. But she told him also that about 1723, Swift had been ready to undo the conditions. By that time his hopes had revived, and the morbid gloom was lessened. Further, Vanessa as we have already seen, had drawn upon herself the announce

ment of the marriage, and, at the same time, the wrath of Swift. To soothe Stella's just indignation, Swift may well have offered to proclaim to the world the position of his wife.*

But her own health was now gone. Her years of patient loyalty, she may have thought, might now be prolonged to the end. She feared, and feared with reason, that the place to which he called her was one which she could scarcely hope to fill. The offer was what she must have chiefly prized: and that she now had. She voluntarily resigned her rights: and answered that it was now too late." A few weeks more brought the death of Vanessa, the publication of "Cadenus and Vanessa," with all its ambiguous phrases: and the noisy rumours which would only have been kept alive by any publication of her own marriage to the Dean. Stella wisely resolved to wait and trust her cause to the judgment of posterity.

See Appendix V. for an examination of the evidence on which this

narrative of Swift's offered announcement of the marriage is based.

CHAPTER XIII.

SWIFT AS IRISH PATRIOT.

1720-1725.

ETAT. 52-57.

Growth of an Irish party-Swift joins it from hatred to the Whigs-The ills of Ireland-Absentees or Out-liers-Neglect of former restrictive statutesDegradation of resident landlords-Wretchedness of the tenants-Professional Beggars-Irish affairs between 1714 and 1720-Swift as Irish Patriot -The Universal Use of Irish Manufactures-Prosecution of the PrinterDuke of Grafton stays proceedings-Swift's Apologia to Pope—Swift against. an Irish Bank-The Copper Coinage-Wood's Patent-Outcry against itM. B. Drapier-The details of the patent-The Committee of InquiryThe Second Letter-The Third Letter-Are the Irish slaves?-The Fourth Letter-The Drapier's Protest-Proclamation against the Author-Carteret as Lord Lieutenant-Swift's letter to him-The Letter to Lord Midleton— The Bill of Indictment against the printer thrown out by the Grand Jury—The Drapier's Fame—The Fifth Letter-Walpole's New Scheme for Ireland Archbishop Boulter and his rule.

WE have seen how, in 1720, the position of parties in Ireland had been modified, and smaller differences forgotten. For us the central interest now lies in the struggle maintained against that narrow and exclusive clique which governed Ireland in avowed contempt of all phases of Irish opinion, and which considered itself as placed there only to subordinate the good of the country to English interests.

Amidst the struggles of contending factions the real evils of the country had been overlooked: the need of reform had occupied the attention only of an insignificant handful. None had yet succeeded in rousing a national spirit to resist the nation's wrongs. Over-insistance on these wrongs was looked upon as veiled Jacobitism. The theorists proposed their schemes