not only in the useful labour of collating the letters which still exist, but in hazarding translations for such cyphers as these. Not a few may deem that such secrets lose in charm more than they yield of biographical interest, by a too painful nicety of interpretation.

APPENDIX V.

SWIFT'S OFFER TO ANNOUNCE THE MARRIAGE.

THE evidence which bears on the question of when, and by whom, any proposal to own the marriage, was made, is involved and inconsistent, and in one version tells more severely against Swift than any other incident of his life. On what basis rests a charge of callousness which, if true, would almost amount to barbarity?

Three stories have hitherto been given.

Writing in 1754, Dr. Delany says:

"This (the Dean's increasing gloom of temper) gave Stella inexpressible uneasiness; and I well knew a friend to whom she opened herself upon that head, declaring that the Dean's temper was so altered, and his attention to money so increased (probably increased by his solicitude to save for her sake); her own health at the same time gradually impaired that she could not take upon herself the care of his house and economy: and therefore refused to be publicly owned for his wife, as he earnestly desired she should. It was then, she said, 'too late and therefore better that they should live on, as they had hitherto done.'"

This refers to the year 1722 or thereabouts: since the paragraph which follows speaks of her resolution as confirmed, not very long after, by the publication of "Cadenus and Vanessa," just after the death of Vanessa in 1723.

Next Sheridan, the son of Swift's intimate friend, writing in 1784, says:

"A short time before her death a scene passed between the Dean and her, an account of which I had from my father, and which I shall relate with reluctance, as it seems to bear more hard on Swift's humanity than any other part of his conduct in life. As she found her final dissolution approach, a few days before it happened, in the presence of Dr. Sheridan, she addressed Swift in the most earnest and pathetic terms to grant her dying request. That as the ceremony of marriage had passed between them, though for sundry considerations they had not cohabited in that state, in order to put it out of the power of slander to be busy with her fame after

death, she adjured him by their friendship to let her have the satisfaction of dying at least, though she had not lived, his acknowledged wife. Swift made no reply, but turning on his heel, walked silently out of the room, nor ever saw her afterwards during the few days she lived. This behaviour threw Mrs. Johnson into unspeakable agonies, and for a time she sank under the weight of so cruel a disappointment. But soon after, roused by indignation, she inveighed against his cruelty in the bitterest terms; and, sending for a lawyer, made her will, bequeathing her fortune, by her own name, to charitable uses."

Lastly, on the authority of Theophilus Swift, the son of Deane Swift, Sir Walter Scott gives the following story, in which the words reported by Delany are transferred to the dying scene, but with a widely different purport from that of the story told by Sheridan. Theophilus Swift claimed to have his information from Mrs. Whiteway.

"When Stella was in her last weak state, and one day had come in a chair to the Deanery, she was with difficulty brought into the parlour. The Dean had prepared some mulled wine, and kept it by the fire for her refreshment. After tasting it she became very faint, but, having recovered a little by degrees, when her breath (for she was asthmatic) was allowed her, she desired to lie down. She was carried upstairs and laid on a bed; the Dean sitting by her, held her hand, and addressed her in the most affectionate manner. She drooped, however, very much. Mrs. Whiteway was the only third person present. After a short time, her politeness induced her to withdraw to the adjoining room, but it was necessary, on account of air, that the door should not be closed: it was half shut the rooms were close adjoining. Mrs. Whiteway had too much honour to listen, but could not avoid observing that the Dean and Mrs. Johnson conversed together in a low tone: the latter, indeed, was too weak to raise her voice. Mrs. Whiteway paid no attention, having no idle curiosity, but at length she heard the Dean say, in an audible voice, "Well, my dear, if you wish it, it shall be owned;" to which Stella answered, with a sigh, "It is too late."

With regard to these stories, this much may be said with confidence, that Delany is almost certain to be right, so far as his narrative goes: that Sheridan was at least honest, though the information he got from his father (who died in 1738) was too remote from the date when he wrote his book to let us accept, without hesitation, all he says: while Theophilus Swift, the hair-brained son of a very foolish father, was almost certain to be wrong even when professing to report the words of so trustworthy an authority as Mrs. Whiteway. His story is clearly a mere garbled version of that told by Delany, except that Delany's belongs to 1722, when it was probable, and Theophilus Swift's to 1727, when it was scarcely possible. Delany's story we may therefore accept as true: Theophilus Swift's we may pronounce false.

With regard to Sheridan's story, we must first look at its intrinsic

probability. Swift, it may be allowed, had motives for refusing the acknowledgment in 1727, even though willing to propose it, according to Delany, in 1722. Since 1722 the story of his connection with Vanessa had come out by the publication of the poem "Cadenus and Vanessa." Had he acknowledged Stella as his wife in 1727, the precautions he had taken in their intercourse must have made him ridiculous; we know, also, that in 1726 and 1727 he was exceedingly careful that no rumours should get abroad by Stella's dying at the Deanery. At that time he evidently avoided anything that could give the least confirmation to the report of their marriage.

But when this is allowed, the story still remains improbable. Honest as he is, Sheridan is frequently absurdly circumstantial in his imputing of motives and describing of conversations. His story might, no doubt, be reconciled with that of Delany, by supposing that the Dean had changed his mind in the interval between 1722 and 1727. But had the incident happened as described at the later date, Swift would have felt a resentment against Stella, which might no doubt have passed away with time, but which would probably have prevented his writing as he did of her, in terms of the most earnest affection, immediately after her death. Lastly, if Stella was so roused by indignation, why should she have acted, with regard to her will, just as Swift had, more than a year before, suggested she should do? Would it not have been a more complete revenge to have published to the world the evidence of her marriage which she doubtless possessed, rather than have acquiesced in the refusal by using her maiden name, in a legal document ?

Amongst the MSS.

But here a new fragment of evidence helps us. belonging to Lord Cork, I find a transcript of a letter from Deane Swift to Lord Orrery-one of a series written in the last years of the Dean's life, in which the following occurs :—

"I must correct myself again. What I writ of Stella from the best of my memory was not right exactly. Mrs. Whiteway says, he did not acknowledge her to be his wife in the presence of Dr. Sheridan, but that Stella told Dr. Sheridan he had offered to declare his marriage to the world, which she refused, alleging that it was then too late."

Here, then, is a fourth version of what probability would lead us to think was one and the same story at bottom. Deane Swift would not himself be entitled to a great deal of weight: but here he is almost certain to be right. Mrs. Whiteway was strictly honest and had the best means of information. She was intimate with Sheridan. Deane Swift, as her son-inlaw, was in constant communication with her: and both were trying to amass all the facts they could for Lord Orrery's book, which was already in preparation. The story was told even before the Dean's death. It is not a mere careless version, but is evidently carefully corrected after consul

* Letter to Mr. Worrall, July 15, 1726.

tation with Mrs. Whiteway. The corrected version would seem to make the story less important, since it made Sheridan's evidence less direct ; * and Deane Swift would not readily or lightly have stript his story of any importance that it seemed to possess.

Now we have to see how it suits with the other versions. It is quite enough to account for, and dispose of, the flimsy superstructure that Theophilus Swift built on it, and that Sir Walter Scott accepted. But as the story brings in the elder Sheridan, it is absolutely inconsistent with the story told by Sheridan's son, attributing to his father an opposite version. We must believe one to be mistaken: and of the two, surely the younger Sheridan was most liable to mistake. He-when a boy of seventeen, too young to understand the real bearing of the question-had discussed the matter with his father at least forty-six years before he wrote. The discussion would necessarily involve the fact of Swift's original condition of secrecy. Is it impossible that this condition, imposed by Swift, may have led Sheridan to think that the refusal to remove it was Swift's also?

The story, finally, agrees perfectly with that of Delany, and it would fix the friend of whom Delany speaks as the elder Sheridan himself. The relations between Delany and Sheridan were not very cordial : and this fact may have prompted Delany's omission of the name. An apparent difficulty in the way of this theory arises from the fact that Delany's story refers to 1722, while both the younger Sheridan and Dr. Madden, as reported by Johnson, represent Sheridan's information as given him by Stella only on her death-bed. But the difficulty is only apparent; although Delany's friend spoke of 1722, it does not follow that it was not on Stella's death-bed that he received the account of an occurrence which took place five years before.

APPENDIX VI.

WOOD'S HALFPENCE

To attempt a complete explanation of this transaction is a hopeless task ; but there are certain misrepresentations of it which it is well to clear away. Scott, whose notes to the Drapier's Letters repeat the impressions of earlier editors who were more conversant with the facts, treats the

The statement which Deane Swift corrects occurs previously in the same etter. "It is said, he acknowledged

her to be his wife in the presence of Dr. Sheridan, some little time before she died."

whole affair, in his Life, as a sort of portentous joke on the part of Swift. But it is Lord Stanhope whose version of the affair is most unfair.

He begins by describing the financial part of the patent as “directed by Walpole with his usual skill." Unless the word is used in a sarcastic sense, it is hard to say wherein this skill was shewn. Lord Stanhope forgets to state that the proposed amount of copper coinage was from six to ten times more than independent and competent writers declared to be necessary. In what he calls "this clear and well-conducted transaction," Lord Stanhope finds only one, and that a trifling, flaw, which “could not materially affect the quantity or quality of the coin to be issued." This was the payment to the Duchess of Kendal of £10,000-or about 10 per cent. of the whole coinage—as a preliminary bribe. Lord Stanhope omits to state the further deductions, in payments to the Crown and the Comptroller, amounting to £1000 a year.*

That Irish susceptibilities should have been aroused by the insulting manner of carrying out the transaction, seems to Lord Stanhope only a proof of the nation's folly. When the vote of the Parliament declares that the terms of the Patent had not been carried out, and that, even if they had been, the nation would have lost 150 per cent., Lord Stanhope meets the statement by quoting the impartial authority of Walpole. But Walpole's words, so far as they are intelligible at all, do not touch the fact that copper worth 12d. was to count for two shillings and sixpence in Ireland. His talk of the cost of coinage in the English mint, of the exchange, of "allowances," and so on, is all beside the question. England no doubt paid something for her copper coinage: Ireland was to pay a great deal more.

The Report of the Committee of Privy Council, which Lord Stanhope thinks clear and conclusive, has already been shewn to be, in material points, fallacious. He praises Wood's conduct in consenting that 5§d. should be the limit which any one could be compelled, in one payment, to receive: forgetting that in the multitude of petty payments in Ireland, this sufficiently ensured the speedy currency of the coin.

By arguments so weak as these Lord Stanhope maintains that Swift, for the purposes of a simulated indignation, traded on a popular delusion, and he further believes that Swift attacked this "clear and well-conducted transaction" with no ulterior purpose: that he had no tyranny and no misgovernment to expose, but only a childish love of mischief to indulge : and that, when the outcry against the halfpence was over, "the whole edifice of indignant patriotism crumbled to the ground!"

*This is the statement of the Government Report. The payment was apparently, as a fact, only £300. But the

misstatement represents either further error or more intricate dishonesty.