Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World

by Leo Damrosch

  Showed where my judgment was misplaced,

  Refined my fancy and my taste.14

  Complimentary though the poem is to Swift, it seems a bit strange for a woman of forty to say that she is still his “pupil,” and to describe herself as a “humble friend.” But she knew that her poem would be seen by others in their circle, and perhaps this is how she wanted to appear.

  By now Stella’s health was starting to decline, though the cause is not known. She probably suffered from asthma, and may have contracted tuberculosis as well. As early as 1723 Swift told a neighboring vicar, “Mrs. Johnson eats an ounce a week.”15 By 1725, Swift’s references to aging are more earnest than before:

  No poet ever sweetly sung

  Unless he were, like Phoebus, young,

  Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme

  Unless, like Venus, in her prime.

  At fifty-six, if this be true,

  Am I a poet fit for you?

  Or at the age of forty-three

  Are you a subject fit for me?

  Adieu bright wit, and radiant eyes;

  You must be grave, and I be wise.

  Our fate in vain we would oppose,

  But I’ll be still your friend in prose.

  In a touching conclusion, Swift claims that it’s just as well his eyesight is failing, but refers bleakly to his other affliction:

  No length of time can make you quit

  Honour and virtue, sense and wit;

  Thus you may still be young to me

  While I can better hear than see.

  Oh, ne’er may Fortune show her spite

  To make me deaf, and mend my sight.

  Fifteen years later Swift wrote in the margin, “Now deaf 1740.”16

  Perhaps the best clue to the relationship is something Swift said after Stella was gone: “Violent friendship is much more lasting, and as much engaging, as violent love.” As he made clear to Vanessa in London, he was skeptical of the swept-away kind of falling in love, and may well have feared it. He said the same thing in one of the first Stella poems:

  Thou, Stella, wert no longer young

  When first for thee my harp I strung,

  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.17

  But if the friendship was truly violent, most people would call it love.

  WERE THEY MARRIED OR NOT?

  It is astonishing that on a question of such obvious importance, Swift’s friends were about equally divided, and that no conclusive evidence was available then or later. Readers in those days were addicted to “secret histories” that purported to reveal the scandalous goings-on of the rich and powerful, and Swift admitted that when Stella moved to Ireland, people suspected that “there were a secret history in such a removal; which, however, soon blew off by her excellent conduct.”18 That implies that the gossip stopped; but it didn’t, of course.

  In 1713, after Stella had been living in Dublin for over a decade, Archbishop King sent Swift a friendly letter in which he expressed sympathy for renewed attacks of vertigo, and added, “An odd thought came into my mind on reading that you were among willows, imagining that perhaps your mistress had forsaken you and that was the cause of your malady. If that be the case, cheer up, the loss may be repaired, and I hope the remedy easy.” King meant “mistress” in a blameless sense, and may have been hinting that Swift would soon marry her.19

  Swift had a poor opinion of marriage as an institution. It wasn’t only that a houseful of dependents was a burden for a clergyman to support, as Sheridan’s experience showed. It was also that as an institution, marriage could damage love instead of sustaining it. In his Thoughts on Various Subjects, Swift invoked a pair of rival Olympians: “Venus, a beautiful good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno, a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage; and they were always mortal enemies.” Swift added, “Matrimony hath many children: repentance, discord, poverty, jealousy, sickness, spleen, loathing, etc.”20

  In another aphorism Swift wrote grimly, “The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, and not in making cages.” In other words, they work hard to catch a mate, but not to make him contented with his loss of freedom. Or perhaps love itself is a cage as well as net, as in Blake’s haunting lyric:

  Underneath the net I stray,

  Now entreating burning fire,

  Now entreating iron wire,

  Now entreating tears and sighs—

  O! when will the morning rise?21

  If Swift and Stella did get married, it probably happened in 1716, performed by St. George Ashe, who by then was bishop of Clogher in the north. That is what Sheridan told another clergyman, from whom Johnson in turn got the story. Delany and Deane Swift were likewise sure it took place then, as was the younger Sheridan, who presumably heard about it from his father. Supposedly the marriage took place in the garden of Ashe’s house, and as bishop, he was well placed to keep it secret.22

  On the other hand, Dr. Lyon said that despite what some friends believed about the marriage, “There is no authority for it but a hearsay story, and that very ill founded.” Lyon added that Rebecca Dingley “laughed at it, as an idle tale founded on suspicion,” and that Mrs. Brent, Swift’s housekeeper, “thought it was all Platonic love.”23 But of course, if Stella as well as Swift was determined to keep the marriage secret, Rebecca would have participated in the cover-up. As for Anne Brent, she said that Stella never visited the deanery alone, but she couldn’t have known what might have happened elsewhere.

  John Hawkesworth, one of the first biographers of Swift, summed up the puzzle very well: “Why the Dean did not sooner marry this excellent person; why he married her at all; why his marriage was so cautiously concealed; and why he was never known to meet her but in the presence of a third person; are inquiries to which no man can answer, or has attempted to answer, without absurdity.”24

  One other anecdote survives from this time, and it is a most remarkable one, though again we have it thirdhand. It supposedly originates with Swift’s close friend and fellow clergyman Patrick Delany. Delany was a man of the utmost probity, and if he was indeed the source, the report is most illuminating. Sir Walter Scott heard it from a friend of Delany’s widow:

  Immediately subsequent to the ceremony, Swift’s state of mind appears to have been dreadful. Delany (as I have learned from a friend of his relict) being pressed to give his opinion on this strange union, said that about the time it took place he observed Swift to be extremely gloomy and agitated, so much so that he went to Archbishop King to mention his apprehensions. On [Delany’s] entering the library, Swift rushed out with a countenance of distraction, and passed him without speaking. [Delany] found the Archbishop in tears, and upon asking the reason, [the archbishop] said, “You have just met the most unhappy man on earth; but on the subject of his wretchedness, you must never ask a question.”25

  This is a story told at two removes, by Delany’s widow and her friend, and then retold with novelistic gusto by Sir Walter Scott. It is therefore impossible to know how much credence to give it. But it is not disproved by the mere fact that Delany himself didn’t report it in his commentary on Orrery’s memoir of Swift, nine years after Swift’s death. At that time he could well have regarded the anecdote as too sensitive to make public.

  If the encounter did actually happen, we will never know why Swift was so upset. But it has been conjectured that this was the moment when Swift learned, to his horror, that he and Stella were related by blood, with Sir John Temple as their common ancestor. If Swift and Sir William Temple were half brothers, then Swift was Stella’s uncle. It was against canon law, and also against the law of the land, for an uncle and niece to marry. If they had already done so, the secret must never get out, and he may have hastened to tell the archbishop and implore his support.

  The rumor o
f some sort of blood relationship was widespread, and it even reached Swift’s English friends. Pope and Gay were said to believe that “Mrs. Johnson was Swift’s sister, and that that was the reason of his not cohabiting with her.”26 Conceivably they picked up hints from Swift himself, or thought they did. And this was the reason why John Geree wrote his letter to the Gentleman’s Magazine about the Moor Park ménage: he wanted to defend Swift from Orrery’s claim that he broke Stella’s heart by refusing to marry her. On the contrary, Geree said, it was impossible for such a marriage to take place, and he knew the reason why.

  One other story, though a highly implausible one, should be mentioned. George Monck-Berkeley, a grandson of the philosopher Bishop Berkeley, heard from a St. Patrick’s bell ringer named Richard Brennan “that when he was at school, there was a boy boarded with the master who was commonly reported to be the Dean’s son by Mrs. Johnson.” Brennan recalled “that the boy strongly resembled the Dean in his complexion, that he dined constantly at the deanery every Sunday, and that when other boys were driven out of the Deanery yard, he was suffered to remain there and divert himself.” According to Brennan, the boy died shortly after Stella did. Monck-Berkeley himself was cautious in assessing this: “The story is, however, related merely as the report of the day, and no stress is meant to be laid upon it.” More recent writers have called it “a fanciful yarn” and “a wild tale,” which it almost certainly is.27 Still, it’s one more piece of evidence that questions about the Swift-Stella relationship refused to die.

  CHAPTER 22

  Vanessa in Ireland

  A SECRET LIAISON

  In January of 1714 Mrs. Vanhomrigh (named Hester, like her daughter) died, and her three surviving children were orphans. They stood to inherit ample wealth if complicated legal obstacles could be surmounted, and Swift gave Vanessa a good deal of advice about that. Meanwhile, they had to decide where to live. Bartholomew was on his own by then, and Ginkel had died, which left Vanessa and Molly by themselves.

  Like Stella, Vanessa had inherited property in Ireland. Now that it was apparent that Swift would be returning there for good, Vanessa resolved to follow him, taking Molly with her. In August, when he was with Geree at Letcombe Bassett, she made a surprise trip to Wantage, just three miles away. As at Windsor two years before, Swift was alarmed, no doubt because he didn’t want his host to find out. We have no way of knowing whether they met at Wantage, but a letter he sent after she returned to London made it clear that he would definitely see her again.

  You should not have come by Wantage for a thousand pound. You used to brag you were very discreet; where is it gone? It is probable I may not stay in Ireland long, but be back by the beginning of winter. . . . If you write to me, let some other direct it [that is, write the address], and I beg you will write nothing that is particular, but what may be seen, for I apprehend letters will be opened and inconveniences will happen. If you are in Ireland while I am there, I shall see you very seldom. It is not a place for any freedom, but where everything is known in a week and magnified a hundred degrees. These are rigorous laws that must be passed through; but it is probable we may meet in London in winter. . . . God Almighty bless you. I shall, I hope, be on horseback a day after this comes to your hand. I would not answer your questions for a million, nor can I think of them with any ease of mind. Adieu.

  Ehrenpreis sees this letter as reflecting “an amazing need to entice through discouragement,” but it’s hard to see why it’s discouraging.1 The message is simply that it’s much harder to keep a secret in Dublin than in London. As for the questions Swift doesn’t want to answer, they remain a mystery, though they keep coming up in later letters. They may have concerned the kind of commitment he would be willing to make, either now or later on.

  It’s not known exactly when Vanessa and Molly went to Ireland, but it was no later than the beginning of November, when Swift next wrote to her. They moved into a grand country house that had belonged to their father, in the town of Celbridge, ten miles west of Dublin. They also rented a town house in the city, and Vanessa stayed there often, not necessarily with Molly along.

  And what were Stella’s feelings? Since Vanessa was frequently in Dublin, surely mutual acquaintances would have mentioned her, whether or not they suspected her relationship with Swift. But we don’t know what Stella herself knew or suspected. One clue, though, has been largely overlooked, even though it lies in plain sight. This is a poem Swift wrote in October, a month after his return to Dublin. One would suppose that his reunion with Stella, after nearly four years apart, must have been joyous. But the poem, In Sickness, suggests no such thing. Instead, Swift is strangely alone:

  ’Tis true—then why should I repine

  To see my life so fast decline?

  But why obscurely here alone,

  Where I am neither loved nor known?

  My state of health none care to learn;

  My life is here no soul’s concern. . . .

  But no obliging, tender friend

  To help at my approaching end;

  My life is now a burthen grown

  To others, e’er it be my own.2

  65. Celbridge. A nineteenth-century view of Marley Abbey, Vanessa’s home, later known as Selbridge Abbey. The Liffey flows in the foreground.

  Does this imply that Stella, far from welcoming Swift after years of separation, was cold-shouldering him? Did she know that Vanessa was already in Ireland or about to arrive?

  It appears that Vanessa, on the other hand, sought to be especially supportive at this time. She wrote a poem called A Rebus, with riddling clues that spell out Swift’s name, followed by a generous compliment on his gifts and virtues. When the poem was later printed, it was attributed to “a Lady” without naming her, but people close to Swift knew that it was by Vanessa. The date is uncertain, too, but Swift’s verse reply is suggestive of this period of anxiety and gloom. A Rebus is especially valuable because it’s the only documented glimpse of Vanessa’s relationship with Swift that’s separate from the often fraught letters they exchanged.

  A Rebus begins with some biblical clues that yield the names “Jo” (if you cut off the second half of “Joseph”) and “Nathan,” followed by a racehorse that’s fast (“Swift”) but that comes last in the name instead of first:

  Cut the name of the man who his mistress denied,

  And let the first of it be only applied

  To join with the prophet who David did chide.

  Then say what a horse is that runs very fast,

  And that which deserves to be first put the last;

  Spell all then, and put them together, to find

  The name and the virtues of him I designed.3

  Is it just a coincidence that both biblical references have sexual implications? “The man who his mistress denied” sounds very much like Swift. Joseph resisted the advances of Potiphar’s wife. As for Nathan, he reproved David for sending Bathsheba’s husband to his death in battle so that he could marry her himself. David had been smitten with Bathsheba when he saw her bathing naked, he did marry her, and she gave birth to King Solomon, wisest of men. Don’t both allusions speak directly to Jonathan Swift, who desires Vanessa but resists her?

  However that may be, A Rebus continues by trying to cheer Swift up. He has political distinction, yet like a biblical prophet he speaks freely to men in power; and he is always ready to help friends or other deserving people when they need him. One of the deserving friends, of course, is Vanessa.

  Like the patriarch in Egypt, he’s versed in the state;

  Like the prophet in Jewry, he’s free with the great.

  Like a racer he flies to succor with speed

  When his friends want his aid, or desert is in need.

  Swift sent back a reply in verse, in which he wrote glumly that he might have been like that when Vanessa first knew him in London, but that those days were gone forever.

  Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season,

  And what she de
scribes to be merit is treason;

  The changes which faction has made in the state

  Have put the Dean’s politics quite out of date.

  Now no one regards what he utters with freedom,

  And should he write pamphlets, no Great Man would read ’em;

  And should want or desert stand in need of his aid,

  This racer would prove but a dull foundered jade.4

  “THOSE KILLING, KILLING WORDS”

  As soon as Vanessa was settled in Celbridge, Swift wrote to warn that she must not expect to see him there. “I would not have gone to Kildrohood [a Gaelic spelling of the name] to see you for all the world. I ever told you, you wanted discretion.” After that, letters passed frequently between them. Although Ehrenpreis says that “Vanessa saved some though not all of Swift’s letters,” in fact she did save them all; it was her executors, after her death, who destroyed many of them. It’s a sobering thought, as Louise Barnett observes, that if all of the letters had been lost, we would have no idea how significant Vanessa was in Swift’s life. What he himself once said about letters was borne out in his own case: “They are a standing witness against a man, which is confirmed by a Latin saying—for words pass, but letters remain.”5

  On Vanessa’s side, what we have is drafts of her letters, not the versions that were sent. Because she didn’t bother much with punctuation, they have a headlong quality that emphasizes their emotional urgency, though as quoted here they will be punctuated for clarity. Swift’s letters are more measured and cautious—but not always.

  If it was risky to meet in Celbridge, that was not so true of Dublin. In December, a month after refusing to go to Celbridge, Swift not only mentioned a recent encounter—presumably in Dublin—but promised another. “I will see you tomorrow if possible. You know it is not above five days since I saw you, and that I would ten times more if it were at all convenient.” Soon after came another note: “I will see you in a day or two, and believe me, it goes to my soul not to see you oftener.”6 “It goes to my soul” is strong language indeed.

  For Vanessa these encounters couldn’t come often enough. At about this time (she numbered her letters but didn’t always date them) she poured out her feelings of neglect, amounting really to betrayal. Her heartfelt plea needs to be heard in full: