together; and did not write to him till he found himfelf at Chefter.

He returned to a home of forrow: poor Stella was finking into the grave, and, after a languishing delay of about two months, died in her forty-fourth year, on January 28, 1728. How much he wifhed her life, his papers tell us; nor can it be doubted that he dreaded the death of her whem he loved moft, aggravated by the confcioufness that himfelf had haftened it.

Beauty and the power of pleafing, the greateft external advantages that woman can defire or poffefs, were fatal to the unfortunate Stella. The man whom he had the misfortune to love was, as Delany obferves, fond of finguE 2 larity,

larity, and defirous to make a mode of happiness for himself, out of the general courfe of things and order of Providence. From the time of her arrival

in Ireland he seems refolved to keep her in his power, and therefore hindered a match fufficiently advantageous, by accumulating unreafonable demands, and prefcribing conditions that could not be performed. While he was at her own difpofal he did not confider his poffeffion as fecure; refentment, ambition, or caprice, might feparate them; he was therefore refolved to make affurance double fure, and to appropriate her by a private marriage, to which he had annexed the expectation of all the pleafures of perfect friendship, without the

uneafi

uneafinefs of conjugal reftraint. But with this ftate poor Stella was not fatiffied; fhe never was treated as a wife, and to the world fhe had the appearance of a miftrefs. She lived fullenly on, in hope that in time he would own and receive her; but the time did not come till the change of his manners and depravation of his mind made her tell him, when he offered to acknowledge her, that it was too late. She then gave up herself to forrowful refentment, and died by the tyranny of him by whom fhe was in the highest degree loved and honoured.

What were her claims to this excentrick tenderness, by which the laws of Nature were violated to retain her, cu

riofity will enquire; but how fhall it be gratified? Swift was a lover; his teftimony may be fufpected. Delany and the Irish faw with Swift's eyes, and therefore add little confirmation.

That

fhe was virtuous, beautiful, and elegant, in a very high degree, fuch admiration from fuch a lover makes it very probable; but he had not much literature, for fhe could not fpell her own language; and of her wit, fo loudly vaunted, the fmart fayings which Swift has collected afford no fplendid fpecimen..

The reader of Swift's Letter to a Lady en her Marriage, may be allowed to doubt whether his opinion of female excellence ought implicitly to be admitted; for if his general thoughts on wə

men

men were fuch as he exhibits, a very little fenfe in a Lady would enrapture, and a very little virtue would astonish him. Stella's fupremacy, therefore,

was perhaps only local; fhe was great, because her affociates were little.

In fome Remarks lately published on the Life of Swift, this marriage is mentioned as fabulous, or doubtful; but, alas! poor Stella, as Dr. Madden told me, related her melancholy ftory to Dr.. Sheridan, when he attended her as a clergyman to prepare her for death; and Delany tells it not with doubt, but only with regret. Swift never mentioned her without a figh.

The rest of his life was fpent in Ireland, in a country to which not even power

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