Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/533

 SWl

Swift's remorse, are unsupported by evi- dence, and appear to be fully disposed of by a writer in Blackwood'' s Magazine for May 1876. Hester Vanhomrigh, as has been said, died in May 1723, and is sup- posed to have been buried at Leixlip. Her will (made ist May, and proved 6th June) is an orderly document, exhibiting no traces of the resentment against Swift attributed to her. Dr. George Berkeley, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, and Robert Marshall, of Clonmel, are named her executors, and are bequeathed all her property, some ,£9,000, except small legacies to servants and friends, amounting to not more than =£500. Marlay Abbey, at Cel- bridge, will ever be associated with the memories of Swift and Hester Vanhomrigh; there he often visited her ; and there, to commemorate his visits, she planted beside the Liflfey laurels, the off-shoots of which are still shown. All through the time of his acquaintance with Hester Vanhomrigh, his affection for Esther Johnson contin- ued unabated. The story of her pining under his unkindness is unsupported by reliable evidence. Some of his tenderest and purest effusions are his birthday odes to her for 1719, 1720, 1722, and 1723. Esther Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, far from living lonely and neglected in Dublin, moved in the best society the city afforded, and occasionally paid prolonged visits to friends in remote parts of the country. There is no proof of the private marriage that is said to have taken place between Swift and Esther Johnson, in 17 16. The first positive statement regarding it appears in Lord Orrery's Remarks, penned in 1751 ; and the most recent researches fail to find any evidence to support it. Capable of the warmest friendship. Swift appears to have been insensible to the passion of love. It has been said that in the whole of his writings not one word occurs, in the whole course of his life not one act is recorded, indicative of passion. Mrs. Dingley, who was never separated from Esther Johnson from the time of their arrival in Dublin until the death of the latter, and who could not by possibility have been ignorant of the marriage, had it taken place, laughed at the story " as an idle tale, founded only on sus- picion." Swift's life, from his settlement in Ireland until his first appearance in Irish public matters in 1720, was chiefly occupied with the affairs of his Cathedral, in study, and in intercourse with his friends. His zeal for the rights and welfare of the Church soon made his influence paramount with his chapter. Perhaps for economy, he boarded with a friend whose wife pre-

SWI

served that neatness and good order which was particularly agreeable to him. He kept two public days weekly at the deanery, where his entertainments were accounted rather parsimonious. He had received his preferment on terms that involved him in considerable debt ; yet his parsimony, though often ludicrous, and in his declining years deplorable, never interfered with the claims of justice or benevolence. He gathered round bim a coterie, for whose amusement many of his verses, and those of his friends Sheridan and Delany, were thrown off. He sometimes resided for months at a time at Sheridan's residence at Quilca, or at Gaulstown House, the seat of Chief-Baron Rochfoi'd. During these years he renewed his early intimacy with Addison, which had been broken off by the political events of 17 11. In 1720 he en- tered the arena of Irish politics by the publication of a Proposal for the Universal use of Irish Manufactures. Government sought in vain to punish the printer. His satirical essays on the project for a National Bank caused the measure to be rejected by Parliament ; and his La^t Lying Speech of EUiston, a noted thief, intimating that he had left a list of the names of his companions, to be proceeded against in case they did not relinquish their evil courses, almost put an end to street rob- beries in Dublin for some years. In 1723 Swift electrified the Irish nation by the publication of his Drapier's Letters. Ire- land had for some time been suffering from the want of copper currency ; and Walpole, through the influence of the Duchess of Kendal, the king's mistress (who stipulated that she should receive a large share of the profits), granted a patent to a person of the name of Wood, for the coinage of £ 1 08,000 in halfpence. Neither the Government nor the people of Ireland were in any way consulted in the matter — a striking proof of the condition of sub- serviency to which the country had been reduced. Its dignity and independence were felt to be grossly outraged ; and the report that the coins were not worth their nominal value spread through the country, and was confirmed by Parliament. Swift, somewhat disingenuously, it is true, seized the opportunity to arouse the public spirit of Ireland ; and, writing in the character of a Dublin draper, printed a series of letters, in which he asserted that all who took the new coin would lose nearly eleven- pence in the shilling; that every section of the community would lose by their in- troduction ; the beggars were even assured that halfpence had been selected for adul- teration, so that their ruin at least should 509