Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/320

284 for her daily increased, during a long habitude of intercourse with one of the most charming companions in the world, perfectly suited in all points to his taste and humour, yet had it no mixture in it of the passion of love, but was rather the tenderness of a parent to a favourite child:

His conduct might have made him styl'd, A father, and the nymph his child. That innocent delight he took To see the virgin mind her book, Was but the master's secret joy In school to hear the finest boy.

For the truth of this he appeals to Stella herself in one of his poems addressed to her:

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 possest, I ne'er admitted love a guest.

Nor was there any thing uncommon in this. We find that even among young people bred up together from childhood, the passion of love seldom appears; and much less likely is it to take place where there is such a disparity of years. It has been already shown what punctilious caution he took to prevent any appearance of that sort, by never conversing with her but in the presence of a third person, which was usually her companion Mrs. Dingley. But not long after her settlement in Ireland, he gave the most unequivocal proof of what his sentiments were with regard to her on that point. It was impossible that so