Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/336

300, which promised pleasures of a more rapturous kind. And yet they were pleasures, which, in his hours of cooler reflection, he could never hope to taste. Any idea of marriage must have appeared, from the great disparity of years, as well as many other reasons, to the last degree preposterous. Besides, though he never had entered into any direct engagement of that sort with Mrs. Johnson, yet by many expressions in his letters before quoted, almost tantamount to an engagement, and his whole conduct toward her, he gave her just grounds to expect, that if ever he did marry, she should be his choice. He could not therefore have given preference to another, without being charged with cruelty and injustice. And as to any illicit commerce between them, he never could have entertained a thought of that, without first sacrificing all the principles of honour, morality, and religion, by which his whole conduct in life had hitherto been governed. In this critical situation, he had but one wise course to take, in order to ensure his future peace, which was to escape the danger by flight, and breaking off all correspondence with the lady. But whether through too great confidence in his strength, or giving way to the irresistible force of her attraction, he remained in the perilous situation of a constant intercourse with her, which daily contributed to fan their mutual flames.

The date of the commencement of this adventure, may be traced almost to a certainty, by examining the latter part of Swift's Journal, in which, from March 1712 to the end, there is a remarkable change in his manner of writing to the two ladies. We no longer find there any of what he called,