Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/343

Rh in Dublin, it is more than probable she kept a watchful eye upon their motions. The following beautiful verses of hers on that subject, show clearly she was under the dominion of that passion.

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O shield me from his rage, celestial Powers! This tyrant, that embitters all my hours. Ah love! you've poorly play'd the hero's part; You conquer'd, but you can't defend my heart. When first I bent beneath your gentle reign, I thought this monster banish'd from your train: But you would raise him to support your throne, And now he claims your empire as his own. Or tell me, tyrants, have you both agreed That where one reigns, the other shall succeed.

Thus oppressed at once by love, jealousy, and disappointment, her spirits sunk, a settled melancholy preyed upon her heart, which with a natural tendency to a decay, impaired her health to such a degree, as to give the most alarming symptoms of an approaching dissolution. Shocked with the apprehension of so fatal an event, whereof he must be conscious to himself he was the cause; and moved with compassion at the state to which he saw her reduced, all Swift's former tenderness and affection for her revived in his breast; and banished every other idea from his mind, but what tended to the preservation of a life so precious. He employed a common friend to both to learn from her the secret cause of that dejection of spirits, which had so visibly preyed upon her health; and to know whether it was by any means in his power to remove it; assuring her that nothing should be wanting on his part, to restore her to that tranquillity of mind, upon Rh