Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/359

Rh matters stood between them? In answer to this, it is evident that the poem would be incomplete, if there were not some conclusion to the story of Cadenus and Vanessa. The story could possibly terminate only in one of the following ways: either Vanessa, from the arguments and coldness of her philosophick lover, had got the better of her passion, and adopted his platonick system; or Cadenus, after all his resistance, was obliged to yield to the all-conquering power of love; or finding her passion incurable, had broken off all intercourse with her; or that the issue of the affair was still in suspense. As the latter was really the case at the time of writing the poem, it could then have no other conclusion. And those lines which leave matters in a dubious state, seem only calculated to paint the uncertainty of his own mind, and not to leave Vanessa without hope, from that very uncertainty, that she might in time expect a suitable return of love.

But though it should be allowed, from the above state of the case, that at the time of writing this poem, neither of the parties had entertained even an idea of entering into a criminal amour, yet when it is known that he afterward carried on a secret intercourse with the lady during the space of eight or nine years; that he passed many hours alone with a young and charming woman, who loved him to adoration, and for whom he himself was first inspired with the passion of love; it will be hardly credible, that thus circumstanced, they should not, in some unguarded moment, have given way to the frailty of human nature. And yet extraordinary as it may appear, there are many strong reasons to Rh