Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/362

326 strong argument of his never having entered into any commerce of that sort with Vanessa, that it is hardly credible he should have refrained, in that case, from a similar gratification with Stella, who was possessed of greater personal charms, and was more an object of desire, than the other: especially as the former could not be enjoyed without compunction, and the latter was a pleasure of the purest kind without alloy.

In confirmation of the opinion I have here started, I remember a saying of Swift's, "that he never yet saw the woman, for whose sake he would part with the middle of his bed." A saying, which, I believe, all mankind will judge could come from no person, but one incapable of enjoying the highest and most innocent of all gratifications here below, when sanctified by marriage.

I have dwelt the longer on this point, because much of the moral part of Swift's character depends on it. For if it should be credited that he could take advantage of her weakness to debauch the daughter of a lady, who received him into her family with the affection of a sister, and reposed the same confidence in him as if he were her brother; if it should appear that for several years he carried on a criminal intrigue with her, at the same time that he denied the lawful rites of marriage, due to one of the most amiable of her sex; I am afraid, instead of a pattern of the most perfect morality, he must be given up an instance of uncommon profligacy, and be justly charged with a vice, which, of all others, he most detested, and from which no man ever was more free, I mean hypocrisy.

Though lord Orrery has acquitted him of this charge, upon the same principle that has been here laid