Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/366

330 be thought rather to proceed from defects in nature, than from the scrupulous difficulties of a tender conscience. Such a supposition will still appear more strong, if we recollect the distant manner in which Swift cohabited with Stella; colder, if possible, after, than before she was his wife."

I appeal to the reader whether he ever met in the most stupid, or malicious commentator, such a total perversion of the meaning of words. To show this it its strongest light, let us place the text, and explanation in opposition to each other.

According to this account, the man who had been all his life a votary to virtue; whose chief delight it was to instil the best principles into the minds of youth; who had trained the amiable Stella, from her early days, in such a way, as, by the remarker's own description of her, made her a model of perfection; this man, I say, all of a sudden became a proselyte to vice; betrayed the confidence reposed in him by the mother, his particular friend, to corrupt the mind of her innocent daughter, so as to make her lose all