Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/374

338 so odious a task. What motive then could induce this writer to lay aside the nobleman, the gentleman, and the man, to commit an act, which the most hardened assassin of reputations would be ashamed of? Let us suppose, for an instant, that all he has said of this lady is true, was he called upon to the hangman's office, of mangling and embowelling the remains of a deceased criminal? But, on the other hand, when we are sure that he could not himself know the truth of any one assertion he has made; that he does not even hint at any authority of others, on which he could rely; and that he has drawn this character in direct opposition to one given to the same person, by the best and most competent judge in the world; we should be apt to conclude, that the whole must have proceeded from a mind fraught with an uncommon portion of malignity.

But his conduct may be accounted for upon a principle not quite of so black a die. His lordship considered only how he should appear in the light of an author. He had before drawn a fancied picture of Stella, whom also he had never seen, in which he had collected such an assemblage of perfections, from the whole catalogue of female beauties, graces, virtues, and accomplishments, as perhaps never met in any human creature. In his great liberality, among his other qualities bestowed on her, he gave her skill in musick, of which she did not know a note; for she neither sung, nor played on any instrument. As the drawing of this character cost him no small pains, he took the usual method of novelists to set it off, by making that of her rival a direct contrast to it: whose formity,