Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/387

Rh her at a time when he knew she had in her will bequeathed her whole fortune to him, which was very considerable. So that, at this period of his life at least, avarice had laid no hold of him.

Thus have I given a true relation of the nature of Swift's connexion with Mrs. Johnson, and laid open the cause of their never having cohabited after the ceremony of marriage had passed between them. To account for which, so many conjectures have been formed without any foundation. Among these there was one so very absurd, and so utterly impossible to be true, that it is wonderful how it could ever gain any credit; and yet this report was for a long time generally spread and believed. It was asserted, without any shadow of proof, that Mrs. Johnson was a natural daughter of sir William Temple's; and in the same way, that Swift was his son, and that the discovery of this consanguinity, when or how made was never told, was the cause of their not cohabiting. Now to overthrow this, it is only necessary to examine the time of Swift's birth, which was in November 1667, and to show that sir William Temple had been employed as ambassador in the treaty of Nimeguen, two years before, and three years after that date, during which time he resided constantly abroad. And indeed there is good reason to believe that he never so much as saw Swift's mother in his life. This was so clearly shown by Dr. Delany, that any mention of it here might be thought unnecessary, had there not been published since that time a most circumstantial account of that affair, in the Gentleman's Magazine for November 1757, in which the writer pretends to give the whole account of Mrs. Johnson's Life, as well as that of her mother, with VOL. I