liam, upon his expedition into Ireland, to very great places. Dying in 1703, he left two fons and two daughters; but the fons foon after dying, his whole fortune, which was confiderable, fell to the daughters. In 1709, the widow and the two young ladies caire to England, where they were visited by perfons of the first quality; and Swift, lodging near them, used to be much there, coming and going without any ceremony, as if he had been one of the family. During this familiarity, he became infenfibly a kind of preceptor to the young ladies, particularly the eldeft, who was then about twenty years old, was much addicted to reading, and a great admirer of poetry. Hence admiring, as was natural, fuch a character as that of Swift, fhe foon paffed from admiration to love; and urged a little perhaps by vanity, which would have been highly gratified by an alliance with the firft wit of the age, fhe ventured to make the Doctor a propofal of marriage. He affected first to believe her in jeft, then to rally her on fo whimsical a choice, and at laft to put her off without an abfolute refufal; and, while he was in this fituation, he wrote the poem, called, "Cadenus and "Vaneffa." It was written in 1713, a fhort time before he left Vaneffa, and the reft of his friends in England, and returned to the place of his exile, as he ufed frequently to call it. In 1714, Mrs. Vanhomrigh died, and having lived very high, left fome debts,.

which it not being convenient for her daugh ters, who had alfo debts of their own to pay at prefent, to avoid an arreft, they followed the Dean into Ireland.

Upon his arrival to take poffeffion of his deanry, he had been received with great kindness and honour; but now, upon his return after the Queen's death, he experienced every poffible mark of contempt and indignation. The tables were turned; the power of the Tories and the Dean's credit were at an end; and as a defign to bring in the pretender had been imputed to the Queen's miniftry, fo Swift lay now under much odium, as being fuppofed to have been a well-wisher in that cause. As foon as he was fettled at Dub. lin, Mifs Johnfon removed from the country to be near him, but they ftill lived in feparate houses; his refidence being at the deanery, and hers in lodgings on the other fide of the river Liffy. The Dean kept two public days every week, on which the dignity of his ftation was fuftained with the utmost elegance and decorum, under the direction of Mifs Johnson. As to his employment at home, he seems to have had no heart to apply himself to study of any kind, but to have refigned himself wholly to fuch amufements, and fuch company as offered; that he might not think of his fituation, the misfortunes of his friends, and his difappointments. "I was "three years," fays he to Gay, "reconciling myself to the fcene and bufinets to " which

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"which fortune hath condemned me; and "ftupidity was what I had recourse to."

The firft remarkable event of his life, after his fettlement at the deanery, was his mar riage to Mifs Johnson, after a most intimate friendship of more than fixteen years. This was in the year 1716; and the ceremony was performed privately by Dr. Afhe, then Bishop of Clogher, to whom the Dean had been a pupil in Trinity-colledge, Dublin. But whatever were the motives to this marriage, the Dean and the lady continued to live afterwards, juft in the fame manner as they had ived before. Mrs. Dingley was ftill the infeparable companion of Stella, wherever the went; and the never refided at the deanery, except when the Dean had his fits of giddinefs and deafnefs. Till this time he had continued his vifits to Vaneffa, (Mifs V anhomrigh), who preferved her reputation and friends, and was vifited by many persons of rank, character, and fortune, of both fexes: but now his vifits were lefs frequent. in 1717, her fifter died; and the whole remains of the family fortune centering in Vaneffa, fhe retired. to Selbridge, a fmall house and estate about twelve miles from Dublin, which had been purchased by her father. From this place. The wrote frequently to the Dean, and preffed. him, either to accept or refufe her as a wife; upon which he wrote an answer, and delivered it with his own hand. The receipt of this, which probably communicated the fatal fe

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cret of his marriage with Stella, the unhappy lady did not furvive many weeks; however, the was fufficiently compofed to cancel a will she had formerly made in the Dean's favour, and to make another, in which fhe left her fortune to her two executors, Dr. Berkeley Bishop of Cloyne, and Mr. Marfhall, one of the King's ferjeants at law.

From 1716 to 1720 is a chafin in the Dean's life, which it has been difficult to fill up: Lord Orrery thinks, with great reason,that he employed this time upon Gulliver's Travels. This work is a moral political ro mance, in which Swift has exerted the ftrongeft efforts of a fine irregular genius; but while his imagination and wit delight, it is hardly pollible not to be fometimes offended with his fatire, which fets not only all human actions, but human nature itself, in the worft light. The truth is, Swift's difappointments had rendered him fplenetic and angry with the whole world, and he frequently indulged himself in a mifanthropy that is intolerable; he has done to particularly in fome parts of this work. About this time

the Dean, who had already acquired the character of a humourist and wit, was first regarded with general kindness, as the patriot of Ireland. He writ a propofal for the Irish manufactures, which made him very popular; the more fo, as it immediately raised a violent Aame, fo that a profecution was commenced against the printer. In 1724, he writ the Drapier's

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Drapier's Letters; those brazen monuments of his fame, as Lord Orrery calls them. A patent having been iniquitously procured by one Wood, to coin 180,000 1. in copper for the ufe of Ireland, by which he would have acquired exorbitant gain, and propor tionably impoverished the nation, the Dean, in the character of a draper, wrote a series of letters to the people, urging them not to receive this copper-money. These letters u nited the whole nation in his praife, filled every street with his effigy, and every voice with acclamations; and Wood, though fupported for fome time, was at length compel led to withdraw his patent, and his money was totally fuppreffed. From this time the Dean's influence in Ireland was almoft without bounds: He was confulted in whatever related to domeftic policy, and particularly to trade. The weavers always confidered him as their patron and legiflator, after his propofal for the ufe of Irish manufactures; and when elections were depending for the city of Dublin, many corporations refused to declare themselves, till they knew his fentiments and inclinations. Over the populace he was the most abfolute monarch that ever governed men; and he was regarded by persons of every rank with veneration and esteem.

He was several times in England on a visit to Mr. Pope, after his fettlement at the deanery, particularly in 1726 and 1727. On the 28th of January 1727, died his beloved Stel

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