more exquisitely touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls "his little language" in his journal to Stella.' He writes to her night and morning often. He never sends away a letter to her but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't bear to let go her kind little hand, as it were. He knows that she is thinking of him, and longing for him far away in Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from under his pillow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond epithets and pretty caresses as he would to the sweet and artless creature who loved him. "Stay," he writes one morning-it is the 14th of December, 1710-"Stay, I will answer some of your letter this morning in bed. Let me see. Come and appear, little letter! Here I am, says he, and what say you to Stella this morning fresh and fasting? And can Stella read this writing without hurting her dear eyes?" he goes on, after more kind prattle and fond whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly upon him then- the good angel of his life is with him and blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung from them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate: but would she have changed it? I have heard a woman say that she would have taken Swift's cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her whilst

1 A sentimental Champollion might find a good deal of matter for his art, in expounding the symbols of the "Little Language." Usually, Stella is "M.D.," but sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingley, is included in it. Swift is "Presto;" also P.D.F.R. We have Good-night, M.D.; Night, M.D.; Little, M.D.; Stellakins; Pretty Stella; Dear, roguish, impudent, pretty M.D." Every now and then he breaks into rhyme,

as

"I wish you both a merry new year,

Roast-beef, minced-pies, and good strong beer,
And me a share of your good cheer,
That I was there, as you were here,
And you are a little saucy dear."

he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably touching; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness and unworthiness, and adores her with cries of remorse and love: —

"When on my sickly couch I lay,
Impatient both of night and day,
And groaning in unmanly strains,
Called every power to ease my pains,
Then Stella ran to my relief,
With cheerful face and inward grief,
And though by heaven's severe decree
She suffers hourly more than me,
No cruel master could require
From slaves employed for daily hire,
What Stella, by her friendship warmed,
With vigour and delight performed.
Now, with a soft and silent tread,
Unheard she moves about my bed:
My sinking spirits now supplies
With cordials in her hands and eyes.
Best pattern of true friends! beware;
You pay too dearly for your care
If, while your tenderness secures
My life, it must endanger yours:
For such a fool was never found
Who pulled a palace to the ground,
Only to have the ruins made

Materials for a house decayed."

One little triumph Stella had in her life - one dear little piece of injustice was performed in her favour, for which I confess, for my part, I can't help thanking fate and the Dean. That other person was sacrificed to her

that

that young woman, who lived five doors from Dr. Swift's lodgings in Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made love to him in such an outrageous manner - Vanessa was thrown over.

Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to those he wrote to her. He kept Bolingbroke's, and

1 The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the evening of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727–8: ·

"She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen; but then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London — only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection.

"... Properly speaking" he goes on, with a calmness which, under the circumstances, is terrible" she has been dying six months! . . . "Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who more improved them by reading and conversation. All of us who had the happiness of her friendship agreed unanimously, that in an afternoon's or evening's conversation she never failed before we parted of delivering the best thing that was said in the company. Some of us have written down several of her sayings, or what the French call bons mots, wherein she excelled beyond belief."

The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper, called "Bons Mots de Stella," scarcely bear out this last part of the panegyric. But the following prove her wit:

"A gentleman who had been very silly and pert in her company, at last began to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead. A bishop sitting by comforted him—that he should be easy, because 'the child was gone to heaven.' 'No, my lord,' said she; 'that is it which most grieves him, because he is sure never to see his child there.'

"When she was extremely ill, her physician said, 'Madam, you are near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavour to get you up again.' She answered, 'Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to the top.'

"A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected smartness and repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came to be so dirty. He was at a loss; but she solved the difficulty by saying, 'The Doctor's nails grew dirty by scratching himself.'

"A Quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad brim, and a label of paper about its neck. 'What is that?' said she 'my apothecary's son!' The ridiculous resemblance, and the suddenness of the question, set us all a-laughing." — Swift's Works, SCOTT's Ed. vol. ix. 295-6.

Pope's, and Harley's, and Peterborough's: but Stella, "very carefully," the Lives say, kept Swift's. Of course: that is the way of the world: and so we cannot tell what her style was, or of what sort were the little letters which the Doctor placed there at night, and bade to appear from under his pillow of a morning. But in Letter IV. of that famous collection he describes his lodging in Bury Street, where he has the first-floor, a dining-room and bed-chamber, at eight shillings a week; and in Letter VI. he says " he has visited a lady just come to town," whose name somehow is not mentioned; and in Letter VIII. he enters a query of Stella's-"What do you mean that boards near me, that I dine with now and then?" What the deuce! You know whom I have dined with every day since I left you, better than I do." Of course she does. Of course Swift has not the slightest idea of what she means. But in a few letters more it turns out that the Doctor has been to dine "gravely" with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh: then that he has been to "his neighbour:" then that he has been unwell, and means to dine for the whole week with his neighbour! Stella was quite right in her previsions. She saw from the very first hint, what was going to happen; and scented Vanessa in the air. The rival is at the Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher are reading together, and drinking tea together, and going to prayers together, and learning Latin together, and conjugating amo, amas, amavi together. The little language is over for

1 "I am so hot and lazy after my morning's walk, that I loitered at Mrs. Vanhomrigh's, where my best gown and periwig was, and out of mere listlessness dine there, very often; so I did to-day.”—Journal to Stella.

Mrs. Vanhomrigh, "Vanessa's " mother, was the widow of a Dutch merchant who held lucrative appointments in King William's time. The family settled in London in 1709, and had a house in Bury Street, St. James's a street made notable by such residents as Swift and Steele; and, in our own time, Moore and Crabbe.

poor Stella. By the rule of grammar and the course of conjugation, does n't amavi come after amo and amas?

The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa1 you may peruse in Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's vehement expostulatory verses and letters to him; she adores him, implores him, admires him, thinks him something god-like, and only prays to be admitted to lie at his feet.2 As they are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of Dr. Swift's are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlour. He likes to be admired and adored. He finds Miss Vanhomrigh to be a woman of great taste and spirit, and beauty and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day; he does not tell Stella

1 “Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress; impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind; superior, in her own opinion, to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful or genteel; . . . happy in the thoughts of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intending to be his wife." LORD ORRERY.

" "You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You had better have said, as often as you can get the better of your inclinations so much; or as often as you remember there was such a one in the world. If you continue to treat me as you do, you will not be made uneasy by me long. It is impossible to describe what I have suffered since I saw you last: I am sure I could have borne the rack much better than those killing, killing words of yours. Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more; but those resolves, to your misfortune, did not last long; for there is something in human nature that prompts one so to find relief in this world I must give way to it, and beg you would see me, and speak kindly to me; for I am sure you'd not condemn any one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. The reason I write to you is, because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you; for when I begin to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your looks so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh! that you may have but so much regard for me left that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can; did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me; and believe I cannot help telling you this and live." VANESSA. (M. 1714.)