d you but
know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me, and
believe that I cannot help telling you this and live."

Swift replies with the letter full of excuses for not seeing her
oftener, and advises her to "quit this scoundrel island." Yet he assures
her in the same breath, "que jamais personne du monde a ete aimee,
honoree, estimee, adoree, par votre ami que vous."

The tragedy continued to deepen as it approached the close. Eight years
had Vanessa nursed in solitude the hopeless attachment. At length (in
1723) she wrote to Stella to ascertain the nature of the connection
between her and Swift. The latter obtained the fatal letter, and rode
instantly to Marley Abbey, the residence of Vanessa. "As he entered the
apartment," to quote the picturesque language Scott has used in
recording the scene, "the sternness of his countenance, which was
peculiarly formed to express the stronger passions, struck the
unfortunate Vanessa with such terror, that she could scarce ask whether
he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table;
and instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to
Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she found only her own letter to
Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the
disappointment of the delayed, yet cherished hopes which had so long
sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose
sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is
uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks."

Strength to revoke a will made in favour of Swift, and to sign another
(dated May 1, 1723) which divided her estate between Bishop Berkeley and
Judge Marshall, the poor young woman managed to summon from somewhere,
however. Berkeley she knew very slightly, and Marshall scarcely better.
But to them both she entrusted as executors her correspondence with
Swift, and the poem, "Cadenus and Vanessa," which she ordered to be
published after her death.

Doctor Johnson, in his "Life of Swift," says of Vanessa's relation to
the misanthropic dean, "She was a young woman fond of literature, whom
Decanus, the dean (called Cadenus by transposition of the letters), took
pleasure in directing and interesting till, from being proud of his
praise, she grew fond of his person. Swift was then about forty-seven,
at the age when vanity is strongly excited by the amorous attention of a
young woman."

T