ous, beautiful, and elegant,
in a very high degree, such admiration from such a lover makes it very
probable: but she had not much literature, for she could not spell her
own language; and of her wit, so loudly vaunted, the smart sayings which
Swift himself has collected afford no splendid specimen.

The reader of Swift's Letter to a Lady on her Marriage, may be allowed
to doubt whether his opinion of female excellence ought implicitly to be
admitted; for, if his general thoughts on women were such as he
exhibits, a very little sense in a lady would enrapture, and a very
little virtue would astonish him. Stella's supremacy, therefore, was,
perhaps, only local; she was great, because her associates were little.

In some remarks lately published on the Life of Swift, this marriage is
mentioned as fabulous, or doubtful; but, alas! poor Stella, as Dr.
Madden told me, related her melancholy story to Dr. Sheridan, when he
attended her as a clergyman to prepare her for death; and Delany
mentions it not with doubt, but only with regret. Swift never mentioned
her without a sigh. The rest of his life was spent in Ireland, in a
country to which not even power almost despotick, nor flattery almost
idolatrous, could reconcile him. He sometimes wished to visit England,
but always found some reason of delay. He tells Pope, in the decline of
life, that he hopes once more to see him; "but if not," says he, "we
must part as all human beings have parted."

After the death of Stella, his benevolence was contracted, and his
severity exasperated; he drove his acquaintance from his table, and
wondered why he was deserted. But he continued his attention to the
publick, and wrote, from time to time, such directions, admonitions, or
censures, as the exigency of affairs, in his opinion, made proper; and
nothing fell from his pen in vain.

In a short poem on the presbyterians, whom he always regarded with
detestation, he bestowed one stricture upon Bettesworth, a lawyer
eminent for his insolence to the clergy, which, from very considerable
reputation, brought him into immediate and universal contempt.
Bettesworth, enraged at his disgrace and loss, went to Swift, and
demanded whether he was the author of that poem? "Mr. Bettesworth,"
answered he, "I was in my youth acquainted with great lawyers, who,
knowing my disposition to satire, advised me, that if any scoundrel or
blockhead whom I had lampooned should ask, 'Are you the author of this
pape