feeling, the greater would be the excuse for his behaviour to her. Reluctance to give her pain, and to sacrifice a friendship so valuable to himself in his retirement, might be pleaded as some extenuation of his temporising; but if, as is alleged, he was really married to Stella, he was clearly bound to speak out. In 1723 Vanessa wrote a letter to Stella (Sheridan, p. 290), or to Swift himself (Orrery, p. 113), asking whether they were married. Swift rode off to Celbridge in a fury, threw down the letter, and retired without speaking a word. Vanessa died before the autumn from the shock. She revoked a will in favour of Swift, and by another (dated 1 May 1723) divided her fortune between the famous Berkeley and Judge Marshall. She also entrusted to them as executors her correspondence with Swift (extracts from this were given by Sheridan, but it was first fully published in Scott's edition of the ‘Works’) and ‘Cadenus and Vanessa,’ which was published after her death. Swift hid himself for two months in the south of Ireland. Stella was also shocked, but, when somebody remarked that Vanessa must have been a remarkable woman to inspire such poetry, observed that the dean could write well upon a broomstick (Delany, p. 57). The story of the marriage to Stella has been much discussed. Swift had sufficient reasons, in his passionate desire for independence, for not marrying before he had won his deanery. The profound depression into which he was thrown by the fall of his party, and the constant alarms as to his health, which made him old before his time, may well account for his not caring to marry on his return to Ireland. Nor does it seem necessary with some of his biographers to lay any particular stress upon the coldness of temperament of which he speaks. The marriage was, in any case, merely formal. Orrery (p. 22) states positively, and Delany (p. 52) confirms the statement, that Swift was privately married to Stella by St. George Ashe [q. v.], bishop of Clogher, in 1716. Deane Swift first thought the story to be an idle rumour (Craik, p. 529), but accepts it in his book (p. 92). Sheridan (p. 282) agrees in this, and adds that Swift found that Stella was depressed, and, on learning the cause through a common friend, declared that he was too old and too poor to marry, but consented to have the ceremony performed, which would at least prevent his marrying any one else. Sheridan gives Mrs. Sican, a friend of Swift's in his later years, for his authority. Monck Berkeley, in his ‘Relics’ (p. xxxvi), repeats the statement of the marriage by Ashe on the authority of his grandmother, Bishop Berkeley's widow, who told him that Berkeley himself had the story from Ashe. Berkeley in 1716 was travelling abroad as tutor to Ashe's son, and did not return till after Ashe's death (1718). It is hardly conceivable that Ashe should have at once written to communicate so confidential a transaction to his son's tutor, and the grandson could only have heard the story in his childhood. Johnson heard from Samuel Madden [q. v.] that Stella had told the story on her deathbed to Dr. Sheridan, Swift's old friend, the father of the biographer. Besides this, there is a story told by Delany (p. 56) that shortly before Vanessa's death Swift offered to own the marriage, and that Stella replied ‘too late.’ Stella told this to a friend well known to Delany, probably Sheridan. Deane Swift was told by Mrs. Whiteway, who lived with Swift in later years, that Stella had given the same account to Dr. Sheridan (unpublished letter to Orrery, written before Swift's death; quoted by Craik, p. 532). Theophilus, son of Deane Swift, told Scott a story which is apparently a distorted version of the same. Sheridan (p. 316) says that Stella begged Swift in presence of Dr. Sheridan, shortly before her death, to make the acknowledgment, and that Swift turned on his heel and left the room. He adds an erroneous statement that she altered her will in consequence. Her will (in which she appears as ‘spinster’) was in accordance with a suggestion made by Swift (to Worrall, 15 July 1726). Dr. John Lyon [q. v.], who attended Swift in his last years, disbelieved the whole story, and says that Mrs. Dingley laughed at it as an ‘idle tale.’ Mrs. Brent, the dean's housekeeper, similarly disbelieved it.
Sir Henry Craik, whose authority is very high, is convinced by the evidence. Forster (p. 140) thought it quite insufficient. The objections are obvious. The general curiosity which had been stimulated by the mystery made it quite certain that some such story would be told, and the tellers would have the glory of being in the secret. Orrery, Deane Swift, and the younger Sheridan are uncritical, and could only know the story at second-hand. Delany was an old friend of Swift, and his belief in the marriage is strongly in its favour; but he does not tell us by what evidence he was convinced. It seems to be clear from Mrs. Whiteway's evidence that the elder Sheridan (who died in 1738) received some statement from Stella, whom he certainly saw frequently in her last illness. The other stories seem to depend more or less directly upon Sheridan. It is impossible to say what precisely was Sheridan's own version of a story which became more circumstantial with repetitions, or how far he was
