Stella would reciprocate these compliments by verses on the Dean’s birth-day; and one is struck with the similarity of her acknowledgments of what the Dean had taught her and done for her to those of Vanessa. Thus, in 1721,—
“When men began to call me fair,
You interposed your timely care;
You early taught me to despise
The ogling of a coxcomb’s eyes;
Show’d where my judgment was misplaced,
Refined my fancy and my taste.
You taught how I might youth prolong
By knowing what was right and wrong;
How from my heart to bring supplies
Of lustre to my fading eyes;
How soon a beauteous mind repairs
The loss of changed or falling hairs;
How wit and virtue from within
Send out a smoothness o’er the skin:
Your lectures could my fancy fix,
And I can please at thirty-six.”
The death of Vanessa in 1722 left Swift from that time entirely Stella’s. How she got over the Vanessa affair in her own mind, when the full extent of the facts became known to her, can only be guessed. When some one alluded to the fact that Swift had written beautifully about Vanessa, she is reported to have said “That doesn’t signify, for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick.” “A woman, a true woman!” is Mr. Thackeray’s characteristic comment.
To the world’s end those who take interest in Swift’s life will range themselves either on the side of Stella or on that of Vanessa. Mr. Thackeray prefers Stella, but admits that, in doing so, though the majority of men may be on his side, he will have most women against him. Which way Swift’s heart inclined him it is not difficult to see. Stella was the main influence of his life; the intimacy with Vanessa was but an episode. And yet, when he speaks of the two women as a critic, there is a curious equality in his appreciation of them. Of Stella he used to say that her wit and judgment were such that “she never failed to say the best thing that was said wherever she was in company;” and one of his epistolary compliments to Vanessa is that he had “always remarked that, neither in general nor in particular conversation, had any word ever escaped her lips that could by possibility have been better.” Some little differences in his preceptorial treatment of them may be discerned—as when he finds it necessary to admonish poor Stella for her incorrigibly bad spelling, no such admonition, apparently, being required for Vanessa; or when, in praising Stella, he dwells chiefly on her honour and gentle kindliness, whereas in praising Vanessa he dwells chiefly on her genius and force of mind. But it is distinctly on record that his regard for both was founded on his belief that in respect of intellect and culture both were above the majority of their sex. And here it may be repeated that, not only from the evidence afforded by the whole story of Swift’s relations to these two women, but also from the evidence of distinct doctrinal passages scattered through his works, it appears that those who in the present day maintain the co-equality of the two sexes, and the right of women to as full and varied an education, and as free a social use of their powers, as is allowed to men, may claim Swift as a pioneer in their cause. Both Stella and Vanessa have left their testimony that from the very first Swift took care to indoctrinate them with peculiar views on this subject; and both thank him for having done so. Stella even goes further, and almost urges Swift to do on the great scale what he had done for her individually:—
“O turn your precepts into laws;
Redeem the woman’s ruin’d cause;
Retrieve lost empire to our sex,
That men may bow their rebel necks.”
This fact that Swift had a theory on the subject of the proper mode of treating and educating women, which theory was in antagonism to the ideas of his time, explains much both in his conduct as a man and in his habits as a writer.
For the first six years of his exile in Ireland after the death of Queen Anne, Swift had published nothing of any consequence, and had kept aloof from politics, except when they were brought to his door by local quarrels. In 1720, however, he again flashed forth as a political luminary, in a character that could hardly have been anticipated—that of an Irish patriot. Taking up the cause of the “scoundrel-island,” to which he belonged by birth, if not by affection, and to which fate had consigned him in spite of all his efforts, he made that cause his own. Virtually saying to his old Whig enemies, then in power on the other side of the water, “Yes, I am an Irishman, and I will show you what an Irishman is,” he constituted himself the representative of the island, and hurled it, with all its pent-up mass of rage and wrongs, against Walpole and his administration. First, in revenge for the commercial wrongs of Ireland came his Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufactures, utterly Rejecting and Renouncing Everything Wearable that comes from England; then, amidst the uproar and danger excited by this proposal, other and other defiances in the same tone; and lastly, in 1723, on the occasion of the royal patent to poor William Wood to supply Ireland, without her own consent, with a hundred and eight thousand pounds’ worth of copper half-pence of English manufacture, the unparalleled Drapier’s Letters, which blasted the character of the coppers and asserted the nationality of Ireland. All Ireland, Catholic as well as Protestant, blessed the Dean of St. Patrick’s; associations were formed for the defence of his person; and, had Walpole and his Whigs succeeded in bringing him to trial, it would have been at the expense of an Irish rebellion. From that time till his death Swift was the true King of Ireland; only when O’Connell arose did the heart of the nation yield equal veneration to any single chief; and even at this day the grateful Irish, forgetting his gibes against them, and forgetting his continual habit of distinguishing between the Irish population as a whole and the English and Protestant part of it to which he belonged himself, cherish his memory with loving enthusiasm, and speak of him as the “great Irishman.” Among the phases of Swift’s life this of his having been an Irish patriot and agitator deserves to be particularly remembered.
In the year 1726 Swift, then in his sixtieth year, and in the full flush of his new popularity as the champion of Irish nationality, visited England for the first time since Queen Anne’s death. Once there, he was loth to return; and a considerable portion of the years 1726 and 1727 was spent by him in or near London. This was the time of the publication of Gulliver’s Travels, which had been written some years before, and also of some Miscellanies, which were edited for him by Pope. It was at Pope’s villa at Twickenham that most of his time was spent; and it was there and at this time that the long friendship between Swift and Pope ripened into that extreme and affectionate intimacy which they both lived to acknowledge. Gay, Arbuthnot, and Bolingbroke, now returned from exile, joined Pope in welcoming their friend. Addison had been dead several years. Prior was dead, and also Vanbrugh and Parnell. Steele was yet alive; but between him and Swift there was no longer any tie. Political and aristocratic acquaintances, old and new, there were in abundance, all anxious once again to have Swift among them to fight their battles. Old George I. had not long to live, and the Tories were trying again to come into power in the train of the Prince of Wales. There were even chances of an arrangement with Walpole, with possibilities, in that or in some other way, that Swift should not die a mere Irish dean. These prospects were but temporary. The old King died; and, contrary to expectation, George II. retained Walpole and his Whig colleagues. In October, 1727, Swift left England for the last time. He returned to Dublin just in time to watch over the death-bed of Stella, who expired, after a lingering illness, in January, 1728. Swift was then in his sixty-second year.