Stella naturally hoped, that when her rival was no more, and Swift no longer exposed to her torturing reproaches, that he would do her tardy justice, and at length acknowledge her as his wife. But no;—it would have cost him some little mortification and inconvenience; and on such a paltry pretext he suffered this amiable and admirable woman, of whom he had said, that "her merits towards him were greater than ever was in any human being towards another;" and "that she excelled in every good quality that could possibly accomplish a human creature,"—this woman did he suffer to languish into the grave, broken in heart and blighted in name. When Stella was on her death-bed, some conversation passed between them upon this sad subject. Only Swift's reply was audible: he said, "Well, my dear, it shall be acknowledged, if you wish it." To which she answered with a sigh, "It is now too late!"[122] It was too late!—
What now to her was womanhood or fame?
She died of a lingering decline, in January, 1728, four years after the death of Miss Vanhomrigh.
Thus perished these two innocent, warm-hearted and accomplished women;—so rich in all the graces of their sex—so formed to love and to be loved, to bless, and to be blessed,—sacrifices to the demoniac pride of the man they had loved and trusted. But it will be said, "si elles n'avaient point aimé, elles seraient moins connues:" they have become immortal by their connection with genius; they are celebrated, merely through their attachment to a celebrated man. But, good God! what an immortality! won by what martyrdom of the heart!—And what a celebrity! not that with which the poet's love, and his diviner verse, crown the deified object of his homage, but a celebrity, purchased with their life-blood and their tears! I quit the subject with a sense of relief:—yet one word more.
It was after the death of these two amiable women, who had deserved so much from him, and whose enduring tenderness had flung round his odious life and character their only redeeming charm of sentiment and interest, that the native grossness and rancour of this incarnate spirit of libel burst forth with tenfold virulence.[123] He showed how true had been his love and his respect for them, by insulting and reviling, in terms a scavenger would disavow, the sex they belonged to. Swift's master-passion was pride,—an unconquerable, all-engrossing, self-revolving pride: he was proud of his vigorous intellect, proud of being the "dread and hate of half mankind,"—proud of his contempt for women,—proud of his tremendous powers of invective. It was his boast, that he never forgave an injury; it was his boast, that the ferocious and unsparing personal satire with which he avenged himself on those who offended him, had never been softened by the repentance, or averted by the concessions of the offender. Look at him in his last years, when the cold earth was heaped over those who would have cheered and soothed his dark and stormy spirit; without a friend—deprived of the mighty powers he had abused—alternately a drivelling idiot and a furious maniac, and sinking from both into a helpless, hopeless, prostrate lethargy of body and mind!—Draw,—draw the curtain, in reverence to the human ruin, lest our woman's hearts be tempted to unwomanly exultation!
FOOTNOTES:
[107] As Swift said truly and wittily of himself:
As when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime or place the stones,
But all admire Inigo Jones;
So if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in after-times,
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours!
Verses to Stella.
[108] Sheridan's Life of Swift.