Historical Characters in the Reign of Queen Anne

by Mrs. Oliphant

One can well imagine, however, when the two ladies arrived in Dublin, where their friend had no doubt represented to them his power to gain them access into the best society, and found that he did not come and that they were stranded in a strange place, knowing nobody, how some annoyance and disappointment, and perhaps anger, must have been in their thoughts, and that P. D. F. R., as he is called in the little language, faithless rogue! had his share of abuse. And no doubt it might be believed by good-natured friends that their object in coming was to secure the vicar of Laracor either for the young and lovely girl or the elder woman, who was scarcely older than Swift—if not indeed that some “secret history” more damaging still was at the bottom of the adventure. Insensibly, however, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley found a place and position for themselves. Swift was often away in the following years, spending about half his time in London, and when he was absent they took possession of his newly repaired and renovated house, or occupied his lodging in Dublin, and gathered friends about them, and went out to their card-parties, and played a little, and talked, and lived a pleasant life. When he returned, they removed to their own rooms. Thus there could be no doubt about the close association between them, which, when it was quite apparent that it meant nothing closer to come, no doubt made everybody wonder. But we have no contemporary evidence that Stella was an object of pity, and her aspect as we see it in all Swift says of her is exactly the reverse, and gives us the impression of a charming and easy-minded woman, a queen of society in her little circle, enjoying everything that came her way.

As Swift’s relations with Stella are the great interests of his life, the subject which occupies every new writer who so much as touches upon him, it is needless to make any excuse for entering into the question with an amount of detail which our limited space would otherwise scarcely justify. The mystery about it lends it an endless attraction, and as, whatever it was, it is the one great love of his life, and represents all the private satisfaction and comfort he got by means of his affections, it has a permanent interest which most readers will not find in the “Tale of a Tub,” or any other of the productions which made this period of his life remarkable. Swift was continually going and coming to London through these years. Though he had begun at once to make Laracor a sort of earthly paradise with a Dutch flavor, such as he had learnt from his early master, and though it was “very much for his own satisfaction” that he had invited Stella to come to Ireland, yet neither of these reasons was enough to keep him in the rural quiet among his willows, though he loved them. He hankered after society, after fame and power. He liked to meet with great men, to hear the news, to ride over weaker reasoners in society, to put forth his own vigorous views, and whip, with sharp satire, the men who displeased him. Tradition and habit had made him a Whig, but political names were of easy interchange in those days, and Swift’s objects were much more definite than his politics. From the moment of Queen Anne’s ascension, when she gratified the Church of England by the remission of certain dues hitherto paid to the crown, Swift’s energies were directed to obtaining a similar remission for the Irish Church, and this was the ostensible object of his repeated journeys to London. He had also a purpose still nearer to his heart, which was the advancement of Jonathan Swift to a post more fitted to his genius. For these great objects he haunted the anterooms of Halifax and Somers and Godolphin, and did what he could to show them what they were not wise enough to perceive, that he was himself an auxiliary well worth securing. The Whig lords played with, flattered, and neglected the brilliant but importunate envoy of the Irish Church, holding him upon tenterhooks of expectation, going so far as to make him believe that his cause for the church was won, and that his bishopric was certain, till disgust and disappointment overcame Swift’s patience. Nine years had passed in these vain negotiations. It was in 1701 that he paid that visit to Farnham which decided Stella’s fate, but his own was still hanging in the balance when, after almost yearly expeditions in the interval, he set out for London in the autumn of the year 1710 with a threat upon his lips. “I will apply to Mr. Harley, who formerly made some advances toward me, and, unless he be altered, will I believe think himself in the right to use me well.” The change was sudden, but it had little in it that could be called political apostasy. Every man was more or less for his own hand, and the balance of popular feeling fluctuated between war and peace: between pride and the glory of England on the one hand, and horror of the sacrifices and misery involved in the long-continued, never-ending campaigns of Marlborough on the other—almost as much as Queen Anne wavered between the influence of the imperious duchess and the obsequious Abigail. There was no shame to Swift at such a moment in the sudden revolution he made.

The man who felt himself of sufficient importance to make this threat seems to have possessed already, notwithstanding the neglect of the Whig lords, the rank of his intellect rather than of his external position, and this not entirely because of the anonymous productions which were more or less known to be his. The “Tale of a Tub,” written while he was still an inmate of Moor Park, had by this time been before the world six years. It was published along with the “Battle of the Books” in 1704, and caused great excitement and sensation among politicians, wits, and critics. But the careless contempt of fame which mingled in him with so fierce a hunger for it kept it long a matter of doubt whether the immense reputation of these works belonged to him or not; and it would appear that his own personality, the size and rude splendor of his individual character, had at least as much to do with his position as the doubtful glory of an anonymous publication. The vicar of Laracor was not sufficiently important to be chosen as the representative of the Irish Church—but Jonathan Swift was; and though the bishops schemed against him in his absence when he seemed to have failed, no one seems to have ventured to suggest that he was too humble a person to hold that representative post. The book which dazzled English society and set all the wits talking was by no means the kind of book to support ecclesiastical dignity. It was indeed by way of being a vindication of the superiority of the Anglican Church over Rome on the one hand, and the dissenters on the other; but the tremendous raid against false pretenses, hypocrisy, and falsehood which is its real scope, was executed with such a riot and madness of laughter, and unscrupulous derision of everything that came in the satirist’s way, as had scarcely been known in English speech before. The mockery was at once brilliant and careless, dashed about hither and thither in a sort of giant’s play, full of the coarsest metaphors, the finest wit, indignation, ridicule, fun, almost too wild and reckless to be called cynical, though penetrated with the profoundest cynicism and disbelief of any good. The power which still lives and asserts itself in those strange and often detestable pages, must strike even the

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.
ENGRAVED BY R. A. MULLER, FROM AN ENGRAVING IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, AFTER A PAINTING BY SIR PETER LELY.

reader to whom they are most abhorrent. And the standard of taste was different in the reign of Anne, and critics were not easily alarmed. To some readers the most desperate satire that was ever written appeared a delightful piece of wit.

William Penn sent to the author from America a gammon of bacon on the score of having been “often greatly amused by thy Tale,” and a hundred years later it “delighted beyond description” at the robust mind of William Cobbett, so that he forgot that he had not supped, and preferred the book to a bed. The effect upon the general mind of his contemporaries was equally great; and notwithstanding the immense difference of taste and public feeling it has never lost its place among English classics. Many indeed were horrified by its audacious treatment of the most sacred things, and the objection of Queen Anne to give its author a bishopric would probably have been shared by nine tenths of her subjects. The “Tale of a Tub” is one of those books which furnish a test of literary character. Like the man who was bound to hear the Ancient Mariner, and whom that mystic personage knew whenever he saw him, the reader of Swift’s great work must be born with the faculty necessary for due appreciation and understanding. It is not a power communicable, any more than it is possible to explain the story of the albatross, and the curse that fell upon its slayer. The greater part of the public take both for granted, and remain in a respectful ignorance. To such Swift’s work is little better than a dust-heap of genius, in which there are diamonds and precious things imbedded, which flash at every turning over; but the broken bits of treasure are mixed up with choking dust and dreary rubbish, as well as the offensive garbage which revolts the searcher. The dedication of the work to Prince Posterity is thus wholly justified, and at the same time a failure. It stands in the highest rank of classic satire, and yet to the mass of readers it is nothing but a name.

It is characteristic, however, of the man that he should have tossed into the world without a name a book which made a greater impression than any contemporary publication, enjoying no doubt the wonders and queries, yet scorning to make himself dependent upon so small a thing as a book for his reputation and influence. He was no more disposed than the most sensitive of authors to let another man claim the credit of it, yet proud enough in native arrogance to hold himself independent of such aids to advancement, and thus to prove his scorn of the world’s opinion, even when he sought its applauses most. Whether this work had anything to do with his introduction to the society of the coffee-houses, and the wits of London, we are not told. He was addressed by Addison as “the most Agreeable Companion, the Truest Friend, and the Greatest Genius of his age,” very shortly after the publication of his great satire; so that it is probable he already enjoyed the advantage of its fame, without seeming to do so. The friendship of Addison was a better thing than the admiration of the crowd, and notwithstanding Swift’s imperious temper and arrogant ways, it is just to add that he always numbered among his friends the best and greatest of his time.

On a first accost, it would not seem that his manners were ingratiating. This story, which is told of Swift’s appearance at the St. James coffee-house is amusing, and may be true.