ly refused to contribute one farthing towards his fup port, nor could he be perfuaded to fee his face; but when the time limited in the proclamation was expired, he was permitted to return to his fervice. Soon afterwards he was called haftily up by the dean, who, without any preface, again ordered him to ftrip off his livery, put on his own cloaths, and then come to him again. The poor fellow, though he was greatly aftonished at this proceeding, knew Swift too well to expoftulate, and therefore, with whatever reluctance, did as had been commanded. When he returned, the dean ordered the other fervants to be called up, who immediately attended, expecting that the butler was to be difmiffed in terrorem, and that they should be warned in very fevere terms of his offence. Swift, as foon as they had ranged themselves before him, ordered them to take notice, that Robert was no longer his fervant; he is now, faid the dean, Mr. Blakely, the verger of St. Patrick's cathedral, a place which I give him as a reward for his fidelity. The value of this place is between thirty and forty pounds a year; how

D. S. 190. ever, Robert would not quit his master, but

continued to be his butler fome years afterwards. In this inftance the dean exercised his pride, his fortitude, and his equity, in a manner peculiar to himfelf; and though there are many who would equally have rewarded fuch fidelity, there are few who would have ventured to wait the iffue of fo fevere and dangerous a probation.

From this time the dean's influence in Ireland was almost without bounds, he was confulted in whatever related to domestic policy, and in particular to trade. The weavers always confidered him as their patron and legislator, after his proposal for the use of Irifb manufactures, and came frequently in a body to receive his advice in fettling the rates of their ftuffs, and the wages of their journeymen; and when elec

tions were depending for the city of Dublin, many corporations refused to declare themselves, till they, knew his fentiments and inclinations. Over the populace he was the most abfolute monarch that ever governed men, and he was regarded by persons of every rank with veneration and esteem.

It appears by many of his writings, that he lived in great friendship and familiarity with lord Carteret during his lieutenancy, notwithstanding his lordship had figned the proclamation to difcover him, as the writer of the Draper's Letters. Swift, indeed, remon◄ ftrated against this proceeding, and once asked his lordship how he could concur in the profecution of a poor honeft fellow, who had been guilty of no other crime than that of writing three or four letters for the instruction of his neighbours, and the good of his country; to this question his excellency elegantly replied, in the words of Virgil,

·Regni novitas me talia cogit

Moliri.

D.S.270.

He was equally diligent to recommend his friends to lord Carteret as he had been to recommend them to lord Oxford, and he did it with the fame dignity and freedom. Pray, my lord, faid he, one day, have you the honour to be acquainted with the Grattons? My lord answered he had not: Why then, pray, my lord, faid Swift, take care J. R. 95. to obtain it; it is of great confequence: the Grattons, my lord, can raise ten thousand men. obtained a living for his friend Dr. Sherridan, and he recommended feveral others of whom he knew nothing but that they were good men.

He

See vol.

xii. 184.

He used alfo to remonftrate with great freedom against fuch measures as he difapproved, and lord Cars teret having gained the advantage of him in fome dif pute concerning the diftreffes of Ireland, he cried out in-a violent paffion, What the vengeance brought you

among

among us? Get you gone, get you gone; pray God Almighty fend us our boobies back again; J. R. 25. a reply which fhewed at once the turn, the ftrength, and the virtue of his mind, as it was a fine compliment to the force of reason, by which he had been juft foiled, and was expreffed with all the vehemence of his temper, and all the peculiarity of his wit. He was several times in England on a vifit to Mr. Pope, after his fettlement at the deanery, particularly in the years 1726 and 1727.

There is a paffage in one of his letters to Dr. Sherridan, during his vifit in 1726, by which it appears, that he then had fuch an offer of a fettlement, in the midst of his friends, within twelve miles of London, as, if he had been ten years younger, he would gladly have accepted: But I am now, fays he, too old for new schemes, and especially fuch as would bri

See vol. xii. 206, 207.

dle me in my freedoms and liberalities. He had also an invitation from lord Bolingbroke to spend a winter with him at his house on the banks of the Loire in France; and this he would have accepted, but that he received an account from Ireland, that Mrs. Johnson was dangerously ill.

Mrs. Johnson's conftitution was tender and delicate, and, as the dean himself says, fhe had not the See Lett. ftamina vita; in the year 1724, fhe began xxi. vol. vifibly to decay, and, in the year 1726, was thought to be dying. The dean received the news with agonies not to be felt but by the tenderest and most ardent friendship, nor con ceived but by the most lively imagination, and immediately hafted back into Ireland.

xii. P. 208.

It happened, however, that Mrs. Johnson, contrary to the opinion of her physician, recovered a moderate fhare of health, and the dean, probably, to compleat fome defign which in his hafte he had left unfinished, returned again to England in 1727.

From

See vol.

From England he was once more about to fet out for France upon lord Bolingbroke's xii. 214 invitation, when news arrived of the king's

death.

He had attended the late queen while fhe was princefs in his former excurfions to England, and he had feen her twice in one week by her royal highness's command in this: fhe had always treated the dean with great civility, and the dean had treated her with his ufual and peculiar franknefs. The third day after the news of the late king's death, he attended at court, and kiffed the king and the queen's hand upon their acceffion, and was blamed by his friends for deferring it fo long.

What prospect he had of a change in publick affairs on this event, or of any advantage which fuch a change might produce to himself or his friends, does not appear, but he was earnestly intreated to delay his journey; and, when he had again determined to fet out, he was upon fome new incidents again prevailed upon not to go, by the vehement perfuafion of fome perfons, whom, he fays, he could not difobey. Many schemes were proposed, in which he was eagerly follicited to engage, but he received them coldly; not as it appears because he was determined no more to enter into publick life, but because the fchemes themselves were fuch as he did not approve: however, in the fame letter, in which he fays, that, if the king had lived ten days longer, he should not have dated it from London, but Paris, he fays, that his fhare in the hurry of the time would not be long, and that he should foon return.

He was soon after feized with one of his fits of giddiness and deafnefs, a calamity which was greatly aggravated by the news that Mrs. Johnson was again fo ill, that the phyficians despaired of her life, Upon this occafion he relapfed into the agonies of mind which he had felt the year before; he expected VOL. I,

E

by

by the next poft to hear that she was dead, and intreated that he might be told no particulars, but the event in general, for that, his age being then within three months of fixty, his weakness and his friendfhip would bear no more. As he defpaired of feeing her alive, he determined not to return to Ireland fo foon as he had intended, but to pass the winter either near Salisbury- Plain, or in France. That he might not be interrupted by company, and condemned to the torment of fuppreffing his forrow, to preferve the rules of good breeding, he quitted the houfe of Mr. Pope at Twickenham, and retired to a village near London, with a female relation for his nurfe. The next letter that he received he kept an hour in his pocket efore he could fufficiently fortify himfelf against the shock which he expected when he fhould open it however, as Stella's life ebbed by flow degrees, and fometimes feemed at a stand, if not to flow, his hope of a parting interview revived, and he fet out for Ireland as foon as he was able to travel.

He found her alive, but, after having languifhed about two months longer, fhe expired on the 28th of January, 1727, in the 44th year of her age, regreted by the dean with fuch excefs of affection and efteem as the keeneft fenfibility only could feel, and the moft excellent character excite.

Beauty, which alone has been the object of univerfal admiration and defire, which alone has elevated the poffeffor from the lowest to the highest station, has given dominion to folly, and armed caprice with the power of life and death, was in Stella only the ornament of intellectual greatnefs; and wit, which has rendered deformity lovely, and conferred honour upon vice, was in her only the decoration of fuch virtue, as without either wit or beauty would have compelled affection, efteem, and reverence.

Her ftature was tali, her hair and eyes black, her complexion fair and delicate, her features regular,

foft,