The Journal to Stella by Jonathan Swift

The Journal to Stella

Jonathan Swift

Table of Contents:

The Journal to Stella………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1

Jonathan Swift…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1

PREFACE………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………2

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3

LETTER 1.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….14

LETTER 2…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….14

LETTER 3…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….15

LETTER 4…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….18

LETTER 5…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20

LETTER 6…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….24

LETTER 7…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….27

LETTER 8…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….31

LETTER 9…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….35

LETTER 10…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..39

LETTER 11…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..43

LETTER 12…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..48

LETTER 13…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..54

LETTER 14…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..58

LETTER 15…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..62

LETTER 16…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..66

LETTER 17…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..70

LETTER 18…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..74

LETTER 19…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..77

LETTER 20…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..81

LETTER 21…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..84

LETTER 22…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..89

LETTER 23…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..92

LETTER 24…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..96

LETTER 25…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………101

LETTER 26…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………104

LETTER 27…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………109

LETTER 28…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………114

LETTER 29…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………118

LETTER 30…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………122

LETTER 31…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………127

LETTER 32…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………131

LETTER 33…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………135

LETTER 34…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………138

LETTER 35…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………142

LETTER 36…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………147

LETTER 37…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………151

LETTER 38…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………155

LETTER 39…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………159

LETTER 40…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………163

LETTER 41.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………166

LETTER 42.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………170

LETTER 43.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………174

LETTER 44.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………178

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The Journal to Stella

Table of Contents

LETTER 45.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………180

LETTER 46.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………181

LETTER 47.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………182

LETTER 48.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………183

LETTER 49.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………184

LETTER 50.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………185

LETTER 51.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………186

LETTER 52.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………187

LETTER 53.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………189

LETTER 54.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………190

LETTER 55.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………192

LETTER 56.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………193

LETTER 57.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………195

LETTER 58.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………199

LETTER 59.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………204

LETTER 60.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………208

LETTER 61.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………211

LETTER 62.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………215

LETTER 63.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………219

LETTER 64.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………223

LETTER 65.[1]……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………224

NOTES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….225

This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.

PREFACE

The history of the publication of the Journal to Stella is somewhat curious. On Swift’s death twenty−five of the letters, forming the closing portion of the series, fell into the hands of Dr. Lyon, a clergyman who had been in charge of Swift for some years. The letters passed to a man named Wilkes, who sold them for publication. They accordingly appeared in 1766 in the tenth volume of Dr. Hawkesworth’s quarto edition of Swift’s works; but the editor made many changes in the text, including a suppression of most of the “little language.” The publishers, however, fortunately for us, were public−spirited enough to give the manuscripts (with one exception) to the British Museum, where, after many years, they were examined by John Forster, who printed in his unfinished “Life of Swift” numerous passages from the originals, showing the manner in which the text had been tampered with by Hawkesworth. Swift himself, too, in his later years, obliterated many words and sentences in the letters, and Forster was able to restore not a few of these omissions. His zeal, however, sometimes led him to make guesses at words which are quite undecipherable. Besides Forster’s work, I have had the benefit of the careful collation made by Mr. Ryland for his edition of 1897.

Where these authorities differ I have usually found myself in agreement with Mr. Ryland, but I have felt justified in accepting some of Forster’s readings which were rejected by him as uncertain; and the examination of the manuscripts has enabled me to make some additions and corrections of my own. Swift’s writing is extremely small, and abounds in abbreviations. The difficulty of arriving at the true reading is therefore considerable, apart from the erasures.

PREFACE

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The Journal to Stella

The remainder of the Journal, consisting of the first forty letters, was published in 1768 by Deane Swift, Dr.

Swift’s second cousin. These letters had been given to Mrs. Whiteway in 1788, and by her to her son−in−law, Deane Swift. The originals have been lost, with the exception of the first, which, by some accident, is in the British Museum; but it is evident that Deane Swift took even greater liberties with the text than Hawkesworth. He substituted for “Ppt” the word “Stella,” a name which Swift seems not to have used until some years later; he adopted the name “Presto” for Swift, and in other ways tried to give a greater literary finish to the letters. The whole of the correspondence was first brought together, under the title of the

“Journal to Stella”, in Sheridan’s edition of 1784.

Previous editions of the Journal have been but slightly annotated. Swift’s letters abound with allusions to people of all classes with whom he came in contact in London, and to others known to Esther Johnson in Ireland; and a large proportion of these persons have been passed over in discreet silence by Sir Walter Scott and others. The task of the annotator has, of course, been made easier of late years by the publication of contemporary journals and letters, and of useful works of reference dealing with Parliament, the Army, the Church, the Civil Service, and the like, besides the invaluable Dictionary of National Biography. I have also been assisted by a collection of MS. notes kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. Thomas Seccombe. I have aimed at brevity and relevance, but it is hoped that the reader will find all the information that is necessary.

Here and there a name has baffled research, but I have been able to give definite particulars of a very large number of people noblemen and ladies in society in London or Dublin, Members of Parliament, doctors, clergymen, Government officials, and others who have hitherto been but names to the reader of the Journal. I have corrected a good many errors in the older notes, but in dealing with so large a number of persons, some of whom it is difficult to identify, I cannot hope that I myself have escaped pitfalls.

G. A. A.

INTRODUCTION.

When Swift began to write the letters known as the Journal to Stella, he was forty−two years of age, and Esther Johnson twenty−nine. Perhaps the most useful introduction to the correspondence will be a brief setting forth of what is known of their friendship from Stella’s childhood, the more specially as the question has been obscured by many assertions and theories resting on a very slender basis of fact.

Jonathan Swift, born in 1667 after his father’s death, was educated by his uncle Godwin, and after a not very successful career at Trinity College, Dublin, went to stay with his mother, Abigail Erick, at Leicester. Mrs.

Swift feared that her son would fall in love with a girl named Betty Jones, but, as Swift told a friend, he had had experience enough “not to think of marriage till I settle my fortune in the world, which I am sure will not be in some years; and even then, I am so hard to please that I suppose I shall put it off to the other world.”

Soon afterwards an opening for Swift presented itself. Sir William Temple, now living in retirement at Moor Park, near Farnham, had been, like his father, Master of the Irish Rolls, and had thus become acquainted with Swift’s uncle Godwin. Moreover, Lady Temple was related to Mrs. Swift, as Lord Orrery tells us. Thanks to these facts, the application to Sir William Temple was successful, and Swift went to live at Moor Park before the end of 1689. There he read to Temple, wrote for him, and kept his accounts, and growing into confidence with his employer, “was often trusted with matters of great importance.” The storyafterwards improved upon by Lord Macaulaythat Swift received only 20 pounds and his board, and was not allowed to sit at table with his master, is wholly untrustworthy. Within three years of their first intercourse, Temple had introduced his secretary to William the Third, and sent him to London to urge the King to consent to a bill for triennial Parliaments.

When Swift took up his residence at Moor Park he found there a little girl of eight, daughter of a merchant named Edward Johnson, who had died young. Swift says that Esther Johnson was born on March 18, 1681; in INTRODUCTION.

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The Journal to Stella

the parish register of Richmond,[1] which shows that she was baptized on March 20, 1680−81, her name is given as Hester; but she signed her will “Esther,” the name by which she was always known. Swift says, “Her father was a younger brother of a good family in Nottinghamshire, her mother of a lower degree; and indeed she had little to boast in her birth.” Mrs. Johnson had two children, Esther and Ann, and lived at Moor Park as companion to Lady Giffard, Temple’s widowed sister. Another member of the household, afterwards to be Esther’s constant companion, was Rebecca Dingley, a relative of the Temple family.[2] She was a year or two older than Swift.

The lonely young man of twenty−two was both playfellow and teacher of the delicate child of eight. How he taught her to write has been charmingly brought before us in the painting exhibited by Miss Dicksee at the Royal Academy a few years ago; he advised her what books to read, and instructed her, as he says, “in the principles of honour and virtue, from which she never swerved in any one action or moment of her life.”

By 1694 Swift had grown tired of his position, and finding that Temple, who valued his services, was slow in finding him preferment, he left Moor Park in order to carry out his resolve to go into the Church. He was ordained, and obtained the prebend of Kilroot, near Belfast, where he carried on a flirtation with a Miss Waring, whom he called Varina. But in May 1696 Temple made proposals which induced Swift to return to Moor Park, where he was employed in preparing Temple’s memoirs and correspondence for publication, and in supporting the side taken by Temple in the Letters of Phalaris controversy by writing The Battle of the Books, which was, however, not published until 1704. On his return to Temple’s house, Swift found his old playmate grown from a sickly child into a girl of fifteen, in perfect health. She came, he says, to be “looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection.”