lieve that this never was the case. We have already seen on her first going to Ireland, what uncommon pains Swift took to avoid meeting her. Upon which Vanessa writes to him in the following manner: "You once had a maxim, which was to act what was right, and not mind what the world would say. I wish you would keep to it now. Pray what can be wrong in seeing and advising an unhappy young woman? I cannot imagine." Is this the language of guilt, or conscious innocence? In all the letters which passed between them, whose publication was suppressed, as before related, I have been assured by one of her executors, the late judge Marshall, and the same was constantly asserted by the other, bishop Berkeley, that there was no hint of any criminal amour; which could not easily have happened in so long a correspondence, had that been the case. On the contrary, in the few that have seen the light, we find Swift always praising her for her virtues, and recommending to her the improvement of her mind. In his French letter, May 12, 1719, in answer to one of hers written in that language, he says, Et que je suis sot moi de vous répondre en même langage, vous qui êtes incapable d'aucune sottise, si ce n' est l' estime qu'il vous plait d' avoir pour moi: car il n' y a point, de mérite, ni aucun preuve de mon bon goût, de trouver en vous tout ce que la nature a donnée à un mortel; je veux dire, l' honneur, la vertu, le bon sens, l' esprit, le douceur, l' agrément, et la fermeté d' ame[1]. And
- ↑ "What a blockhead am I to answer you in the same language! you who are incapable of any folly, unless it be the esteem you are pleased to entertain for me: for it is no merit, nor any proof of my good taste, to find out in you all that nature has bestowed on a mortal; that is to say, honour, virtue, good sense, wit, sweetness, agreeableness, and firmness of soul."
