Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/325

loss for some uncommon flight of imagination, insisted farther that he should live in Dublin, and keep a coach for his wife. The gentleman had more honour than to promise what he could not perform; the match was accordingly broken off: in a short time after, the doctor's friend married a woman of family, and there was an end of the affair." In what a mean selfish light does this fabricated account place Swift! how different from the genuine one delivered by himself! and that too drawn up by a kinsman, who writ professedly to vindicate his character. But the match was not broken off by any artifice of Swift's, to which he was at all times superiour. The refusal came from Mrs. Johnson herself, who, though she might at first have shown no repugnance to it, probably with a view to sound Swift's sentiments, and bring him to some explanation with regard to her; yet when it came to the point, she could not give up the hope long nourished in her bosom, of being one day united to the object of her virgin heart, and whom she considered as the first of mankind. From that time we do not find that she ever encouraged any other addresses, and her life seemed wholly devoted to him. She passed her days from the year 1703 to 1710, in the most perfect retirement, without any other enjoyment in life but what she found in the pleasure of his society, or in reading. Their mode of living was this: when the doctor was absent on his visits to England, she and her companion took up their residence at his parsonage house at Laracor, in the neighbourhood of Trim, a small town about 20 miles distant from Dublin. When he returned, they either retired to a lodging at Trim, or were hospitably received in the house of