he church. He was recommended to lord Capel, then
Lord-Deputy, who gave him, the first vacancy, a prebend, of which the
income was about a hundred pounds a year.

Swift soon grew weary of a preferment, which to a man of his ambition
was far from being sufficiently considerable. He resigned his prebend in
favour of a friend, and being sick of solitude he returned to Sheen,
were he lived domestically as usual, till the death of Sir William
Temple; who besides a legacy in money, left to him the care and trust of
publishing his posthumous works.

During Swift's residence with Sir William Temple he became intimately
acquainted with a lady, whom he has distinguished, and often celebrated,
under the name of Stella. The real name of this lady was Johnson. She
was the daughter of Sir William Temple's steward; and the concealed but
undoubted wife of doctor Swift. Sir William Temple bequeathed her in his
will 1000 l. as an acknowledgment of her father's faithful services. In
the year 1716 she was married to doctor Swift, by doctor Ashe, then
bishop of Clogher.

The reader must observe, there was a long interval between the
commencement of his acquaintance with Stella, and the time of making her
his wife, for which (as it appears he was fond of her from the beginning
of their intimacy) no other cause can be assigned, but that the same
unaccountable humour, which had so long detained him from marrying,
prevented him from acknowledging her after she was his wife.

'Stella (says lord Orrery) was a most amiable woman both in mind and
person: She had an elevated understanding, with all the delicacy, and
softness of her own sex. Her voice, however sweet in itself, was still
rendered more harmonious by what she said. Her wit was poignant without
severity: Her manners were humane, polite, easy and unreserved.--
Wherever she came, she attracted attention and esteem. As virtue was her
guide in morality, sincerity was her guide in religion. She was
constant, but not ostentatious in her devotions: She was remarkably
prudent in her conversation: She had great skill in music; and was
perfectly well versed in all the lesser arts that employ a lady's
leisure. Her wit allowed her a fund of perpetual cheerfulness within
proper limits. She exactly answered the description of Penelope in
Homer.

A woman, loveliest of the lovely kind,
In body perfect, and compleat in mind.'

Such was this amiable lady, yet, with all these advantages, she cou