d 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."

On his death in January 1699, Temple left a will,(3) dated 1694,
directing the payment of 20 pounds each, with half a year's wages, to
Bridget Johnson "and all my other servants"; and leaving a lease of some
land in Monistown, County Wicklow, to Esther Johnson, "servant to my
sister Giffard." By a codicil of February 1698, Temple left 100 pounds
to "Mr. Jonathan Swift, now living with me." It may be added that by her
will of 1722, proved in the following year, Lady Giffard gave 20 pounds
to Mrs. Moss--Mrs. Bridget Johnson, who had married Richard Mose or
Moss, Lady Giffard's steward. The will proceeds: "To Mrs. Hester (sic)
Johnson I give 10 pounds, with the 100 pounds I put into the Exchequer
for her life and my own, and declare the 100