m that the Letters of Phalaris (which he could not read) were
the best Letters in the world, he found ready champions. They were
hopelessly defeated by Bentley, but Sir William Temple fortunately died
before the defeat.

Better books were written at Moor Park by Sir William's secretary.
Jonathan Swift, angry and rebellious, hating the authority and restraint
of his Irish University, came to England an uncouth, ill-balanced,
extravagant creature of twenty-one, and settled, or half-settled, to his
work as amanuensis. He threw up his post in a rage, went over to Ireland
and was ordained priest, made up his quarrel with his patron and came
back to Moor Park to write _The Tale of a Tub_ and _The Battle of the
Books_. But the books were almost incidents. The mainspring of his life
was his melancholy devotion to the pretty girl who waited on Lady
Giffard, Sir William Temple's sister. She was Esther Johnson, daughter
of Sir William's steward, but as Swift's Stella she lives in the story
of sad and mysterious passions with Heloise and Laura.

Sir William Temple died in 1699, and was buried by his wife's side in
Westminster Abbey; all but his heart, and that was laid in a silver box
under the sundial in his garden. He left his papers to Swift, who wrote
that there had died "with him all that was good and amiable among men,"
and to prove it quarrelled acrimoniously with the family.

Of another, gentler inmate of Moor Park we hear very little. Her fame
was assured her when, as Dorothy Osborne, she had waited seven years to
marry William Temple, and had sent to him, without an idea that they
would reach an English public, some of the most graceful girlish letters
ever written. After her marriage she leaves the scene, or we see her
seldom. She corresponded with Queen Mary, but Swift has little to tell
us about her. She, at least, could never have enraged him.

[Illustration: _Stella's Cottage._]

Moor Park lies along the banks of the Wey, and through it runs a drive
open to foot passengers, but not to bicycles or dogs. Nearly at the end
of the drive going towards Waverley Abbey is a curious cave, lined and
roofed at the entrance with stone, and barred and gated and spiked with
iron, evidently a fit habitation, once upon a time, for a very
witch-like old woman. The gates, or rather railings which do not open,
must have been placed there many years ago, for no initials have been
carved, or at least none are visible, on the stone wi