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 could never prevail on Dr. Swift to acknowledge her openly as his wife.  A great genius must tread in unbeaten paths, and deviate from the common road of life; otherwise a diamond of so much lustre might have been publickly produced, although it had been fixed within the collet of matrimony:  But that which diminished the value of this inestimable jewel in Swift’s eye was the servile state of her father.