Ambition and pride, the predominant principles which directed all the actions of Swift, conquered reason and justice; and the vanity of boasting such a wife was suppressed by the greater vanity of keeping free from a low alliance.  Dr. Swift and Mrs. Johnson continued the same oeconomy of life after marriage, which they had pursued before it.  They lived in separate houses; nothing appeared in their behaviour inconsistent in their decorum, and beyond the limits of platonic love.  However unaccountable this renunciation of marriage rites might appear to the world, it certainly arose, not from any consciousness of a too near consanguinity between him and Mrs. Johnson, although the general voice of some was willing to make them both the natural children of Sir William Temple.  Dr. Swift, (says lord Orrery) was not of that opinion, for the same false pride which induced him to deny the legitimate daughter of an obscure servant, might have prompted him to own the natural daughter of Sir William Temple.[2]

It is natural to imagine, that a woman of Stella’s delicacy must repine at such an extraordinary situation.  The outward honours she received are as frequently bestowed upon a mistress as a wife; she was absolutely virtuous, and was yet obliged to submit to all the appearances of vice.  Inward anxiety affected by degrees the calmness of her mind, and the strength of her body.  She died towards the end of January 1727, absolutely destroy’d by the peculiarity of her fate; a fate which perhaps she could not have incurred by an alliance with any other person in the world.

Upon the death of Sir William Temple, Swift came to London, and took the earliest opportunity of delivering a petition to King William, under the claim of a promise made by his majesty to Sir William Temple, that Mr. Swift should have the first vacancy which might happen among the prebends of Westminster or Canterbury.  But this promise was either totally forgotten, or the petition which Mr. Swift presented was drowned amidst the clamour of more urgent addresses.  From this first disappointment may be dated that bitterness towards kings and courtiers, which is to be found so universally dispersed throughout his works.

After a long and fruitless attendance at Whitehall, Swift reluctantly gave up all thoughts of a settlement in England:  Pride prevented him from remaining longer in a state of servility and contempt.  He complied therefore with an invitation from the earl of Berkley (appointed one of the Lords Justices in Ireland) to attend him as his chaplain, and private secretary.—­Lord Berkley landed near Waterford, and Mr. Swift acted as secretary during the whole journey to Dublin.  But another of lord Berkley’s attendants, whose name was Bush, had by this time insinuated himself into the earl’s favour, and had whispered to his lordship, that the post of secretary was not proper for a clergyman, to whom only church preferments could be suitable or advantageous.  Lord Berkley listened perhaps too attentively to these insinuations, and making some slight apology to Mr. Swift, divested him of that office, and bestowed it upon Mr. Bush.