With regard to Dean Swift’s poetical character, the reader will take the following sketch of it in the words of Lord Orrery.  ’The poetical performances of Swift (says he) ought to be considered as occasional poems, written either to pleasure[3], or to vex some particular persons.  We must not suppose them designed for posterity; if he had cultivated his genius that way, he must certainly have excelled, especially in satire.  We see fine sketches in several of his pieces; but he seems more desirous to inform and strengthen his mind, than to indulge the luxuriancy of his imagination.  He chuses to discover, and correct errors in the works of others, rather than to illustrate, and add beauties of his own.  Like a skilful artist, he is fond of probing wounds to their depth, and of enlarging them to open view.  He aims to be severely useful, rather than politely engaging; and as he was either not formed, nor would take pains to excel in poetry, he became in some measure superior to it; and assumed more the air, and manner of a critic than a poet.’  Thus far his lordship in his VIth letter, but in his IXth, he adds, when speaking of the Second Volume of Swift’s Works, ’He had the nicest ear; he is remarkably chaste, and delicate in his rhimes.  A bad rhime appeared to him one of the capital sins of poetry.’

The Dean’s poem on his celebrated Vanessa, is number’d among the best of his poetical pieces.  Of this lady it will be proper to give some account, as she was a character as singular as Swift himself.

Vanessa’s real name was Esther Vanhomrich[4].  She was one of the daughters of Bartholomew Vanhomrich, a Dutch merchant of Amsterdam; who upon the Revolution went into Ireland, and was appointed by king William a commissioner of the revenue.  The Dutch merchant, by parsimony and prudence, had collected a fortune of about 16,000 l.  He bequeathed an equal division of it to his wife, and his four children, of which two were sons, and two were daughters.  The sons after the death of their father travelled abroad:  The eldest died beyond sea; and the youngest surviving his brother only a short time, the whole patrimony fell to his two sisters, Esther and Mary.

With this encrease of wealth, and with heads and hearts elated by affluence, and unrestrained by fore-sight or discretion, the widow Vanhomrich, and her two daughters, quitted their native country for the more elegant pleasures of the English court.  During their residence at London, they lived in a course of prodigality, that stretched itself far beyond the limits of their income, and reduced them to great distress, in the midst of which the mother died, and the two daughters hastened in all secresy back to Ireland, beginning their journey on a Sunday, to avoid the interruption of creditors.  Within two years after their arrival in Ireland, Mary the youngest sister died, and the small remains of the shipwreck’d fortune center’d in Vanessa.