Vanity makes terrible devastations in a female breast:  Vanessa was excessively vain.  She was fond of dress; impatient to be admired; very romantic in her turn of mind; superior in her own opinion to all her sex; full of pertness, gaiety, and pride; not without some agreeable accomplishments, but far from being either beautiful or genteel:  Ambitious at any rate to be esteemed a wit; and with that view always affecting to keep company with wits; a great reader, and a violent admirer of poetry; happy in the thoughts of being reputed Swift’s concubine; but still aiming to be his wife.  By nature haughty and disdainful, looking with contempt upon her inferiors; and with the smiles of self-approbation upon her equals; but upon Dr. Swift, with the eyes of love:  Her love was no doubt founded in vanity.

Though Vanessa had exerted all the arts of her sex, to intangle Swift in matrimony; she was yet unsuccessful.  She had lost her reputation, and the narrowness of her income, and coldness of her lover contributed to make her miserable, and to increase the phrensical disposition of her mind.  In this melancholly situation she remained several years, during which time Cadenus (Swift) visited her frequently.  She often press’d him to marry her:  His answers were rather turns of wit, than positive denials; till at last being unable to sustain the weight of misery any longer, she wrote a very tender epistle to him, insisting peremptorily upon a serious answer, and an immediate acceptance, or absolute refusal of her as his wife.  His reply was delivered by his own hand.  He brought it with him when he made his final visit; and throwing down the letter upon the table with great passion, hastened back to his house, carrying in his countenance the frown of anger, and indignation.  Vanessa did not survive many days the letter delivered to her by Swift, but during that short interval she was sufficiently composed, to cancel a will made in his favour, and to make another, wherein she left her fortune (which by a long retirement was in some measure retrieved) to her two executors, Dr. Berkley the late lord bishop of Cloyne, and Mr. Marshal one of the king’s Serjeants at law.  Thus perished under all the agonies of despair, Mrs. Esther Vanhomrich; a miserable example of an ill-spent life, fantastic wit, visionary schemes, and female weakness.

It is strange that vanity should have so great a prevalence in the female breast, and yet it is certain that to this principle it was owing, that Swift’s house was often a seraglio of very virtuous women, who attended him from morning till night, with an obedience, an awe, and an assiduity that are seldom paid to the richest, or the most powerful lovers.  These ladies had no doubt a pride in being thought the companions of Swift; but the hours which were spent in his company could not be very pleasant, as his sternness and authority were continually exerted to keep them in awe.

Lord Orrery has informed us, that Swift took every opportunity to expose and ridicule Dryden, for which he imagines there must have been some affront given by that great man to Swift.  In this particular we can satisfy the reader from authentic information.