and image is not in rigid lines of black and white, but an airy and radiant vision, the representation of anything in the world rather than a downcast and disappointed woman. It is not that either of a wife or a lover; it is more like the wilful, delightful image of a favorite child, a creature confident that everything she says or does will be received with admiration from the mere fact that it is she who says or does it, and who tyrannizes, scoffs, and proffers a thousand comments and criticisms with all the elastic brightness of unforced and unimpassioned affection. It is through this medium alone that Stella is ever visible. And he, too, laughs, teases, fondles, and advises with the same doting, delightful ease of affection. By what process this attractive conjunction should have furnished the idea of a victim in Stella, and in Swift of a tyrannous secret lover crushing her heart, it is difficult to understand. The external circumstances of their intimacy were, no doubt, very [Illustration: HESTER JOHNSON, SWIFT’S “STELLA,” PAINTED FROM LIFE BY MRS. DELANY, ON THE WALL OF THE TEMPLE AT DELVILLE, AND ACCIDENTALLY DESTROYED. ENGRAVED BY M. HAIDER FROM COPY OF THE ORIGINAL BY HENRY MACMANUS, R. H. A., NOW IN POSSESSION OF PROFESSOR DOWDEN.] unusual, and might have lent occasion to much evil speaking. But they do not seem to have done so, after the first moment at least. Nobody ventured to assail the good fame of Stella, and Swift took every means to make the perfect innocence of their friendship apparent. She cannot be made out to have suffered in the vulgar way, and it seems to us one of the most curious examples of an obstinately maintained theory to represent her as Swift’s victim in what is supposed to be a long martyrdom of the heart.