Swift stood alone in the world, and for his punishment was doomed to endure the crushing solitude for the space of seventeen years. The interval was gloomy indeed. From his youth the Dean had been subject to painful fits of giddiness and deafness. From 1736 these fits became more frequent and severe. In 1740 he went raving mad, and frenzy ceased only to leave him a more pitiable idiot. During the space of three years the poor creature was unconscious of all that passed around him, and spoke but twice. Upon the 19th of October, 1745, God mercifully removed the terrible spectacle from the sight of man, and released the sufferer from his misery, degradation, and shame. The volumes, whose title is found below,[1] and which have given occasion to these remarks, are a singular comment upon a singular history. It is the work of a Frenchman who has ventured to deduce a theory from the _data_ we have submitted to the reader's notice. With that theory we cannot agree: it may be reconcilable to the romance which M. de Wailly has invented, but it is altogether opposed to veritable records that cannot be impugned. M. de Wailly would have it that Swift's marriage with Stella was a deliberate and rational sacrifice of love to principle, and that Swift compensated his sacrificed love by granting his principle no human indulgences; that his love for Vanessa, in fact, was sincere and ardent, and that his duty to Stella alone prevented a union with Vanessa. To prove his case M. de Wailly widely departs from history, and makes his hypothesis of no value whatever, except to the novel reader. As a romance, written by a Frenchman, _Stella and Vanessa_ is worthy of great commendation. It indicates a familiar knowledge of English manners and character, and never betrays, except here and there in the construction of the plot, the hand of a foreigner. It is quite free from exaggeration, and inasmuch as it exhibits no glaring anachronism or absurd caricature, is a literary curiosity. We accept it as such, though bound to reject its higher claims. The mystery of Swift's amours has yet to be cleared up. We explain his otherwise unaccountable behavior by attributing his cruelty to prevailing insanity. The career of Swift was brilliant, but not less wild than dazzling. The sickly hue of a distempered brain gave a color to his acts in all the relations of life. The storm was brewing from his childhood; it burst forth terribly in his age, and only a moment before all was wreck and devastation, the half-distracted man sat down and made a will, by which he left the whole of his worldly possessions for the foundation of a lunatic asylum. [1: _Stella and Vanessa: A Romance from the French. By Lady Duff Gordon. In two vols. Bentley. 1850.] AUTHORS AND BOOKS.