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New Light on the Evidence for Swift's Marriage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Marguerite Hearsey
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Extract

Since 1893, when Churton Collins published his biography of Swift, the question as to whether or not Swift was married to Stella has been practically closed. Collins disposed of the matter in the following definitive fashion:

The evidence on which Monck-Berkeley chiefly relied was not that of Mrs. Hearne. “I was,” he says, “informed by the relict of Bishop Berkeley that her husband had assured her of the truth of Swift's marriage, as the Bishop of Clogher who had performed the ceremony had himself communicated the circumstance to him.” If this could be depended upon, it would, of course, settle the question; but unfortunately for Monck-Berkeley, and for Monck-Berkeley's adherents, it can be conclusively proved that no such communication could have taken place. In 1715, a year before the supposed marriage was solemnized, Berkeley was in Italy, where he remained till 1721. Between 1716 and 1717 it is certain that the Bishop of Clogher never left Ireland, and at the end of 1717 he died.1

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1927 , pp. 157 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 Churton Collins, Jonathan Swift: A Biographical and Critical Study, London, 1893, p. 155.

2 William Monck Mason, The History and Antiquities of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, Dublin, 1820, pp. 301-02.

3 Op. cit., p. 10.

4 Henry Craik, Life of Jonathan Swift, London 1882, pp. 526-27.

5 Leslie Stephen, “Jonathan Swift” in the Dict. Nat. Biog.

6 Alexander Cambell Fraser, Life and Letters of George Berkeley, Oxford 1871, p. 356.

7 Op. cit., p. 73.

8 Alexander Cambell Fraser, Berkeley, Edinburgh, 1881, p. 109.

9 Leslie Stephen, “George Berkeley” in the Dict. Nat. Biog.

10 Benjamin Rand, Berkeley and Percival, The Correspondence of George Berkeley . . . . and Sir John Percival . . . .; Cambridge, 1914.

11 Op. cit., 139 ff.

12 Op. cit., 155 ff.

13 Op. cit., 159.

14 George Monck-Berkeley, Literary Relics, xxxv, London, 1789.