amongst whom he could count some of his dearest and truest friends; but
He loved to be bitter at
A lady illiterate;
and therefore delighted in giving them literary instruction, most notably
in the cases of Stella and Vanessa, whose relations with him arose
entirely from the tuition in letters which they received from him. Again,
when on a visit at Sir Arthur Acheson's, he insisted upon making Lady
Acheson read such books as he thought fit to advise, and in the doggerel
verses entitled "My Lady's Lamentation," she is supposed to resent his
"very imperious" manner of instruction:

No book for delight
Must come in my sight;
But instead of new plays,
Dull Bacon's Essays,
And pore every day on
That nasty Pantheon.

As a contrast to his imperiousness, there is an affectionate simplicity
in the fancy names he used to bestow upon his female friends. Sir William
Temple's wife, Dorothea, became Dorinda; Esther Johnson, Stella; Hester
Vanhomrigh, Vanessa; Lady Winchelsea, Ardelia; while to Lady Acheson he
gave the nicknames of Skinnybonia, Snipe, and Lean. But all was taken by
them in good part; for his rather dictatorial ways were softened by the
fascinating geniality and humour which he knew so well how to employ when
he used to "deafen them with puns and rhyme."

Into the vexed question of the relations between Swift and Stella I do
not purpose to enter further than to record my conviction that she was
never more to him than "the dearest friend that ever man had." The