"But what success Vanessa met
Is to the world a secret yet.
Whether the nymph to please her swain
Talks in a high romantic strain;
Or whether he at last descends
To act with less seraphic ends;
Or, to compound the business, whether
They temper love and books together,
Must never to mankind be told,
Nor shall the conscious Muse unfold."

Such is the poem as we now have it, written, it must be remembered, for
Vanessa's private perusal. It is to be regretted, for her own sake, that she
did not destroy it.

Swift received the reward of his services to the Government--the Deanery of
St. Patrick's, Dublin--in April 1713. Disappointed at what he regarded as
exile, he left London in June. Vanessa immediately began to send him letters
which brought home to him the extent of her passion; and she hinted at
jealousy in the words, "If you are very happy, it is ill-natured of you not to
tell me so, except 'tis what is inconsistent with my own." In his reply Swift
dwelt upon the dreariness of his surroundings at Laracor, and reminded her
that he had said he would endeavour to forget everything in England, and would
write as seldom as he could.

Swift was back again in the political strife in London in September, taking
Oxford's part in the quarrel between that statesman and Bolingbroke. On the
fall of the Tories at the death of Queen Anne, he saw that all was over, and
retired to Ireland, not to return again for twelve years. In the meantime the
intimacy with Vanessa had been renewed. Her mother had died, leaving debts,