a little cracked," but all men would crowd to her door when she was fourscore.
His verses to her had always been

"Without one word of Cupid's darts,
Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts;
With friendship and esteem possessed,
I ne'er admitted Love a guest."

Her only fault was that she could not bear the lightest touch of blame. Her
wit and sense, her loving care in illness--to which he owed that fact that he
was alive to say it--made her the "best pattern of true friends." She
replied, in lines written on Swift's birthday in 1721, that she was his pupil
and humble friend. He had trained her judgment and refined her fancy and
taste:--

"You taught how I might youth prolong
By knowing what was right and wrong;
How from my heart to bring supplies
Of lustre to my fading eyes;
How soon a beauteous mind repairs
The loss of changed or falling hairs;
How wit and virtue from within
Send out a smoothness o'er the skin
Your lectures could my fancy fix,
And I can please at thirty-six."

In 1723 Vanessa is said to have written to Stella or to Swift--there are
discrepancies in the versions given by Sheridan and Lord Orrery, both of whom
are unreliable--asking whether the report that they were married was true.
Swift, we are told, rode to Celbridge, threw down Vanessa's letter in a great