Tisdall's appearance as a suitor was sufficiently annoying. There is no
evidence that Stella viewed Tisdall's proposal with any favour, unless it can
be held to be furnished by Swift's belief that the town thought--rightly or
wrongly--that there was an engagement. In any case, there could be no mistake
in future with regard to Swift's attitude towards Stella. She was dearer to
him than anyone else, and his feeling for her would not change, but for
marriage he had neither fortune nor humour. Tisdall consoled himself by
marrying another lady two years afterwards; and though for a long time Swift
entertained for him feelings of dislike, in later life their relations
improved, and Tisdall was one of the witnesses to Swift's will.

The Tale of a Tub was published in 1704, and Swift was soon in constant
intercourse with Addison and the other wits. While he was in England in 1705,
Stella and Mrs. Dingley made a short visit to London. This and a similar
visit in 1708 are the only occasions on which Stella is known to have left
Ireland after taking up her residence in that country. Swift's influence over
women was always very striking. Most of the toasts of the day were his
friends, and he insisted that any lady of wit and quality who desired his
acquaintance should make the first advances. This, he says--writing in 1730--
had been an established rule for over twenty years. In 1708 a dispute on this
question with one toast, Mrs. Long, was referred for settlement to Ginckel
Vanhomrigh, the son of the house where it was proposed that the meeting should
take place; and by the decision--which was in Swift's favour--"Mrs. Vanhomrigh
and her fair daughter Hessy" were forbidden to aid Mrs. Long in her
disobedience for the future. This is the first that we hear of Hester or
Esther Vanhomrigh, who was afterwards to play so marked a part in the story of
Swift's life. Born on February 14, 1690, she was now eighteen. Her father,
Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dublin merchant of Dutch origin, had died in 1703,
leaving his wife a fortune of some sixteen thousand pounds. On the income
from this money Mrs. Vanhomrigh, with her two daughters, Hester and Mary, were