Life
1681-1728 [Swift’s ‘Stella’]; b. England, dg. Brigid and
Edward Johnson, housekeeper and stewart to Sir William Temple, met Swift
whom he was secretary to Sir William Temple, 1689; became her tutor; bequeathed
property in Ireland by Sir William; on Swift’s advice moved to Ireland
with her companion Rebecca Dingley, 1701, remaining until her death; while
in London (The Journal to Stella 1710-13; published 1766-68), in
sixty-five letters, held in the British Library; her replies not preserved;
Swift began series of annual birthday-poems for her in 1719, using the
name ‘Stella’ for the first time, praising her intelligence
and loyalty; wrote Holyhead Journal en route from London to Dublin,
1727, a daily account of his frustrating delay in reaching his dying friend;
commemorated her in a dignified Character of Stella; d. Dublin.
FDA OCIL
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Works
Two poems attributed to her in in Matthew Concanen, ed., Miscellaneous
Poems (1724); aother in Deane Swift, Essay Upon the Life ... of
Dr. Jonathan Swift (1755); COMM, Herbert Davis, Stella, a Gentlewoman
of the Eighteenth Century (NY 1942); also Margaret Duggan, ‘Esther
Johns’ in Janet Todd, A Dictionary of British and American Women
Writers 1600-1800 (n.d.), pp.180-81 .
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References
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field
Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects ‘To Dr. Swift on his Birth-day’,
457-58. [Biography, Works, and rems. at pp.329, 338-41, 492; 496].
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)