Johnson, Esther (1681–1728)

Irish woman immortalized as Jonathan Swift's "Stella." Name variations: Hetty Johnson. Born in 1681; died in Dublin, Ireland, on January 28, 1728; daughter of William Temple's steward; probably secretly married to Jonathan Swift (the satirist), in 1716.

The diplomat, Sir William Temple of Moor Park, in Surrey, England, was related by marriage to Jonathan Swift's mother Abigail Errick Swift . For ten years, Jonathan Swift became his amanuensis "for board and twenty pounds per year" (1689–99). About five years into Swift's stay, he "made love to a very pretty dark-eyed young girl who waited on Lady Giffard," wrote Lord Macaulay. Little did Temple "think that the flirtation in his servants' hall, which he perhaps scarcely deigned to make the subject of a jest, was the beginning of a long unprosperous love which was to be as widely famed as the passion of Petrarch or of Abelard.… Lady Gif-fard 's waiting-maid was poor Stella."

Stella was in actuality Esther Johnson, who was referred to as Stella in Swift's correspondence and in his Journal to Stella. Esther had been only eight when Swift arrived in the household; she was eighteen by the time he left. During those years, Swift devoted himself to study. In 1695, he also undertook the education of Johnson, who grew to be well-read under his direction. At that time, he was about 30, Johnson 14.

He was "perpetually instructing her in the principles of honor and virtue," wrote Swift; "from which she never swerved in any one action or moment of her life. She was sickly from her childhood until about the age of fifteen; but then grew into perfect health and was looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful and agreeable young women in London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in perfection."

In 1700, Johnson followed Swift to Ireland, and it is generally supposed that the two were secretly married in the garden of the deanery by the bishop of Clogher in 1716, though in her will, drawn up in December 1727, she refers to herself as Esther Johnson, spinster. Esther Johnson died the following year at age 47 and was buried in St. Patrick's in Dublin. Swift was buried beside her after his death in 1745.