(especially as years creep on) how faithful a depicter of human nature, in its frailty and weakness, was the misanthropic dean of St Patrick's.

[A Description of the Morning.]

Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach
Appearing showed the ruddy morn's approach.
The slipshod 'prentice from his master's door
Had pared the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirled her mop with dexterous airs,
Prepared to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel's edge, where wheels had worn the place.
The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drown'd in shriller notes of chimney-sweep:
Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet;

Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.
Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filths of all hues and odours seem to tell
What street they sailed from by their sight and smell.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield or St 'Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluence joined at Snowhill ridge,
Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn Bridge.
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the
flood.

Baucis and Philemon.

street.

The turnkey now his flock returning sees,

Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees;

The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands, And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.

[A Description of a City Shower.]

Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower.
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Returning home at night, you'll find the sink
Strike your offended sense with double stink.
If you be wise, then go not far to dine;
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage:
Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen;
He damns the climate, and complains of spleen.
Meanwhile the south, rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liquor than it could contain,
And, like a drunkard, gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope;
Such is that sprinkling, which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop-but not so clean:
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she, singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet the dust had shunned the unequal strife,
But, aided by the wind, fought still for life,
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,

'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade?
Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain
Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain !

Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's a-broach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While stream's run down her oiled umbrella's sides.
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, run them through),

year 1708.]

In ancient times, as story tells,
The saints would often leave their cells,
And stroll about, but hide their quality,
To try good people's hospitality.

It happened on a winter night
(As authors of the legend write),
Two brother hermits, saints by trade,
Taking their tour in masquerade,
Disguised in tattered habits, went
To a small village down in Kent;
Where, in the strollers' canting strain,
They begged from door to door in vain;
Tried every tone might pity win,
But not a soul would let them in.

Our wandering saints in woful state,
Treated at this ungodly rate,
Having through all the village past,
To a small cottage came at last,
Where dwelt a good old honest yeoman,
Called in the neighbourhood Philemon,
Who kindly did the saints invite
In his poor hut to pass the night.
And then the hospitable sire
Bid Goody Baucis mend the fire,
While he from out the chimney took
A flitch of bacon off the hook,
And freely from the fattest side
Cut out large slices to be fried;
Then stepped aside to fetch them drink,
Filled a large jug up to the brink,
And saw it fairly twice go round;
Yet (what was wonderful) they found
'Twas still replenished to the top,
As if they ne'er had touched a drop.
The good old couple were amazed,
And often on each other gazed:
For both were frighted to the heart,
And just began to cry- What art?'
Then softly turned aside to view,
Whether the lights were burning blue.
The gentle pilgrims, soon aware on't,
Told them their calling and their errant:
Good folks, you need not be afraid,
We are but saints, the hermits said;
No hurt shall come to you or yours;
But, for that pack of churlish boors,
Not fit to live on Christian ground,
They and their houses shall be drowned:
While you shall see your cottage rise,
And grow a church before your eyes.
They scarce had spoke, when fair and soft,
The roof began to mount aloft;
Aloft rose every beam and rafter,
The heavy wall climbed slowly after.
The chimney widened, and grew higher,
Became a steeple with a spire.

The kettle to the top was hoist,
And there stood fastened to a joist;
But with the up-side down, to show
Its inclination for below:

In vain; for some superior force,
Applied at bottom, stops its course;
Doomed ever in suspense to dwell,
'Tis now no kettle, but a bell.

A wooden jack, which had almost
Lost by disuse the art to roast,
A sudden alteration feels,
Increased by new intestine wheels:
And, what exalts the wonder more,
The number made the motion slower;
The fiier, which, thought 't had leaden feet,
Turned round so quick, you scarce could see't.
Now, slackened by some secret power,
Can hardly move an inch an hour.
The jack and chimney, near allied,
Had never left each other's side:
The chimney to a steeple grown,
The jack would not be left alone;
But, up against the steeple reared,
Became a clock, and still adhered:
And still its love to household cares,
By a shrill voice at noon, declares;
Warning the cook-maid not to burn
That roast meat, which it cannot turn.
The groaning chair was seen to crawl,
Like a huge snail, half up the wall;
There stuck aloft in public view,
And, with small change, a pulpit grew.
The porringers, that in a row
Hung high, and made a glittering show,
To a less noble substance changed,
Were now but leathern buckets ranged.
The ballads pasted on the wall,
Of Joan of France, and English Moll,
Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood,
The Little Children in the Wood,
Now seemed to look abundance better,
Improved in picture, size, and letter;
And high in order placed, describe
The heraldry of every tribe.

A bedstead of the antique mode,
Compact of timber many a load;
Such as our grandsires wont to use,
Was metamorphosed into pews;
Which still their ancient nature keep,
By lodging folks disposed to sleep.

The cottage, by such feats as these,
Grown to a church by just degrees;
The hermits then desire their host
To ask for what he fancied most.
Philemon, having paused a while,
Returned them thanks in homely style;
Then said, my house is grown so fine,
Methinks I still would call it mine:
I'm old, and fain would live at ease;
Make me the parson, if you please.
He spoke, and presently he feels
His grazier's coat fall down his heels:
He sees, yet hardly can believe,
About each arm a pudding sleeve:
His waistcoat to a cassock grew,
And both assumed a sable hue;
But being old, continued just
As threadbare and as full of dust.
His talk was now of tithes and dues;
Could smoke his pipe, and read the news:
Knew how to preach old sermons next,
Vamped in the preface and the text:
At christenings well could act his part,
And had the service all by heart:
Wished women might have children fast,
And thought whose sow had farrowed last:

Against dissenters would repine,

And stood up firm for right divine:
Found his head filled with many a system,
But classic authors-he ne'er missed them.
Thus having furbished up a parson,
Dame Baucis next they played their farce on:
Instead of home-spun coifs, were seen
Good pinners, edged with Colberteen:
Her petticoat, transformed apace,
Became black satin flounced with lace.
Plain Goody would no longer down;
'Twas Madam, in her grogram gown.
Philemon was in great surprise,
And hardly could believe his eyes:
Amazed to see her look so prim;
And she admired as much at him.

Thus, happy in their change of life,
Were several years the man and wife:
When on a day, which proved their last,
Discoursing o'er old stories past,'

They went by chance, amidst their talk,
To the churchyard to fetch a walk;
When Baucis hastily cried out,

My dear, I see your forehead sprout!
Sprout, quoth the man, what's this you tell us!

I hope you don't believe me jealous?
But yet, methinks, I feel it true;
And really yours is budding too-
Nay- -now I cannot stir my foot;
It feels as if 'twere taking root.

Description would but tire my Muse;
In short, they both were turned to yews.
Old Goodman Dobson, of the green,
Remembers he the trees hath seen;
He'll talk of them from noon to night,
And goes with folks to show the sight;
On Sundays, after evening prayer,
He gathers all the parish there;
Points out the place of either yew,
Here Baucis, there Philemon grew.
'Till once a parson of our town,
To mend his barn, cut Baucis down;
At which, 'tis hard to be believed,
How much the other tree was grieved;
Grew scrubby, died a-top, was stunted;
So the next parson stubbed and burnt it.

[Verses on his own Death.]

As Rochefoucault his maxims drew
From nature, I believe them true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.

This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought too base for human breast:
"In all distresses of our friends
We first consult our private ends;
While nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us.'
If this perhaps your patience move,
Let reason and experience prove.

We all behold with envious eyes
Our equal raised above our size.
I love my friend as well as you;
But why should he obstruct my view?
Then let me have the higher post;
Suppose it but an inch at most.
If in a battle you should find
One whom you love of all mankind,
Had some heroic action done,
A champion killed, or trophy won;
Rather than thus be overtopt,
Would you not wish his laurels cropt
Dear honest Ned is in the gout,

Lies racked with pain, and you without:

How patiently you hear him groan! How glad the case is not your own!

What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But, rather than they should excel, Would wish his rivals all in hell?

Her end when emulation misses,
She turns to envy, stings, and hisses:
The strongest friendship yields to pride,
Unless the odds be on our side.
Vain human kind! fantastic race!
Thy various follies who can trace?
Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,
Their empire in our hearts divide.
Give others riches, power, and station,
'Tis all on me a usurpation.

I have no title to aspire;

Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher.
In Pope I cannot read a line,
But with a sigh I wish it mine:
When he can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six,
It gives me such a jealous fit,
I cry, Pox take him and his wit.
I grieve to be outdone by Gay
In my own humorous biting way.
Arbuthnot is no more my friend,
Who dares to irony pretend,
Which I was born to introduce,
Refined it first, and showed its use.
St John, as well as Pulteney,2 knows
That I had some repute for prose;
And, till they drove me out of date,
Could maul a minister of state.
If they have mortified my pride,
And made me throw my pen aside;

If with such talents heaven hath blest 'em,
Have I not reason to detest 'em?

To all my foes, dear fortune, send
Thy gifts, but never to my friend:
I tamely can endure the first;
But this with envy makes me burst.

Thus much may serve by way of proem; Proceed we therefore to our poem.

The time is not remote, when I
Must by the course of nature die;
When, I foresee, my special friends
Will try to find their private ends:
And, though 'tis hardly understood,
Which way my death can do them good,
Yet thus, methinks, I hear them speak:
See, how the dean begins to break !
Poor gentleman! he droops apace!
You plainly find it in his face.
That old vertigo in his head
Will never leave him, till he's dead.
Besides, his memory decays:
He recollects not what he says;
He cannot call his friends to mind;
Forgets the place where last he dined;
Plies you with stories o'er and o'er;
He told them fifty times before.
How does he fancy we can sit
To hear his out-of-fashion wit?
But he takes up with younger folks,
Who for his wine will bear his jokes.
Faith, he must make his stories shorter,
Or change his comrades once a quarter:
In half the time he talks them round,
There must another set be found.

For poetry, he's past his prime;
He takes an hour to find a rhyme:
His fire is out, his wit decayed,
Mis fancy sunk, his muse a jade.

- Lord Viscount Bolingbroke.

William Pulteney, Esq., created Earl of Bath.

I'd have him throw away his penBut there's no talking to some men.

And then their tenderness appears By adding largely to my years: He's older than he would be reckoned, And well remembers Charles the Second. He hardly drinks a pint of wine; And that, I doubt, is no good sign.

His stomach, too, begins to fail;

Last year we thought him strong and hale;
But now he's quite another thing;

I wish he may hold out till spring.
They hug themselves and reason thus:
It is not yet so bad with us.

In such a case they talk in tropes,
And by their fears express their hopes.
Some great misfortune to portend
No enemy can match a friend.
With all the kindness they profess,
The merit of a lucky guess

(When daily how-d'ye's come of course,
And servants answer, Worse and worse!")
Would please them better than to tell,
That, God be praised! the dean is well.
Then he, who prophesied the best,
Approves his foresight to the rest :
"You know I always feared the worst,
And often told you so at first.'
He'd rather choose that I should die,
Than his prediction prove a lie.
Not one foretells I shall recover,

But all agree to give me over.

Yet, should some neighbour feel a pain
Just in the parts where I complain,
How many a message would he send!
What hearty prayers, that I should mend!
Inquire what regimen I kept?

What gave me ease, and how I slept?
And more lament when I was dead,
Than all the snivellers round my bed.

My good companions, never fear;
For, though you may mistake a year,
Though your prognostics run too fast,
They must be verified at last.

Behold the fatal day arrive!
How is the dean? he's just alive.
Now the departing prayer is read;
He hardly breathes. The dean is dead.
Before the passing-bell begun,

The news through half the town has run;
Oh! may we all for death prepare!
What has he left? and who's his heir?
I know no more than what the news is;
'Tis all bequeathed to public uses.
To public uses! there's a whim!
What had the public done for him?
Mere envy, avarice, and pride:
He gave it all-but first he died.
And had the dean in all the nation
No worthy friend, no poor relation?
So ready to do strangers good,
Forgetting his own flesh and blood!

Now Grub Street wits are all employed;
With elegies the town is cloyed:
Some paragraph in every paper
To curse the dean, or bless the drapier.
The doctors, tender of their fame,
Wisely on me lay all the blame.
We must confess his case was nice;
But he would never take advice.
Had he been ruled, for aught appears,
He might have lived these twenty years;
For when we opened him, we found
That all his vital parts were sound.
From Dublin soon to London spread,
'Tis told at court the dean is dead.

And Lady Suffolk in the spleen
Runs laughing up to tell the queen;
The queen so gracious, mild, and good,
Cries, Is he gone! 'tis time he should.
He's dead, you say, then let him rot!
I'm glad the medals were forgot.
I promised him, I own; but when?
I only was the princess then;
But now as consort of the king,
You know 'tis quite another thing."2
Now Charteris, at Sir Robert's levee,
Tells with a sneer the tidings heavy;
"Why, if he died without his shoes
(Cries Bob), I'm sorry for the news:
Oh, were the wretch but living still,
And in his place my good friend Will!5
Or had a mitre on his head,

Provided Bolingbroke was dead!'

Now Curle" his shop from rubbish drains:
Three genuine tomes of Swift's Remains!
And then to make them pass the glibber,
Revised by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber.
He'll treat me, as he does my betters,
Publish my will, my life, my letters ;7
Revive the libels born to die,
Which Pope must bear, as well as I.

Here shift the scene, to represent
How those I love my death lament.
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day.
St John himself will scarce forbear
To bite his pen, and drop a tear.
The rest will give a shrug, and cry,
'I'm sorry-but we all must die!'

Indifference clad in wisdom's guise,
All fortitude of mind supplies;
For how can stony bowels melt
In those who never pity felt?

When we are lashed, they kiss the rod,
Resigning to the will of God.

The fools my juniors by a year
Are tortured with suspense and fear;
Who wisely thought my age a screen,
When death approached, to stand between;
The screen removed, their hearts are trembling,
They mourn for me without dissembling.
My female friends, whose tender hearts
Have better learned to act their parts,
Receive the news in doleful dumps:
The dean is dead (pray, what is trumps?)
Then, Lord, have mercy on his soul!
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)
Six deans, they say, must bear the pall.
(I wish I knew what king to call.)
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend:
No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight;
And he's engaged to-morrow night:
My Lady Club will take it ill,
If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loved the dean-(I lead a heart)
But dearest friends, they say, must part.

1 The Countess of Suffolk (formerly Mrs Howard), a lady of the queen's bed-chamber.

2 Queen Caroline had, when princess, promised Swift a present of medals, which promise was never fulfilled.

3 Colonel Frane s Charteris, of infamous character, on whom an epitaph was written by Dr Arbuthnot.

4 Sir Robert Walpole, then first minister of state, afterwards Earl of Orford.

5 William Pulteney, Esq., the great rival of Walpole.

6 An infamous bookseller, who published things in the dean's name, which he never wrote.

7 For some of these practices he was brought before the House of Lords,

His time was come, he ran his race;
We hope he's in a better place.'

Why do we grieve that friends should die! No loss more easy to supply.

One year is past; a different scene!
No further mention of the dean,
Who now, alas! no more is missed,
Than if he never did exist.
Where's
's now the favourite of Apollo?
Departed: and his works must follow;
Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.

·

Some country squire to Lintot goes,1
Inquires for Swift in verse and prose.
Says Lintot, I have heard the name;
He died a year ago.' The same.'
He searches all the shop in vain.
'Sir, you may find them in Duck-Lane.
I sent them, with a load of books,
Last Monday to the pastry-cook's.
To fancy they could live a year!
I find you're but a stranger here.
The dean was famous in his time,
And had a kind of knack at rhyme.
His way of writing now is past;
The town has got a better taste.
I keep no antiquated stuff,

But spick-and-span I have enough.
Pray, but do give me leave to show 'em ;
Here's Colley Cibber's birth-day poem ;
This ode you never yet have seen
By Stephen Duck upon the queen.
Then here's a letter finely penned
Against the Craftsman and his friend;
It clearly shows that all reflection
On ministers is disaffection.
Next, here's Sir Robert's vindication,
And Mr Henley's last oration.
The hawkers have not got them yet;
Your honour please to have a set?'

Suppose me dead; and then suppose
A club assembled at the Rose,
Where, from discourse of this and that,
I grow the subject of their chat.
'The dean, if we believe report,
Was never ill-received at court.
Although ironically grave,

He shamed the fool, and lashed the knave,
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own.'
'Sir, I have heard another story;
He was a most confounded Tory,
And grew, or he is much belied,
Extremely dull, before he died.'

Can we the Drapier then forget!
Is not our nation in his debt?
"Twas he that writ the Drapier's letters!"
'He should have left them for his betters;
We had a hundred abler men,

Nor need depend upon his pen.

Say what you will about his reading,
You never can defend his breeding;
Who, in his satires running riot,
Could never leave the world in quiet;
Attacking, when he took the whim,
Court, city, camp-all one to him.
But why would he, except he slobbered,
Offend our patriot, great Sir Robert,
Whose counsels aid the sovereign power
To save the nation every hour?

1 Bernard Lintot, a bookseller. See Pope's Dunciad' and Letters.

2 A place where old books are sold.

3 Commonly called Orator Henley, a quack preacher in London, of great notoriety in his day.