130

• Who thinks that fortune cannot change her mind, Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind. And who stands safest? tell me, is it he That spreads and swells in puff'd Profperity, Or bleft with little, whose preventing care In peace provides fit arms against a war?

* Thus BETHEL spoke, who always speaks his

thought,

And always thinks the very thing he ought:

His equal mind I copy what I can,

And as I love, would imitate the Man.

In South-fea days not happier, when furmis'd

135

The Lord of Thousands, than if now Excis'd; 140 In forest planted by a Father's hand,

Than in five acres now of rented land.

Content with little, I can piddle here
On brocoli and mutton, round the year;
But y ancient friends (tho' poor, or out of play)
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
'Tis true, no * Turbots dignify my boards,

But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords:

NOTES.

apology for this liberty, in the preceding line, where he

pays a fine compliment to Augustus:

quare

Templa ruunt antiqua Deum?

which oblique Panegyric the Imitator has very properly

turned into a just stroke of fatire.

2

Et nux ornabat menfas, cum duplice ficu.

Poft hoc ludus erat cuppa potare magistra :

Ac venerata Ceres, ita culmo surgeret alto,

Explicuit vino contractae seria frontis.

Saeviat atque novos moveat Fortuna tumultus !

Quantum hinc imminuet? quanto aut ego parcius,

aut vos,

O pueri, nituiftis, ut huc novus incola venit?

NOTES.

VER. 156. And, what's more rare, a Poet shall fay Grace.] The pleasantry of this line consists in the supposed rarity of a Poet's having a table of his own; or a sense of gratitude for the blessings he receives. But it contains,

To Hounslow-heath I point and Bansted-down, Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my

own:

• From yon old walnut-tree a show'r shall fall;
And grapes, long ling'ring on my only wall,
And figs from standard and espalier join;
The dev'l is in you if you cannot dine:

150

Then chearful healths (your Mistress shall have place) And, what's more rare, a Poet shall say Grace. 156

Fortune not much of humbling me can boast;

Tho' double tax'd, how little have I loft?
My Life's amusements have been just the fame,
Before, and after Standing Armies came.
My lands are fold, my father's house is gone;

160

I'll hire another's; is not that my own,
And yours, my friends? thro' whose free-opening gate
None comes too early, none departs too late;

(For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, 165 Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.)

" Pray heav'n it last! (cries SWIFT!) as you go on;

" I wish to God this house had been your own:

"Pity! to build, without a fon or wife:

"Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."

170

Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one,

Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?

NOTES.

too, a sober reproof of People of Condition, for their unmanly and brutal disuse of to natural a duty.

Nam & propriae telluris herum natura neque illum,

Nec me, nec quemquam statuit. nos expulit ille;

Illum aut nequities aut & vafri infcitia juris,
Postremum expellet certe & vivacior heres.

* Nunc ager Umbreni fub nomine, nuper Ofelli

Dictus erat: nulli proprius; fed cedit in usum

Nunc mihi, nunc alii. i quocirca vivite fortes,

Fortiaque adverfis opponite pectora rebus.

NOTES.

VER. 183. proud Buckingham's etc.] Villers Duke of

Buckingham. P.

VER. 185. Let lands and houses etc.] The turn of his

175

What's Property? dear Swift! you see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a Lawyer's share;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or in pure f equity (the case not clear)
The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year:
At best, it falls to some ungracious son,
Who cries, "My father's damn'd, and all's my own.
h Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford,

Become the portion of a booby Lord;
And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a Scriv'ner or a city Knight.

Let lands and houses have what Lords they will,
Let Us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

NOTES.

181

imitation, in the concluding part, obliged him to diverfify the fentiment. They are equally noble: but Horace's is expressed with the greater force.