Nam propriæ telluris herum natura, neque illum,
Nec me, nec quemquam statuit. Nos expulit ille;
Illum aut nequities aut 'vafri inscitia juris,
Postremò expellet certè vivacior hæres.
"Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli
Dictus erat: nulli proprius; sed cedit in usum
Nunc mihi, nunc alii. Quocirca vivite fortes,
Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus.

NOTES.

Ver. 165. Well, if the use be mine, &c.] In a letter to this Mr. Bethel, of March 20, 1743, he says: "My Landlady, Mrs. Vernon, being dead, this garden and house are offered me in sale; and, I believe, (together with the cottages on each side my grass plot next the Thames,) will come at about a thousand pounds. If I thought any very particular friend would be pleased to live in it after my death, (for, as it is, it serves all my purposes as well, during life,) I would purchase it; and more particularly could I hope two things; that the friend who should like it, was so much younger and healthier than myself, as to have a prospect of its continuing his, some years longer than I can of its continuing mine. But most of those I love are travelling out of the world, not into it; and unless I have such a view given me, I have no vanity nor pleasure that does not stop short of the grave."-So that we see (what some who call themselves his friends would not believe) his thoughts in prose and verse were the same.

Ver. 171-2. Or in pure equity, (the case not clear,)

Warburton.

The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year :] A Protestant miser's money in Chancery, and a Catholic miser's person in Purgatory, are never to be got out, till the law and the church have been well paid for their redemption. Warburton.

Ver. 175. Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford,] Gorhambury, near St. Alban's, a fine and venerable old mansion. Warton.

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66

Pray Heaven it last! (cries SWIFT) as you go on; I wish to God this house had been your own: Pity! to build, without a son or wife: Why, you'll enjoy it only all your

life."

170

Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one, 165
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
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 'equity, (the case not clear,)
The Chancery 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."
"Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;

175

And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, Slides to a scrivener or a city knight.

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

180

THE FIRST EPISTLE

OF THE

FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

VOL. VI.

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