Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.
Some country squire to Lintot goes,
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 do but give me leave to shew 'em;
Here's Colly Cibber's birth-day poem.
This ode you never yet have seen,
By Stephen Duck, upon the queen.
Then here's a letter finely penn'd
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.‡
* A place in London, where old books are sold.-Dubl. ed. † Walpole hath a set of party scribblers, who do nothing but write in his defence.-Ibid.
Henley is a clergyman, who, wanting both merit and luck to get preferment, or even to keep his curacy in the established church, formed a new conventicle, which he called an Oratory. There, at set times, he delivereth strange speeches, compiled by himself and his associates, who share the profit with him. Every hearer payeth a shilling each day for admittance. He is an absolute dunce, but generally reported crazy.-Ibid.
The hawkers have not got them yet:
Your honour please to buy a set?
"Here's Wolston's tracts, the twelfth edition; 'Tis read by every politician:
The country members, when in town,
To all their boroughs send them down;
You never met a thing so smart;
The courtiers have them all by heart :
Those maids of honour who can read,
Are taught to use them for their creed.
The reverend author's good intention
Has been rewarded with a pension.t
He does an honour to his gown.
By bravely running priestcraft down :
He shews, as sure as God's in Gloucester,
That Moses was a grand impostor;
That all his miracles were cheats,
Perform'd as jugglers do their feats :
The church had never such a writer;
A shame he has not got a mitre!"
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.
And while they toss my name about,
With favour some, and some without,
One, quite indifferent in the cause,
My character impartial draws:
"The Dean, if we believe report, Was never ill-received at court.
* Wolston was a clergyman, but for want of bread hath, in several treatises, in the most blasphemous manner, attempted to turn our Saviour's miracles into ridicule. He is much caressed by many great courtiers, and by all the infidels, and his books read generally by the court ladies.-Dubl. ed.
† Wolston is here confounded with Woolaston.-H.
As for his works in verse and prose,
I own myself no judge of those;
Nor can I tell what critics thought 'em :
But this I know, all people bought 'em,
As with a moral view design'd
To cure the vices of mankind:
His vein, ironically grave,
Exposed the fool, and lash'd the knave.
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own.t
The lines inserted as notes were those rejected by Swift when he revised the piece.
* And, if he often miss'd his aim,
The world must own it, to their shame,
The praise is his, and theirs the blame.
"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 an 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 should he, except he slobber'd,
Offend our patriot, great Sir Robert,
Whose counsels aid the sov'reign power
To save the nation ev'ry hour?
What scenes of evil he unravels
In satires, libels, lying travels!
Not sparing his own clergy-cloth.
But eats into it, like a moth!"--
"He never thought an honour done him,
Because a duke was proud to own him;
Would rather slip aside and choose
To talk with wits in dirty shoes;
Despised the fools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station,
Nor persons held in admiration :
Of no man's greatness was afraid,
Because he sought for no man's aid.
Though trusted long in great affairs,
He gave himself no haughty airs:
Without regarding private ends,
Spent all his credit for his friends;
And only chose the wise and good;
No flatterers; no allies in blood:
But succour'd virtue in distress,
And seldom fail'd of good success ;
As numbers in their hearts must own,
Who, but for him, had been unknown.*
"With princes kept a due decorum,
But never stood in awe before 'em.
He follow'd David's lesson just;
In princes never put thy trust:
And would you make him truly sour,
Provoke him with a slave in power.
The Irish senate if you named,
With what impatience he declaim'd!
Fair LIBERTY was all his cry,
For her he stood prepared to die;
For her he boldly stood alone;
For her he oft exposed his own.
* Dr. Delany, in the close of his eighth letter, after having enumerated the friends with whom the Dean lived in the greatest intimacy, very handsomely applies this passage to himself.-H.
Two kingdoms,* just as faction led,
Had set a price upon his head;
But not a traitor could be found,
To sell him for six hundred pound.
"Had he but spared his tongue and
He might have rose like other men ;
But power was never in his thought,
And wealth he valued not a groat:
Ingratitude he often found.
And pitied those who meant the wound;
But kept the tenor of his mind,
To merit well of human kind:
Nor made a sacrifice of those
Who still were true, to please his foes.
He labour'd many a fruitless hour,
To reconcile his friends in power;
Saw mischief by a faction brewing,
While they pursued each other's ruin.
But finding vain was all his care,
He left the court in mere despair.+
* In 1713, the queen was prevailed with, by an address from the House of Lords in England, to publish a proclamation, promising three hundred pounds to discover the author of a pamphlet, called, "The Public Spirit of the Whigs;" and in Ireland, in the year 1724, Lord Carteret, at his first coming into the government, was prevailed on to issue a proclamation for promising the like reward of three hundred pounds, to any person who would discover the author of a pamphlet, called, "The Drapier's Fourth Letter," &c., written against that destructive project of coining halfpence for Ireland; but in neither kingdom was the Dean discovered.-H.
† Queen Anne's ministry fell to variance from the first year after its commencement: Harcourt the chancellor, and the secretary Bolingbroke, were discontented with the treasurer Oxford, for his too great mildness to the Whigs; this quarrel grew higher every day until the queen's death. The Dean, who was the only person that endeavoured to reconcile them, found it impossible, and thereupon retired into Berkshire, about ten weeks before that event.-H.
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