ON TWO CELEBRATED MODERN POETS.
BEHOLD, those monarch oaks, that rise,
With lofty branches to the skies,
Have large proportion'd roots that grow
With equal longitude below:
Two bards that now in fashion reign,
Most aptly this device explain:
If this to clouds and stars will venture,
That creeps as far to reach the centre;
Or, more to shew the thing I mean,
Have you not o'er a saw-pit seen
A skill'd mechanic, that has stood
High on a length of prostrate wood,
Who hir'd a subterraneous friend
To take his iron by the end:
But which excell'd was never found,
The man above or under ground.
The moral is so plain to hit,
That, had I been the god of wit,
Then, in a saw-pit and wet weather,
Should Young and Philips drudge together.
UPON CARTHY'S* THREATENING TO TRANSLATE PINDAR.
You have undone Horace,-what should hinder
Thy Muse from falling upon Pindar?
But ere you mount his fiery steed,
Beware, O Bard, how you proceed:
For should you give him once the reins,
High up in air he'll turn your brains;
And if you should his fury check,
'Tis ten to one he breaks your neck.
WROTE THE FOLLOWING EPIGRAM ON ONE DELACOURT'S COMPLI. MENTING GARTHY, A SCHOOLMASTER, ON His poetry.
CARTHY, you say, writes well-his genius true,
You pawn your word for him-he'll vouch for you.
So two poor knaves, who find their credit fail,
To cheat the world, become each other's bail.
* Carthy, a scribbling schoolmaster, wrote some severe lines on Dr Swift and his Friends.-F.
ON GENERAL GORGES, AND LADY MEATH. †
UNDER this stone lies Dick and Dolly.
Doll dying first, Dick grew melancholy;
For Dick without Doll thought living a folly.
Dick lost in Doll a wife tender and dear:
But Dick lost by Doll twelve hundred a-year;
A loss that Dick thought no mortal could bear.
Dick sigh'd for his Doll, and his mournful arms cross'd;
Thought much of his Doll, and the jointure he lost; The first vex'd him much, the other vex'd most.
Thus loaded with grief, Dick sigh'd and he cried :
To live without both full three days he tried;
But liked neither loss, and so quietly died.
Dick left a pattern few will copy after:
Then, reader, pray shed some tears of salt water;
For so sad a tale is no subject of laughter.
* Of Kilbrue, in the county of Meath.-F.
+ Dorothy, dowager of Edward, Earl of Meath. She was married to the General in 1716; and died April 10, 1728. Her husband survived her but two days.-F.
The Dolly of this Epigram, is the same lady whom Swift treated so severely in his juvenile Dialogue between Sir Harry Pierce's Chariot and Miss Dorothy Stopford's Chair.
Meath smiles for the jointure, though gotten so late;
The son laughs, that got the hard-gotten estate;
And Cuffe* grins, for getting the Alicant plate.
Here quiet they lie, in hopes to rise one day,
Both solemnly put in this hole on a Sunday,
And here rest-sic transit gloria mundi!
VERSES ON I KNOW NOT WHAT.
My latest tribute here I send,
With this let your collection end.
Thus I consign you down to fame
A character to praise or blame :
And if the whole may pass for true,
Contented rest, you have your due,
Give future time the satisfaction,
To leave one handle for detraction.
GRAVE Dean of St Patrick's, how comes it to pass, That you, who know music no more than an ass;
* John Cuffe, of Desart, Esq. married the General's eldest daughter.-F.
That you who so lately were writing of drapiers,
Should lend your cathedral to players and scrapers?
To act such an opera once in a year,
So offensive to every true protestant ear,
With trumpets, and fiddles, and organs, and singing,
Will sure the pretender and popery bring in,
No protestant prelate, his lordship or grace,
Durst there show his right, or most reverend face:
How would it pollute their crosiers and rochets,
To listen to minims, and quavers, and crotchets !
[The rest is wanting.]
AN ANSWER TO A FRIEND'S QUESTION.
THE furniture that best doth please
St Patrick's Dean, good Sir, are these:
The knife and fork with which I eat ;
And next the pot that boils the meat;
The next to be preferr'd, I think,
Is the glass in which I drink;
The shelves on which my books I keep,
And the bed on which I sleep;
An antique elbow-chair between,
Big enough to hold the Dean;
And the stove that gives delight
In the cold bleak wintry night :
To these we add a thing below,
More for use reserved than show:
These are what the Dean do please;
All superfluous are but these.
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