If making divisions was all their intent,
They've done it, we thank them, but not as they meant,
And so may such bishops for ever divide,
That no honest heathen would be on their side.
How should we rejoice, if, like Judas the first,
Those splitters of parsons in sunder should burst!
Now hear an allusion:-A mitre, you know,
Is divided above, but united below.
If this you consider our emblem is right;
The bishops divide, but the clergy unite.
Should the bottom be split, our bishops would dread
That the mitre would never stick fast on their head:
And yet they have learnt the chief art of a sovereign,
As Machiavel taught them, "divide, and ye govern."
But courage, my lords, though it cannot be said
That one cloven tongue ever sat on your head;
I'll hold you a groat (and I wish I could see't)
If your stockings were off, you could show cloven feet.
But hold, cry the bishops, and give us fair play,
Before you condemn us, hear what we can say.
What truer affections could ever be shown,
Than saving your souls by damning our own?
And have we not practis'd all methods to gain you;
With the tithe of the tithe of the tithe to maintain you;
Provided a fund for building your spittals?
You are only to live four years without victuals.
Content, my good lords; but let us change hands,
First take you our tithes, and give us your lands.
So God bless the Church and three of our mitres;
And God bless the Commons, for biting the biters.
HORACE, BOOK IV, ODE XIX.
ADDRESSED TO HUMPHRY FRENCH, ESQ.**
LATE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN.
PATRON of the tuneful throng,
O! too nice, and too severe!
Think not, that my country song
Shall displease thy honest ear.
Chosen strains I proudly bring,
Which the Muses, sacred choir!
When they gods and heroes sing,
Dictate to th' harmonious lyre.
Ancient Homer, princely bard!
Just precedence still maintains;
With sacred rapture still are heard
Theban Pindar's lofty strains.
Still the old triumphant song,
Which, when hated tyrants fell,
Great Alcæus boldly sung,
Warns, instructs, and pleases well.
Nor has Time's all darkening shade
In obscure oblivion press'd
What Anacreon laugh'd and play'd;
Gay Anacreon, drunken priest!
*Originally annexed to the Presbyterians' Plea of Merit. 1737. N.
Gentle Sappho, love-sick muse,
Warms the heart with amorous fire;
Still her tenderest notes infuse
Melting rapture, soft desire.
Beauteous Helen young and gay,
By a painted fopling won,
Went not first, fair nymph, astray,
Fondly pleas'd to be undone.
For young Teucer's slaughtering bow,
Nor bold Hector's dreadful sword,
Alone, the terrours of the foe,
Sow'd the field with hostile blood.
Many valiant chiefs of old
Greatly lived and died, before
Agamemnon, Grecian bold,
Waged the ten years famous war.
But their names, unsung, unwept,
Unrecorded, lost, and gone,
Long in endless night have slept,
And shall now no more be known.
Virtue, which the poet's care
Has not well consign'd to fame,
Lies, as in the sepulchre
Some old king without a name.
But, O Humphry, great and free,
While my tuneful songs are read,
Old forgetful Time on thee
Dark oblivion ne'er shall spread.
When the deep-cut notes shall fade
On the mouldering Parian stone,
On the brass no more be read
The perishing inscription.
Forgotten all the enemies,
Envious Gn's cursed spite,
And PI's derogating lies,
Lost and sunk in Stygian night,
Still thy labour and thy care,
What for Dublin thou hast done,
In full lustre shall appear,
And outshine th' unclouded sun.
Large thy mind, and not untried,
For Hibernia now doth stand,
Through the calm, or raging tide,
Safe conducts the ship to land.
Falsely we call the rich man great,
He is only so that knows,
His plentiful or small estate
Wisely to enjoy and use.
He, in wealth or poverty,
Fortune's power alike defies;
And falsehood and dishonesty
More than death abhors and flies: Flies from death!-No, meets it brave, When the suffering so severe May from dreadful bondage save Clients, friends, or country dear. This the sovereign man, complete; Hero; patriot; glorious; free; Rich and wise; and good and great; Generous Humphry, thou art he.
ON THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT*.
WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1731.
Occasioned by reading the following MAXIM in ROCHEFOUCAULT, "Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose, qui ne nous déplaît pas."
"In the adversity of our best friends, we always find something that does not displease us.'
As Rochefoucalt 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:
* These verses have undergone, perhaps, a stranger revolution than any other part of the Dean's writings. A manifestly spurious copy, containing 201 lines, under the title of "The Life and Character of Dr. SWIFT," appeared at London, in April 1733; of which the Dean complained heavily, in a letter to Mr. Pope, dated May 1; and, notwithstanding Swift acknowledged in that Letter he had written "a poem of near 500 lines upon the same maxim of Rochefoucault, and was a long time about it," many readers have supposed (not attending to the circumstance of there being wo poems on the subject) that the Dean disclaimed the Verses on his own Death. The genuine verses having been committed to the care of the celebrated author of "The Toast," an edition was printed, in 1738-9, in which more than 100 lines were omitted. Dr. King assigned many judicious reasons (though some of them were merely temporary and prudential) for the mutilations: but they were so far from satisfying Dr. Swift, that a complete edition was immediately printed by Faulkner, with the Dean's express permission. The poem, as it now stands in this collection, is agreeable to Mr. Faulkner's copy. N.
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