To shine where all the gay resort,
At concerts, coffeehouse, or court:
And weekly persecute his grace,
With visits, or to beg a place;
With underlings thy flock to teach,
With no desire to pray or preach;
With haughty spouse in vesture fine,
With plenteous meals and generous wine;
Wouldst thou not wish, in so much ease,
Thy years as numerous as thy days?
THE HARDSHIP UPON THE LADIES. 1733.
Poor ladies! though their business be to play,
"Tis hard they must be busy night and day:
Why should they want the privilege of men,
Nor take some small diversions now and then?
Had women been the makers of our laws,
(And why they were not, I can see no cause)
The men should slave at cards from morn to night;
And female pleasures be to read and write.
IN THE MODERN TASTE. 1733.
FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I, a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth:
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gor'd with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Sooth my ever waking slumbers:
Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrours,
Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
Gilding my Aurelia's brows,
Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow,
Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Meander,
Swiftly purling in a round,
On thy margin lovers wander,
With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela drooping
Softly seeks her silent mate,
See the bird of Juno stooping;
Melody resigns to fate.
FELLOW CHRISTIANS,
So familiarly used by the advocates for the repeal of the TEST ACT in Ireland, 1733.
AN inundation, says the fable,
O'erflow'd a farmer's barn and stable;
Whole ricks of hay and stacks of corn
Were down the sudden current born;
While things of heterogeneous kind
Together float with tide and wind.
The generous wheat forgot its pride,
And sail'd with litter side by side;
Uniting all, to show their amity,
As in a general calamity.
A ball of new-dropp'd horse's dung,
Mingling with apples in the throng,
Said to the pippin plump and prim,
"See, brother, how we apples swim."
Thus Lamb, renown'd for cutting corns,
An offer'd fee from Radcliff scorns,
"Not for the world-we doctors, brother,
Must take no fees of one another."
Thus to a dean some curate sloven
Subscribes, "Dear sir, your brother loving."
Thus all the footmen, shoeboys, porters,
About St. James's, cry, " We courtiers."
Thus Horace in the house will prate,
"Sir, we the ministers of state."
Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth *,
Though half a crown o'erpays his sweat's worth,
Who knows in law nor text nor margent,
Calls Singleton his brother sergeant.
And thus fanatick saints, though neither in
Doctrine nor discipline our brethren,
* Modesty and good-manners did not prevent Bettesworth from exposing himself to the censure even of his own friends: for, upon hearing that the Dean had dined at Mr. Worral's house, he went thither after dinner, poured out some of his ill language in the Dean's presente, and said, "He could bear the appellation of rogue, or villain, rather than booby." The Dean made no reply to him; but only observed to the company, "This man is altogether beside himself; I wonder his friends do not take better care of him. Pray, Mr. Worral send to his relations to get him confined." This mild answer quieted the madman for this time; and the Dean never saw him afterwards. See Swift's own account of this affair, in a Letter to the duke of Dorset, in January 1733-4. N.
Are brother protestants and Christians,
As much as Hebrews and Philistines:
But in no other sense, than nature
Has made a rat our fellow-creature.
Lice from your body suck their food;
But is a louse your flesh and blood?
Though born of human filth and sweat, it
As well may say man did beget it.
And maggots in your nose and chin
As well may clain you for their kin.
Yet criticks may object, why not?
Since lice are brethren to a Scot:
Which made our swarm of sects determine
Employments for their brother vermin.
But be they English, Irish, Scottish,
What protestant can be so sottish,
While o'er the church these clouds are gathering, To call a swarm of lice his brethren ?
As Moses, by divine advice,
In Egypt turn'd the dust to lice;
And as our sects, by all descriptions,
Have hearts more harden'd than Egyptians;
As from the trodden dust they spring.
And, turn'd to lice, infest the king:
For pity's sake, it would be just,
A rod should turn them back to dust.
Let folks in high or holy stations
Be proud of owning such relations;
Let courtiers hug them in their bosom,
As if they were afraid to lose 'em :
While I, with humble Job, had rather
Say to corruption-"Thou 'rt my father."
For he that has so little wit
To nourish vermin, may be bit,
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