His fire is out, his wit decay'd,
His fancy sunk, his Muse a jade.
I'd have him throw away his pen;
But there's no talking to some men!"
And then their tenderness appears
By adding largely to my years:
"He's older than he would be reckon'd,
And well remembers Charles the Second.
He hardly drinks a pint of wine;
And that, I doubt, is no good sign.
His stomach too begins to fail:
Last year we thought him strong and hale;
But now he's quite another thing:
I wish he may hold out till spring!"
They hug themselves, and reason thus:
"It is not yet so bad with us!"

In such a case they talk in tropes,
And by their fears express their hopes:
Some great misfortune to portend,
No enemy can match a friend;
With all the kindness they profess,
The merit of a lucky guess

(When daily how-d'ye's come of course,
And servants answer, "Worse and worse!")
Would please them better, than to tell
That, "God be prais'd, the Dean is well."
Then he who prophesied the best,
Approves his foresight to the rest:
"You know I always fear'd the worst,
And often told you so at first."
He'd rather choose that I should die,
Than his predictions prove a lie.
Not one foretels I should recover;
But all agree to give me over.

Yet, should some neighbour feel a pain
Just in the parts where I complain;
How many a message would he send,
With hearty pray'rs that I should mend!
Inquire what regimen I kept,
What gave me ease, and how I slept;
And more lament when I was dead,
Than all the sniv'lers round my bed.

My good companions, never fear;
For though you may mistake a year,
Though your prognostics run too fast,
They must be verified at last.

Behold the fatal day arrive! "How is the Dean?". -"He's just alive." Now the departing-pray'r is read; "He hardly breathes the Dean is dead!" Before the passing-bell begun, The news through half the town is run; "O may we all for death prepare! What has he left? and who's his heir? I know no more than what the news is; 'Tis all bequeath'd to public uses. To public uses! there's a whim; What had the public done for him? Mere envy, avarice, and pride!

He

gave it all-but first he died. And had the Dean, in all the nation, No worthy friend, no poor relation? So ready to do strangers good, Forgetting his own flesh and blood!"

Now Grub-street wits are all employ'd;
With elegies the town is cloy'd:
Some paragraph in every paper,
To curse the Dean, or bless the Drapier.
The Doctors, tender of their fame,
Wisely on me lay all the blame.
"We must confess his case was nice,
But he would never take advice.
Had he been rul'd, for aught appears,
He might have liv'd these twenty years;
For when we open'd him, we found
That all his vital parts were sound.”

From Dublin soon to London spread,
'Tis told at court, "The Dean is dead."
And Lady Suffolk*, in the spleen,
Runs laughing up to tell the Queen:
The Queen, so gracious, mild, and good,
Cries, "Is he gone? 'tis time he should.
He's dead, you say? then let him rot:
I'm glad the medals† were forgot.
I promis'd him, I own; but when?
I only was the Princess then:
But now, as consort of the King,
You know, 'tis quite another thing."

Now Chartres, at Sir Robert's levee,
Tell, with a sneer, the tidings heavy:
"Why, if he died without his shoes,"
Cries Bob, "I'm sorry for the news.
O were the wretch but living still,
And in his place my good friend Will!
Or had a mitre on his head,
Provided Bolingbroke were dead!"

Now Cutil his shop from rubbish drains:
"Three genuine tomes of Swift's remains!"
And then, to make them pass the glibber,
"Revis'd by Tibbald, Moore, and Cibber."
He'll treat me as he does my betters,
Publish my will, my life, my letters,
Revive the libels born to die,
Which Pope must bear as well as I.

Here shift the scene, to represent
How those I lov'd my death lament.
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day:
St. John himself will scarce forbear
To bite his pen and drop a tear.
The rest will give a shrug, and cry,
"I'm sorry-but we all must die!"

Indifference, clad in Wisdom's guise,
All fortitude of mind supplies:
For how can stony bowels melt
In those who never pity felt?
When we are lash'd they kiss the rod,
Resigning to the will of God.

The fools, my juniors by a year,
Are tortur'd with suspense and fear;
Who wisely thought my age a screen,
When death approach'd, to stand between:
The screen remov'd, their hearts are trembling:
They mourn for me without dissembling.

My female friends, whose tender hearts Have better learn'd to act their parts, Receive the news in doleful dumps: "The Dean is dead: (pray what is trumps?)

Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke?
His friendships, still to few confin'd,
Were always of the middling kind;
No fools of rank or mongrel breed,
Who fain would pass for lords indeed :
Where titles give no right or pow'r,
And peerage is a wither'd flow'r,
He would have deem'd it a disgrace
If such a wretch had known his face.
On rural squires, that kingdom's bane,
He vented oft his wrath in vain.
squires to market brought,
Who sell their souls and for nought;

go joyful back,

The
To rob the church, their tenants rack,
Go snack with justices,

And keep the peace to pick up fees;
In every job to have a share,
A gaol or turnpike to repair ;
And turn- to public reads
Commodious to their own abodes.

"He never thought an honor done him
Because a peer was proud to own him;
Would rather slip aside, and choose
To talk with wits in dirty shoes;
And scorn the tools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station;
No 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 heart must own,
Who, but for him, had been unknown.
He kept with princes due decorum,
Yet never stood in awe before 'em.
He follow'd David's lesson just;
In princes never put his trust;
And, would you make him truly sour,
Provoke him with a slave in
pow'r.
The Irish senate if you nam'd,
With what impatience he declaim'd !
Fair LIBERTY was all his cry,
For her he stood prepar'd to die;
For her he boldly stood alone;
For her he oft expos'd his own.
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 spar'd his tongue and pen,
He might have rose like other men:
But pow'r 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 labor'd many a fruitless hour
To reconcile his friends in pow'r;
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.

And, O! how short are human schemes!
Here ended all our golden dreains.
What St. John's skill in state-affairs,
What Ormond's valour, Oxford's cares,
To save their sinking country lent,
Was all destroy'd by one event.
Too soon that precious life was ended,
On which alone our weal depended:
When up a dangerous faction starts,
With wrath and vengeance in their hearts;
By solemn league and cov'nant bound,
To ruin, slaughter, and confound;
To turn religion to a fable,
And make the government a Babel;
Pervert the laws, disgrace the gown,
Corrupt the senate, rob the crown ;
To sacrifice Old England's glory,
And make her infamous in story.
When such a tempest shook the land,
How could unguarded Virtue stand?
With horror, grief, despair, the Dean
Beheld the dire destructive scene:
His friends in exile, or the Tower,
Himself within the frown of power;
Pursued by base envenom'd pens,
Far to the land of s▬▬ and feus;
A servile race in folly nurst,
Who truckle most when treated worst.
"By innocence and resolution,
He bore continual persecution;
While numbers to preferment rose,
Whose merit was, to be his foes:
When e'en his own particular friends,
Intent upon their private ends,
Like renegadoes now he feels
Against him lifting up their heels.
The Dean did, by his pen, defeat
An infamous, destructive cheat;
Taught fools their interest how to know,
And gave them arms to ward the blow.
Envy hath own'd it was his doing,
To save that hapless land from ruin;
While they who at the steerage stood,
And reap'd the profit, sought his blood.
To save them from their evil fate,
In him was held a crime of state.
A wicked monster on the bench,
Whose fury blood could never quench;
As vile and profligate a villain
As modern Scroggs, or old Tressilian;
Who long all justice had discarded,
Nor fear'd he God, nor man regarded;
Vow'd on the Dean his rage to vent,
And make him of his zeal repent.
But heaven his innocence defends,
The grateful people stand his friends:
Not strains of law, nor judge's frown,
Nor topics brought to please the crown,

Nor witness hir'd, nor jury pick'd,
Prevail to bring him in convict.

"In exile, with a steady heart,
He spent his life's declining part;
Where folly, pride, and faction, sway,
Remote from St. John, Pope, and Gay."-
"Alas, poor Dean! his only scope
Was, to be held a misanthrope;
This into general odium drew him;
Which if he lik'd, much good may't do him.
His zeal was not to lash our crimes,
But discontent against the times;
For had we made him timely offers
To raise his post, or fill his coffers,
Perhaps he might have truckled down,
Like other brethren of his gown;
For party he would scarce have bled:
say no more-because he's dead.
What writings has he left behind?"

I

"I hear they're of a different kind : A few in verse, but most in prose."

"Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose: All scribbled in the worst of times, To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes; To praise Queen Anne; nay more, defend her, As never favouring the Pretender; Or libels yet conceal'd from sight, Against the court to show his spite. Perhaps his Travels, part the third; A lie at every second wordOffensive to a loyal ear;

But not one sermon, you may swear."

"He knew an hundred pleasing stories, With all the turns of Whigs and Tories: Was cheerful to his dying day,

And friends would let him have his way.
As for his works in verse or prose,
I own myself no judge of those;
Now can I tell what critics thought them,
But this I know-all people bought them,
As with a moral view design'd
To please and to reform mankind:
And, if he often miss'd his aim,
The world must own it to their shame,
The praise is his, and theirs the blame.
He gave the little wealth he had,
To build a house for fools and mad;
To show, by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
That kingdom he hath left his debtor,
I wish it soon may have a better:
And since you dread no farther lashes,
Methinks you may forgive his ashes."

Whilst, in the vale of Ignorance below,
Folly and vice to rank luxuriance grow;
Honors and wealth pour in on every side,
And proud preferment rolls her golden tide.
O'er crabbed authors life's gay prime to waste,
To cramp wild genius in the chains of taste;
To bear the slavish drudgery of schools,
And tamely stoop to ev'ry pedant's rules;
For seven long years debarr'd of lib'ral ease,
To plod in college-trammels to degrees;
Beneath the weight of solemn toys to groan,
Sleep over books, and leave mankind unknown;
To praise each senior blockhead's threadbare
tale,

And laugh till reason blush, and spirits fail;
Manhood with vile submission to disgrace,
And cap the fool whose merit is his place;
Vice-chancellors whose knowledge is but
small,

And chancellors who nothing know at all;
Ill brook'd the gen'rous spirit, in those days
When learning was the certain road to praise,
When nobles, with a love of science bless'd,
Approv'd in others what themselves possess'd.
But now, when Dulness rears aloft her
throne,

When lordly vassals her wide empire own;
When Wit, seduc'd by Envy, starts aside,
And basely leagues with Ignorance and Pride;
What now should tempt us, by false hopes
misled,

Learning's unfashionable paths to tread :
To bear those labors which our fathers bore,
That crown withheld which they in triumph
wore ?

When with much pains this boasted learn

ing's got,

'Tis an affront to those who have it not.
In some it causes hate, in others fear,
Instructs our foes to rail, our friends to sneer.
With prudent haste the worldly-minded fool
Forgets the little which he learn'd at school;
The elder brother, to vast fortunes born,
Looks on all science with an eye of scorn;
Dependent brethren the same features wear,
And younger sons are stupid as the heir.
In senates, at the bar, in church and state,
Genius is vile, and learning out of date.

Is this O death to think! is this the land
Where Merit and Reward went hand in hand;
Where heroes parent-like the Poet view'd,
By whom they saw their glorious deeds renew'd;
Where Poets, true to honor, tun'd their lays,
And by their Patrons sanctify'd their praise?
Is this the land where on our Spenser's tongue,
Enamour'd of his voice, Description hung;
Where Jonson rigid gravity beguil'd,
Whilst Reason thro' her critic fences smil'd;
Where Nature list'ning stood while Shakspeare
play'd,

And wonder'd at the work herself had made? Is this the land, where, mindful of her charge And office high, fair Freedom walk'd at large; Where, finding in our laws a sure defence, She mock'd at all restraints, but those of Sense; Where, Health and Honor trooping by her side, She spread her sacred empire far and wide;

Pointed the way Affliction to beguile,
And bade the face of Sorrow wear a smile;
Bade those who dare obey the gen'rous call,
Enjoy her blessings, which God meant for all?
Is this the land, where, in some tyrant's reign,
When a weak, wicked, ministerial train,
The tools of pow'r, the slaves of int'rest, plann'd
Their country's ruin, and with bribes un-
mann'd

Those wretches who, ordain'd in Freedom's cause,

Gave up our liberties, and sold our laws; [go,
When Pow'r was taught by Meanness where to
Nor dar'd to love the virtue of a foe;
When, like a lep'rous plague, from the foul head
To the foul heart her sores Corruption spread;
Her iron arm when stern Oppression rear'd,
And Virtue, from her broad base shaken, fear'd
The scourge of Vice; when, impotent and vain,
Poor Freedom bow'd the neck to Slavery's
chain:-

Is this the land, where, in those worst of times,
The hardy Poet rais'd his honest rhymes
To dread rebuke, and bade controlment speak
In guilty blushes on the villain's cheek:
Bade Pow'r turn pale, kept mighty rogues in awe,
And made them fear the Muse, who fear'd not
Law?

How do I laugh when men of narrow souls, Whom folly guides and prejudice controls; Who one dull drowsy track of business trod, Worship their Mammon, and neglect their God;

Who, breathing by one musty set of rules,
Dote from the birth, and are by system fools;
Who, form'd to dulness from their very youth,
Lies of the day prefer to Gospel truth;
Pick up their little knowledge from Reviews,
And lay out all their stock of faith in news :
How do I laugh, when creatures form'd like
these,
[please,
Whom Reason scorns, and I should blush to
Rail at all lib'ral arts, deem verse a crime,
And hold not Truth as Truth if told in rhyme!
How do I laugh, when Publius, hoary grown
In zeal for Scotland's welfare and his own,
By slow degrees, and course of office, drawn
In mood and figure at the helm to yawn;
Too mean (the worst of curses Heav'n can send)
To have a foe, too proud to have a friend,
Erring by form, which blockheads sacred hold,
Ne'er making new faults, and ne'er mending
old;

Rebukes my spirit, bids the daring Muse
Subjects more equal to her weakness choose;
Bids her frequent the haunts of humble swains,
Nor dare to traffic in ambitious strains;
Bids her, indulging the poetic whim
In quaint-wrought ode, or sonnet pertly trim,
Along the church-way path complain with
Gray,

Or dance with Mason on the first of May!
"All sacred is the name and power of Kings;
And States and Statesmen are those mighty
things,

Which, howsoe'er they out of course may roll, Were never made for Poets to control."

Peace, peace, thou dotard! nor thus vilely deem
Of sacred numbers, and their pow'r blaspheme;
I tell thee, wretch, search all creation round,
In earth, in heav'n, no subject can be found
(Our God alone except), above whose weight
The Poet cannot rise, and hold his state.
The blessed Saints above in numbers speak
The praise of God, though there all praise is
weak;

In numbers here below the Bard shall teach
Virtue to soar beyond the villain's reach;
Shall tear his lab'ring lungs, strain his hoarse
throat,

And raise his voice beyond the trumpet's note,
Should an afflicted country, aw'd by men
Of slavish principles, demand his pen.
This is a great, a glorious point of view,
Fit for an English Poet to pursue,
Undaunted to pursue, though in return
His writings by the common hangman burn.
How do I laugh when men, by fortune plac'd
Above their betters, and by rank disgrac'd;
Who found their pride on titles which they
stain,

And, mean themselves, are of their fathers vain;
Who would a bill of privilege prefer,
And treat a Poet like a creditor;
The gen'rous ardor of the Muse condemn,
And curse the storm they know must break on

them!

wear,

Follow his steps, and be his virtue's heir.
But if, regardless of the road to Fame,
You start aside, and tread the paths of Shame;
If such thy life, that, should thy sire arise,
The sight of such a son would blast his eyes;
Would make him curse the hour which gave
[earth,

thee birth; Would drive him, shudd'ring, from the face of Once more, with shame and sorrow, 'mongst the dead,

In endless night to hide his rev'rend head;
If such thy life, though king hath made thee

more

Than ever king a scoundrel made before; Nay, to allow thy pride a deeper spring, Though God in vengeance had made thee a

king;