And for your cruel part*, who take pleasure in blood, I have that of the grape, which is ten times as good: Flow wit to her honour, flow wine to her health; High rais'd be her worth, above titles or wealth.
BETTESWORTH'S EXULTATION,
UPON HEARING THAT HIS NAME WOULD BE TRANSMITTED TO POSTERITY IN DR. SWIFT'S WORKs.
WELL! now, since the heat of my passion's abated, That the dean hath lampoon'd me, my mind is
Lampoon'd did I call it ?-No-what was it then!
What was it?'Twas fame to be lash'd by his pen :
For had he not pointed me out, I had slept till
E'en doomsday, a poor insignificant reptile,
Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious,
Obscure, and unheard of-but now I'm notorious.
Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one,
The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one:
dedication of the Dublin edition of Tacitus to the lord Carteret, and by that of Terence to his son, to whom she likewise wrote a Greek epigram. Lord Carteret obtained a patent for Mr. George Grierson, her husband, to be king's printer in Ireland; and, to distinguish and reward her extraordinary merit, had her life inserted in it. See the preface to Mrs. Barber's poems.
Mrs. Van Lewen (Mrs. Pilkington's mother), who used to argue with Dr. Swift, about his declamation against eating blood.
If the end be obtain'd 'tis equal what portal
I enter, since I'm to be render'd immortal :
So clysters applied to the anus, 'tis said,
By skilful physicians, give ease to the headThough my title be spurious, why should I be dastard,
A man is a man, though he should be a bastard.
Why sure 'tis some comfort that heroes should slay us,
If I fall, I would fall by the hand of Æneas;
And who, by the Drapier would not rather damn'd be,
Than demigoddized by madrigal Namby*.
A man is no more, who has once lost his breath;
But poets convince us there's life after death.
They call from their graves the king or the peasant,
React our old deeds, and make what's past present;
And when they would study to set forth a like,
So the lines be well drawn, and the colours but strike,
Whatever the subject be, coward or hero,
A tyrant or patriot, a Titus or Nero,
To a judge 'tis all one which he fixes his eye on,
And a well-painted monkey's as good as a lion.
The scriptures affirm (as I heard in my youth,
For indeed I ne'er read them, to speak for once truth,)
That death is the wages of sin, but the just
Shall die not, although they be laid in the dust.
They say so, so be it, I care not a straw,
Although I be dead both in Gospel and law;
In verse I shall live, and be read in each climate;
What more can be said of prime sergeant or primate?
While Carter and Prendergast both may be rotten,
And damn'd to the bargain, and yet be forgotten.
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 show the thing I mean,
Have you not o'er a sawpit seen,
A skill'd mechanick, that has stood
High on a length of prostrate wood,
Who hired 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 sawpit and wet weather,
Should Young and Philips drudge together*.
*This is to be understood as a censure only of the poetical character of those gentlemen. As men, the dean esteemed them both;. and on Philips in particular conferred many signal acts of friendship,
TO THE REV. DR. SWIFT, DEAN OF
ST. PATRICK'S.
A BIRTHDAY POEM. Nov. 30, 1736.
you, my true and faithful friend These tributary lines I send,
Which every year, thou best of deans,
I'll pay as long as life remains;
But did you know one half the pain,
What work, what racking of the brain,
It costs me for a single clause,
How long I'm forced to think and pause;
How long I dwell upon a proem,
To introduce your birthday poem,
How many blotted lines; I know it,
You'd have compassion for the poet.
Now, to describe the way I think,
I take in hand my pen and ink;
I rub my forehead, scratch my head,
Revolving all the rhymes I read.
Each complimental thought sublime,
Reduced by favourite Pope to rhyme,
And those by you to Oxford writ,
With true simplicity and wit.
Yet after all I cannot find
One panegyrick to my mind.
Now I begin to fret and blot,
Something I schemed but quite forgot;
My fancy turns a thousand ways
Through all the several forms of praise,
What elogy may best become
The greatest dean in christendom.
At last I've hit upon a thought-
Sure this will do
'tis good for nought
This line I peevishly erase,
And choose another in its place;
Again I try, again commence,
But cannot well express the sense;
The line's too short to hold my meaning;
I'm cramp'd, and cannot bring the dean in.
O for a rhyme to glorious birth!
-The rhyme is earth
But how to bring it in, or fit it,
I know not, so I'm forc'd to quit it.
Again I try-I'll sing the man-
Ay do, says Phoebus, if you can;
I wish with all my heart you would not,
Were Horace now alive he could not:
And will you venture to pursue,
What none alive or dead could do?
Pray see, did ever Pope or Gay
Presume to write on his birthday?
Though both were fav'rite bards of mine,
The task they wisely both decline.
With grief I felt his admonition,
And much lamented my condition :
Because I could not be content
Without some grateful compliment.
If not the poet, sure the friend
Must something on your birthday send.
I scratch'd, and rubb'd my head once more:
"Let ev'ry patriot him adore."
Alackaday, there's nothing in't-
Such stuff will never do in print.
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