The shepherd in his bower might sleep or sing,*
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor scorpion's sting.
With omens oft I strove to warn thy swains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains.
I sent the magpie from the British soil,
With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil;
To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,
And haunt thy holy walls in white and black.
What else are those thou seest in bishop's gear,
Who crop the nurseries of learning here;
Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state?
As you grew more degenerate and base,
I sent you millions of the croaking race;
Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn
Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn;
A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls,
And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls!
See, where that new devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns!
With harpy-claws it undermines the ground,
And sudden spreads a numerous offspring round.
Th' amphibious tyrant, with his ravenous band,
Drains all thy lakes of fish, of fruits thy land.

Where is the holy well that bore my name?
Fled to the fountain back, from whence it came!
Fair Freedom's emblem once, which smoothly flows,
And blessings equally on all bestows.

Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts,†
The students, drinking, raised their wit and parts;

* There are no snakes, vipers, or toads in Ireland; and even frogs were not known here till about the year 1700. The magpies came a short time before; and the Norway rats since.-Dub. Ed. These plagues are all alluded to in this and the subsequent stanzas.

+ The university of Dublin, called Trinity College, was founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1591.-Dub. Ed.

Here, for an age and more, improved their vein,
Their Phoebus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
Discouraged youths! now all their hopes must fail,
Condemned to country cottages and ale;

To foreign prelates make a slavish court,
And by their sweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the classics, read "Th' Attorney's Guide ;
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.

Oh! had I been apostle to the Swiss,
Or hardy Scot, or any land but this;
Combined in arms, they had their foes defied,
And kept their liberty, or bravely died;
Thou still with tyrants in succession curst,
The last invaders trampling on the first:
Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of misery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon shall thy sons (the time is just at hand)
Be all made captives in thy native land;
When for the use of no Hibernian born,
Shall rise one blade of grass, one ear of corn;
When shells and leather shall for money pass,
Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee brass,*
But all turn leasers to that mongrel breed,†
Who, from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed;
Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear,
And waste in luxury thy harvest there;
For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jest of wits, and to the court unknown.
I scorn thy spurious and degenerate line,
And from this hour my patronage resign.

* Wood's ruinous project against the people of Ireland was supported by Sir Robert Walpole in 1724.-Dub. Ed.

†The absentees, who spent the income of their Irish estates, places, and pensions, in England.—Dub. Ed.

ON READING DR. YOUNG'S SATIRE,

CALLED THE UNIVERSAL PASSION.

1726.

If there be truth in what you sing,
Such godlike virtues in the king;
A minister so fill'd with zeal

*

And wisdom for the commonweal;
If het who in the chair presides,
So steadily the senate guides;
If others, whom you make your theme,
Are seconds in the glorious scheme;
If every peer whom you commend,
To worth and learning be a friend;
If this be truth, as you attest,
What land was ever half so blest!
No falsehood now among the great,
And tradesmen now no longer cheat:
Now on the bench fair Justice shines;
Her scale to neither side inclines:
Now Pride and Cruelty are flown,
And Mercy here exalts her throne;
For such is good example's power,
It does its office every hour,
Where governors are good and wise ;
Or else the truest maxim lies:
For so we find all ancient sages
Decree, that, ad exemplum regis,

* Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford. Young's seventh satire is inscribed to him.

+ Sir Spencer Compton, then speaker, afterwards Earl of Wilmington, to whom the eighth satire is dedicated.

Through all the realm his virtues run,
Ripening and kindling like the sun.
If this be true, then how much more
When you have named at least a score
Of courtiers, each in their degree,
If possible, as good as he?

Or take it in a different view.
I ask (if what you say be true)
If you affirm the present age
Deserves your satire's keenest rage;
If that same universal passion
With every vice has fill'd the nation:
If virtue dares not venture down
A single step beneath the crown:
If clergymen, to shew their wit,
Praise classics more than holy writ :
If bankrupts, when they are undone,
Into the senate-house can run,
And sell their votes at such a rate,
As will retrieve a lost estate :

If law be such a partial whore,

To spare the rich, and plague the poor :
If these be of all crimes the worst,
What land was ever half so curst?

THE DOG AND THIEF.

1726.

QUOTH the thief to the dog, let me into your door, And I'll give you these delicate bits.

Quoth the dog, I shall then be more villain than you're,

And besides must be out of my wits.

Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal,
But my master each day gives me bread;
You'll fly, when you get what you came here to steal,
And I must be hang'd in your stead.

The stockjobber thus from 'Change Alley goes down, And tips you the freeman a wink ;

Let me have but your vote to serve for the town, And here is a guinea to drink.

Says the freeman, Your guinea to-night would be spent!

Your offers of bribery cease:

I'll vote for my landlord to whom I pay rent,
Or else I may forfeit my lease.

From London they come, silly people to chouse,
Their lands and their faces unknown:
Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament-house,
That would turn a man out of his own?

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MAD MULLINIX AND TIMOTHY.

1728.

THIS is a severe satire upon Richard Tighe, Esq., whom the Dean regarded as the officious informer against Sheridan, in the matter of the choice of a text for the accession of George I. Swift had faithfully promised to revenge the cause of his friend, and has certainly fully redeemed his pledge, in this and the following pasquinades. Mad Mullinix, or Molyneux, was a sort of crazy beggar, a Tory politician in his madness, who haunted the streets of Dublin about this time. In a paper subscribed

VOL. XII.

2 B