Go tell your friend Bob and the other great folk,
That sinking the coin is a dangerous joke.
The Irish dear joys have enough common sense,
To treat gold reduced like Wood's copper pence.
It is pity a prelate should die without law;
But if I say the word-take care of Armagh!"

A BALLAD.

WRITTEN by Dean Swift, on the bringing down of the gold coin, and which produced, it is said, a powerful effect upon the public mind. It has never been printed in his works, and was taken down from recitation by my friend Mr. Hartstonge.

I.

PATRICK astore,* what news upon the town? By my soul there's bad news, for the gold she was pull'd down,

The gold she was pull'd down, of that I'm very sure, For I saw'd them reading upon the towlselt doore. Sing, och, och, hoh, hoh.‡

* Astore, means my dear, my heart.

†The Tholsel, where criminals for the city were tried, and where proclamations, &c., were posted. It was invariably called the Touls'el by the lower class.

It would appear that the chorus here introduced, was intended to chime with the howl, the ululatus, or funeral cry, of the Irish.

II.

Arrah! who was him reading? 'twas a jauntleman in ruffles,

And Patrick's bell she was ringing all in muffles; She was ringing very sorry, her tongue tied up with

rag,

Lorsha! and out of her shteeple there was hung a

black flag.*

III.

Sing, och, &c.

Patrick astore, who was him made this law?
Some they do say, 'twas the big man of straw;†
But others they do say, that it was Jug-Joulter,
The devil he may take her into hell and Boult-her!
Sing, och, &c.

IV.

Musha! Why Parliament wouldn't you maul,
Those carters, and paviours, and footmen, and all; §
Those rascally paviours who did us undermine,
Och ma ceade millia mollighart on the feeders of
swine!

Sing, och, &c.

* Swift, it is said, caused a muffled peal to be rung from the steeple of St. Patrick's, on the day of the proclamation, and a black flag to be displayed from its battlements.

†The big man of straw, means the Duke of Dorset, LordLieutenant of Ireland; he had only the name of authority, the essential power being vested in the primate.

Jug-Joulter means Primate Boulter, whose name is played upon in the succeeding line. In consequence of the public dissatisfaction expressed at the lowering the gold coin, the primate became very unpopular.

§ "Footmen" alludes to a supporter of the measure, said to have been the son or grandson of a servant.

|| Means "my hundred thousand hearty curses on the feeders of swine."

A WICKED TREASONABLE LIBEL.

So the following very remarkable verses are entitled, in a copy which exists in the Dean's hand-writing, and is now before the Editor. It bears the following characteristic memorandum on the back: "A traiterous libel, writ several years ago. It is inconsistent with itself. Copied September 9, 1735. I wish I knew the author, that I might hang him." And at the bottom of the paper is subjoined this postscript. "I copied out this wicked paper many years ago, in hopes to discover the traitor of an author, that I might inform against him." For the foundation of the scandals current during the reign of George I. to which the lines allude, see Walpole's Reminiscences, chapter II. and vol. I. of this work.

WHILE the king and his ministers keep such a pother,

And all about changing one whore for another,
Think I to myself, what need all this strife,
His majesty first had a whore of a wife,
And surely the difference mounts to no more
Than, now he has gotten a wife of a whore.
Now give me your judgment a very nice case on;
Each queen has a son; say which is the base one?
Say which of the two is the right Prince of Wales,
To succeed, when, (God bless him,) his majesty
fails;

Perhaps it may puzzle our loyal divines

To unite these two Protestant parallel lines,

From a left-handed wife, and one turn'd out of doors,

Two reputed king's sons, both true sons of whores; No law can determine it, which is first oars.

But, alas! poor old England, how wilt thou be mastered;

For, take which you please, it must needs be a bastard.

EPIGRAMS AGAINST CARTHY,

BY SWIFT AND OTHERS.

CHARLES CARTHY, a schoolmaster in the city of Dublin, was publisher of a translation of Horace, in which the Latin was printed on the one side, and the English on the other, whence he acquired the name of Mezentius, alluding to the practice of that tyrant, who chained the dead to the living. Carthy was almost continually involved in satirical skirmishes with Dunkin, for whom Swift had a particular friendship, and there is no doubt that the Dean himself engaged in the warfare. The following epigrams were selected by Dr. Barrett from two scarce pamphlets in the Trinity College Library. One is entitled, "Mezentius. 1734." (Marked R. R. 19. 60.) The other, "Florilegium Carthianum," in the same year. They are probably the productions of Swift, Dunkin, Sican, &c.

ON CARTHY'S TRANSLATION OF HORACE,

Containing, on one side, the original Latin, on the
other, his own version.

THIS I may boast, which few e'er could,
Half of my book at least is good.

ON CARTHY MINOTAURUS.

How monstrous Carthy looks with Flaccus braced, For here we see the man and there the beast.

ON THE SAME.

Once Horace fancied from a man,
He was transform'd to a swan;
But Carthy, as from him thou learnest,
Has made the man a goose in earnest.

ON THE SAME.

Talis erat quondam Tithoni splendida conjux,
Effulsit misero sic Dea juncta viro;
Hunc tandem imminuit sensim longæva senectus,
Te vero extinxit, Carole, prima dies.

IMITATED.

So blush'd Aurora with celestial charms,
So bloom'd the goddess in a mortal's arms;
He sunk at length to wasting age a prey,
But thy book perish'd on its natal day.

AD HORATIUM CUM CARTHIO CONSTRICTUM.

Lectores ridere jubes dum Carthius astat?
Iste procul depellit olens tibi Mævius omnes :
Sic triviis veneranda diu, Jovis inclyta proles
Terruit, assumpto, mortales, Gorgonis ore.

IMITATED.

Could Horace give so sad a monster birth? Why then in vain he would excite our mirth; His humour well our laughter might command. But who can bear the death's head in his hand?