His fellow pick-purse, watching for a job,
Fancies his finger 's in the cully's fob.

The kind physician grants the husband's prayers,
Or gives relief to long-expecting heirs.
The sleeping hangman ties the fatal noose,
Nor unsuccessful waits for dead men's shoes.

The grave divine, with knotty points perplext,
As if he was awake, nods o'er his text :
While the sly mountebank attends his trade,
Harangues the rabble, and is better paid.

The hireling senator of modern days
Bedaubs the guilty great with nauseous praise:
And Dick the scavenger, with equal grace,
Flirts from his cart the mud in ***** 's face.

WHITSHED'S MOTTO ON HIS COACH.

1724.

LIBERTAS et natale solum :

Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.
Could nothing but thy chief reproach
Serve for a motto on thy coach?
But let me now the words translate:
Natale solum, my estate;
My dear estate, how well I love it!
My tenants, if you doubt, will prove it.
They swear I am so kind and good,
I hug them, till I squeeze their blood.
Libertus bears a large import :
First, how to swagger in a court;
And, secondly, to show my fury
Against an un-complying jury;
And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention,

To favour Wood, and keep my pension;
And, fourthly, 'tis to play an odd trick,
Get the great seal, and turn out Broderick;
And, fifthly, (you know who I mean)
To humble that vexatious dean;
And, sixthly, for my soul, to barter it
For fifty times its worth to Carteret 2.

Now, since your motto thus you construe, I must confess you 've spoken once true. Libertas et natale solum:

You had good reason, when you stole 'em.

SENT BY

DR. DELANY TO DR. SWIFT,

IN ORDER TO BE ADMITTED TO SPEAK TO HIM, WHEN HE WAS DEAF. 1724.

DEAR Sir, I think 'tis doubly hard,

Your ears and doors should both be barr'd,
Can any thing be more unkind?
Must I not see, 'cause you are blind?
Methinks a friend at night should cheer you,
A friend that loves to see and hear you.

1 The chief justice who prosecuted the Drapier. 2 Lord lieutenant of Ireland.

Why am I robb'd of that delight,
When you can be no loser by 't?
Nay, when 'tis plain (for what is plainer?)
That, if you heard, you 'd be no gainer?
For sure you are not yet to learn,
That hearing is not your concern.
Then be your doors no longer barr'd;
Your business, sir, is to be heard.

THE ANSWER.

THE wise pretend to make it clear,
'Tis no great loss to lose an ear.
Why are we then so fond of two,
When by experience one would do?

'Tis true, say they, cut off the head,
And there's an end; the man is dead;
Because, among all human race,
None e'er was known to have a brace:
But confidently they maintain,
That where we find the members twain,
The loss of one is no such trouble,
Since t' other will in strength be double.
The limb surviving, you may swear,
Becomes his brother's lawful heir:
Thus, for a trial, let me beg of
Your reverence but to cut one leg off,
And you will find, by this device,
The other will be stronger twice;
For every day you shall be gaining
New vigour to the leg remaining.
So, when an eye has lost its brother,
You see the better with the other.
Cut off your haud, and you may do
With t' other hand the work of two;
Because the soul her power contracts,
And on the brother limb re-acts.

But yet the point is not so clear in
Another case, the sense of hearing:
For, though the place of either ear
Be distant as one head can bear;
Yet Galen most acutely shows you,
(Consult his book de partium us!)
That from each ear, as he observes,
There creep two auditory nerves,
Not to be seen without a glass,
Which near the os petrosum pass;

Thence to the neck; and moving thorow there,

One goes to this, and one to t' other ear;

Which made my grand-dame always stuff her ears,

Both right and left, as fellow sufferers

You see my learning; but, to shorten it,
When my left year was deaf a fortnight,
To t' other ear I felt it coming on:
And thus I solve this hard phenomenon.
'Tis true, a glass will bring supplies
To weak, or old, or cloudy eyes;
Your arms, though both your eyes were lost,
Would guard your nose against a post;
Without your legs, two legs of wood
Are stronger and almost as good;

And as for hands, there have been those
Who, wanting both, have us'd their toes 1.
But no contrivance yet appears

To furnish artificial ears.

1 There have been instances of a man's writing with his foot.

THE

QUIET LIFE AND A GOOD NAME

TO A FRIEND WHO MARRIED A SHREW. 1724.

NELL scolded in so loud a din,
That Will durst hardly venture in ;
He mark'd the conjugal dispute;
Nell roar'd incessant, Dick sat mute;
But, when he saw his friend appear,
Cry'd bravely, "Patience, good my dear!"
At sight of Will, she bawl'd no more,
But hurry'd out, and clapp'd the door.

"Why Dick! the devil's in thy Nell," (Quoth Will)" thy house is worse than Hell: Why what a peal the jade has rung! D-n her, why don't you slit her tongue? For nothing else will make it cease." "Dear Will, I suffer this for peace: I never quarrel with my wife; I bear it for a quiet life.

Scripture, you know, exhorts us to it;
Bids us to seek peace, and ensue it."
Will went again to visit Dick;
And entering in the very nick,
He saw virago Nell belabour,

With Dick's own staff, his peaceful neighbour:
Poor Will, who needs must interpose,
Receiv'd a brace or two of blows.

But now, to make my story short,
Will drew out Dick to take a quart.
"Why, Dick, thy wife has devilish whims ;
Ods-buds! why don't you break her limbs ?
If she were mine, and had such tricks,
I'd teach her how to handle sticks:
Z-ds! I would ship her to Jamaica,
Or truck the carrion for tobacco:
I'd send her far enough away-"
"Dear Will; but what would people say?
Lord! I should get so ill a name,
The neighbours round would cry out shame."
Dick suffer'd for his peace and credit;
But who believ'd him, when he said it?
Can he who makes himself a slave,
Consult his peace, or credit save?
Dick found it by his ill success,

His quiet small, his credit less.

She serv'd him at the usual rate;

She stunn'd, and then she broke, his pate:
And, what he thought the hardest case,
The parish jeer'd him to his face;
Those men who wore the breeches least,
Call'd him a cuckold, fool, and beast.
At home he was pursued with noise ;
Abroad was pester'd by the boys:
Within, his wife would break his bones;
Without, they pelted him with stones:
The 'prentices procur'd a riding,
To act his patience, and her chiding.

False patience and mistaken pride!
There are ten thousand Dicks beside,
Slaves to their quiet and good name,
Are us'd like Dick, and bear the blame.

1 A well known humourous cavalcade, in ridicule of a scolding wife and hen-pecked husband.

BIRTH OF MANLY VIRTUE.

INSCRIBED TO LORD CARTERET, 1724. Gratior & pulchro veniens in corpore virtus.

ONCE on a time, a righteous sage, Griev'd at the vices of the age, Applied to Jove with fervent prayer:

O Jove, if Virtue be so fair
As it was deem'd in former days
By Plato and by Socrates,
Whose beauties morta, eyes escape,
Only for want of outward shape;
Make then its real excellence,

For once, the theme of human sense:
So shall the eve, by form confin'd,
Direct and fix the wandering mind,
And long-deluded mortals see
With rapture what they us'd to flee."

Jove grants the prayer, gives Virtue birth,
And bids him bless and mend the earth.
Behold him blooming fresh and fair,
Now made-ye gods--a son and heir:
An heir; and, stranger yet to hear,
An heir, an orphan of a peer;
But prodigies are wrought, to prove
Nothing impossible to Jove.

Virtue was for this sex design'd
In mild reproof to woman-kind;
In manly form to let them see
The loveliness of modesty,
The thousand decencies that shone
With lessen'd lustre in their own;
Which few had learn'd enough to prize,
And some thought modish to despise.

To make his merit more discern'd,
He goes to school-he reads-is learn'd;
Rais'd high, above his birth, by knowledge,
He shines distinguish'd in a college;
Resolv'd nor honour, nor estate,
Himself alone should make him great.
Here soon for every art renown'd,
His influence is diffus'd around;
Th' inferior youth, to learning led,
Less to be fam'd than to be fed,
Behold the glory he has won,
And blush to see themselves outdone;
And now, inflam'd with rival rage,
In scientific strife engage;
Engage--and, in the glorious strife,
The arts new-kindle into life.

Here would our hero ever dwell,
Fix'd in a lonely learned cell;
Contented to be truly great,
In virtue's best-belov'd retreat;
Contented he-but fate ordains,
He now shall shine in nobler scenes
(Rais'd high, like some celestial fire,
To shine the more, still rising higher);
Completely form'd in every part,
To win the soul, and glad the heart.
The powerful voice, the graceful mien,
Lovely alike, or heard or seen ;
The outward form and inward vie,
His soul bright beaming from his eye

Virg.

Ennobling every act and air,

With just, and generous, and sincere.
Accomplish'd thus, his next resort
Is to the council and the court,
Where virtue is in least repute,
And interest the one pursuit;

Where right and wrong are bought and sold,
Barter'd for beauty, and for gold;
Here manly virtue, even here,
Pleas'd in the person of a peer,
A peer; a scarcely-bearded youth,
Who talk'd of justice and of truth,
Of innocence the surest guard,
Tales here forgot, or yet unheard;
That he alone deserv'd esteem,
Who was the man he wish'd to seem;
Call'd it unmanly and unwise,
To lurk behind a mean disguise;
(Give fraudful vice the mask and screen,
'Tis virtue's interest to be seen;)
Call'd want of shame a want of sense,
And found, in blushes, eloquence.

Thus, acting what he taught so well,
He drew dumb Merit from her cell,
Led with amazing art along

The bashful dame, and loos'd her tongue;
And, whilst he made her value known,
Yet more display'd and rais'd his own.

Thus young, thus proof to all temptations,
He rises to the highest stations
(For where high honour is the prize,
True virtue has a right to rise):
Let courtly slaves low bend the knee
To wealth and vice in high degree:
Exalted worth disdains to owe
Its grandeur to its greatest foe.

Now rais'd on high, see Virtue shows
The godlike ends for which he rose ;
For him, let proud ambition know
The height of glory here below,
Grandeur, by goodness made compleat
To bless, is truly to be great!
He taught how men to honour rise,
Like gilded vapours to the skies,
Which, howsoever they display
Their glory from the god of day,
Their noblest use is to abate

His dangerous excess of heat,

To shield the infant fruits and flowers,
And bless the earth with genial showers.
Now change the scene; a nobler care
Demands him in a higher sphere 1:
Distress of nations calls him hence,
Permitted so by Providence;
For models, made to mend our kind,
To no one clime should be confin'd;
And manly Virtue, like the Sun,

His course of glorious toils should run;
Alike diffusing in his flight
Congenial joy, and life, and light.
Pale Envy sickens, Errour flies,
And Discord in his presence dies;
Oppression hides with guilty dread,
And Merit rears her drooping head;
The arts revive, the vallies sing,
And winter softens into spring:

1 Lord Carteret had the honour of mediating peace for Sweden with Denmark and with the Czar.

The wondering world, where'er he moves,
With new delight looks up and loves;
One sex consenting to admire,
Nor less the other to desire;
Whilst he, though seated on a throne,
Contines his love to one alone;

The rest condemn'd, with rival voice
Repining, do applaud his choice.

Fame now reports, the Western Isle
Is made his mansion for a while,
Whose anxious natives night and day
(Happy beneath his righteous sway)
Weary the gods with ceaseless prayer,
To bless him, and to keep him there;
And claim it as a debt from fate,
Too lately found, to lose him late.

VERSES

ON THE UPRIGHT JUDGE

WHO CONDEMNED THE DRAPIER'S PRINTER. THE church I hate, and have good reason; For there my grandsire cut his weazand: He cut his weazand at the altar; I keep my gullet for the halter.

ON THE SAME.

IN church your grandsire cut his throat:
To do the job, too long he tarry'd;
He should have had my hearty vote,
To cut his throat before he marry'd.

ON THE SAME.

(THE JUDGE SPEAKS.)

I'm not the grandson of that ass Quin 1;
Nor can you prove it, Mr. Pasquin.
My grand-dame had gallants by twenties,
And bore my mother by a 'prentice.
This when my grandsire knew, they tell us he
In Christ-Church cut his throat for jealousy.
And, since the alderman was mad you say,
Then I must be so too, ex traduce.

RIDDLES,

BY DR. SWIFT AND HIS FRIENDS,

WRITTEN IN OR ABOUT THE YEAR 1724.

I. ON A PEN.

In youth exalted high in air,
Or bathing in the waters fair,
Nature to form me took delight,
And clad my body all in white.

1 An alderman.

My person tall, and slender waist, On either side with fringes grac'd; Till me that tyrant, man, espy'd,

And dragg'd me from my mother's side:
No wonder now I look so thin;
The tyrant stript me to the skin:
My skin he flay'd, my hair he cropt;
At head and foot my body lopt;

And then, with heart more hard than stone,
He pick'd my marrow from the bone.
To vex me more, he took a freak
To slit my tongue, and make me speak:
But, that which wonderful appears,
I speak to eyes, and not to ears.
He oft employs me in disguise,

And makes me tell a thousand lies:
To me he chiefly gives in trust
To please his malice or his lust:
From me no secret he can hide;
I see his vanity and pride:
And my delight is to expose
His follies to his greatest foes.

All languages I can command,
Yet not a word 1 understand.
Without my aid, the best divine
In learning would not know a line:
The lawyer must forget his pleading;
The scholar could not show his reading.
Nay, man, my master, is my slave;
I give command to kill or save;
Can grant ten thousand pounds a year,
And make a beggar's brat a peer.

But, while I thus my life relate,

I only hasten on my fate.

My tongue is black, my mouth is furr'd, I hardly now can force a word.

I die unpitied and forgot,

And on some dunghill left to rot.

II. ON GOLD.

ALL-RULING tyrant of the Earth,
To vilest slaves I owe my birth.
How is the greatest monarch blest,
When in my gaudy livery drest!
No haughty nymph has power to run
From me, or my embraces shun.

Stabb'd to the heart, condemn'd to flame,
My constancy is still the same.
The favourite messenger of Jove,
And Lemnian god, consulting strove
To make me glorious to the sight
Of mortals, and the gods' delight.
Soon would their altars' flame expire,
If I refus'd to lend them fire.

I sometimes give advice in writing,
But never of my own inditing.

I am a courtier in my way;
For those who rais'd me, I betray;
And some give out, that I entice
To lust, and luxury, and dice;
Who punishments on me inflict,
Because they find their pockets pickt,
By riding post, I lose my health ;
And only to get others wealth.

IV. ON THE POSTERIORS.
BECAUSE I am by nature blind,
I wisely chuse to walk behind;
However, to avoid disgrace,

I let no creature see my face.

My words are few, but spoke with sense;
And yet my speaking gives offence:

Or, if to whisper I presume,

The company will fly the room.
By all the world I am opprest;

And my oppression gives them rest.

Through me, though sore against my will, Instructors every art instil.

By thousands I am sold and bought,
Who neither get nor lose a groat;
For
none, alas! by me can gain,
But those who give me greatest pain.
Shall man presume to be my master,
Who's but my caterer and taster?
Yet, though I always have my will,
I'm but a mere depender still;
An humble hanger on at best,
Of whom all people make a jest.
In me detractors seek to find
Two vices of a different kind:
I'm too profuse, some censurers cry ;
And all I get, I let it fly:

While others give me many a curse,
Because too close I hold my purse.
But this I know, in either case
They dare not charge me to my face.
'Tis true indeed, sometimes I save,
Sometimes run out of all I have ;
But, when the year is at an end,
Computing what I get and spend,
My goings-out, and comings-in,
I cannot find I lose or win;

And therefore all that know me say,
I justly keep the middle way.
I'm always by my betters led;
I last get up, and first a-bed;
Though, if I rise before my time,
The learn'd in sciences sublime
Consult the stars, and thence foretel
Good luck to those with whom I dwell.

III.

By fate exalted high in place,
Lo, here I stand with double face;
Superior none on Earth I fmd;
But see bere me all mankind.
Yt, as it oft attends the great,
I almost sink with my own weight.
At every motion undertook,
The vulgar all consult my look.

V. ON A HORN.

THE joy of man, the pride of brutes,
Domestic subject for disputes,
Of plenty thou the emblem fair,
Adorn'd by nymphs with all their care!
I saw thee rais'd to high renown,

Supporting half the British crown;

And often have I seen thee grace
The chaste Diana's infant face;
And whensoe'er you please to shine,
Less useful is her light than thine:
hy numerous fingers know their way,
And oft in Celia's tresses play.

To place thee in another view,

I'll show the world strange things and true;
What lords and dames of high degree
May justly claim their birth from thee.
The soul of man with spleen you vex;
Of spleen you cure the female sex.
Thee for a gift the courtier sends
With pleasure to his special friends :
He gives, and, with a generous pride,
Contrives all means the gift to hide :
Nor oft can the receiver know,
Whether he has the gift or no.
On airy wings you take your flight,
And fly unseen both day and night;
Conceal your form with various tricks ;
And few know how or where you fix:
Yet some, who ne'er bestow'd thee, boast
That they to others give thee most.
Mean time, the wise a question start,
If thou a real being art;

Or but a creature of the brain,

That gives imaginary pain.

But the sly giver better knows thee,

Who feels true joys when he bestows thee.

VI. ON A CORKSCREW.

THOUGH I, alas! a prisoner be,
My trade is prisoners to set free.
No slave his lord's commands obeys
With such insinuating ways.
My genius piercing, sharp, and bright,
Wherein the men of wit delight.
The clergy keep me for their ease,
And turn and wind me as they please.
A new and wondrous art I show
Of raising spirits from below;
In scarlet some, and some in white;
They rise, walk round, yet never fright,
In at each mouth the spirits pass,
Distinctly seen as through a glass;
O'er head and body make a rout,
And drive at last all secrets out:
And still, the more I show my art,
The more they open every heart.

A greater chemist none than I,
Who from materials hard and dry
Have taught men to extract with skill
More precious juice than from a still.

Although I'm of en out of case,
I'm not asham'd to show my face.
Though at the tables of the great
I near the sideboard take my seat;
Yet the plain 'squire, when dinner 's done,
Is never pleas'd till I make one :
He kindly bids me near him stand,
And often takes me by the hand.

I twice a day a hunting go,
Nor ever fail to seize my foe;
And, when I have him by the pole,
I drag him upwards from his hole;

Though some are of so stubborn kind, I'm forc'd to leave a limb behind.

I hourly wait some fatal end; For I can break, but scorn to bend.

VII.

THE GULPII OF ALL HUMAN POSSESSIONS.

COME hither, and behold the fruits,
Vain man! of all thy vain pursuits.
Take wise advice, and look behind,
Bring all past actions to thy mind.
Here you may see, as in a glass,
How soon all human pleasures pass.
How will it mortify thy pride,
To turn the true impartial side!
How will your eyes contain their tears,
When all the sad reverse appears!

This cave within its womb confines
The last result of all designs:
Here lie deposited the spoils
Of busy mortals' endless toils:
Here, with an easy search, we find
The foul corruptions of mankind.
The wretched purchase here behold
Of traitors who their country sold.

This gulph insatiable imbibes
The lawyer's fees, the statesman's bribes.
Here, in their proper shape and mien,
Fraud, perjury, and guilt, are seen.
Necessity, the tyrant's law,
All human race must hither draw;
All prompted by the same desire,
The vigorous youth, and aged sire.
Behold, the coward and the brave,
The haughty prince, the humble slave,
Physician, lawyer, and divine,
All make oblations at this shrine.
Some enter boldly, some by stealth,
And leave behind their fruitless wealth.
For while the bashful sylvan maid,
As half asham'd, and half afraid,
Approaching finds it hard to part
With that which dwelt so near her heart;
The courtly dame, unmov'd by fear,
Profusely pours her offerings here.

;

A treasure here of learning lurks,
Huge heaps of never-dying works
Labours of many an ancient sage,
And millions of the present age.

In at this gulph all offerings pass,
And lie an undistinguish'd mass.
Deucalion, to restore mankind,
Was bid to throw the stones behind;
So those who here their gifts convey
Are forc'd to look another way;
For few, a chosen few, must know
The mysteries that lie below.

Sad charnel-house! a dismal dome,
For which all mortals leave their home!
The young, the beautiful, and brave,
Here bury'd in one common grave!
Where each supply of dead renews
Unwholesome damps, offensive dews;
And lo! the writing on the walis
Points out where each new victim falls;