Ye pack of pensionary peers,
Whose fingers itch for poets' ears;
Ye bishops, far removed from saints,

Why all this rage? Why these complaints ?
Why against printers all this noise?

This summoning of blackguard boys?
Why so sagacious in your guesses?

Your effs, and tees, and arrs, and esses!
Take my advice; to make you safe,
I know a shorter way by half.

The point is plain; remove the cause;
Defend your liberties and laws.

Be sometimes to your country true,
Have once the public good in view ;
Bravely despise champagne at court,
And choose to dine at home with port:
Let prelates, by their good behaviour,
Convince us they believe a Saviour;
Nor sell what they so dearly bought,
This country, now their own, for nought.
Ne'er did a true satiric muse
Virtue or innocence abuse;
And 'tis against poetic rules
To rail at men by nature fools:
But

*

**

ON NOISY TOM.

HORACE, PART OF BOOK I. SAT. VI. PARAPHRASED. 1733.

IF Noisy Tom1 should in the senate prate,
"That he would answer both for church and state;
And, farther, to demonstrate his affection,
Would take the kingdom into his protection;"
All mortals must be curious to inquire,

Who could this coxcomb be, and who his sire?
"What! thou, the spawn of him who shamed our
Traitor, assassin, and informer vile!
[isle,
Though, by the female side,3 you proudly bring,
To mend your breed, the murderer of a king:
What was thy grandsire, but a mountaineer,
Who held a cabin for ten groats a-year:

Whose master Moore 5 preserved him from the halter,
For stealing cows! nor could he read the Psalter!
Durst thou, ungrateful, from the senate chase

Sir Thomas Prendergast.---F.

2 The father of Sir Thomas Prendergast, who engaged in a plot to murder King William III.; but, to avoid being hanged, turned informer against his associates, for which he was rewarded with a good estate, and made a baronet.---F. 3 Cadogan's family.---F.

A poor thieving cottager under Mr. Moore, condemned at Clonmell assizes to be hanged for stealing cows.---F. 5 The grandfather of Guy Moore, Esq., who procured him a pardon.---F.

VOL. III.

N

Thy founder's grandson,1 and usurp his place? Just Heaven! to see the dunghill bastard brood Survive in thee, and make the proverb good?? Then vote a worthy citizen to jail,3

In spite of justice, and refuse his bail!"4

ON DR. RUNDLE, BISHOP OF DERRY.

1734-5.

MAKE Rundle bishop! fie for shame!
An Arian to usurp the name !

A bishop in the isle of saints!

How will his brethren make complaints!

1 Guy Moore was fairly elected member of Parliament for Clonmel; but Sir Thomas, depending upon his interest with a certain party then prevailing, and since known by the title of parson-hunters, petitioned the House against him; out of which he was turned upon pretence of bribery, which the paying of his lawful debts was then voted to be.---F.

2 "Save a thief from the gallows, and he will cut your throat."---F.

3 Mr. George Faulkner. Mr. Sergeant Bettesworth, a member of the Irish Parliament, having made a complaint to the House of Commons against the "Satire on Quadrille," they voted Faulkner the printer into custody (who was confined closely in prison three days, when he was in a very bad state of health, and his life in much danger) for not discovering the author.--- F.

Among the poems, &c. preserved by Mr. Smith are verses on the same subject and person with these in the text, ascribed by Swift to Dunkin.---Scott's Edit. vol. xii. p. 448.

Dare any of the mitred host
Confer on him the Holy Ghost:

In mother church to breed a variance,
By coupling orthodox with Arians?

Yet, were he Heathen, Turk, or Jew:
What is there in it strange or new?
For, let us hear the weak pretence,
His brethren find to take offence;
Of whom there are but four at most,
Who know there is a Holy Ghost;
The rest, who boast they have conferr'd it,
Like Paul's Ephesians, never heard it;
And, when they gave it, well 'tis known,
They gave what never was their own.
Rundle a bishop! well he may;
He's still a christian more than they.

We know the subject of their quarrels ;
The man has learning, sense, and morals.
There is a reason still more weighty;
'Tis granted he believes a Deity.
Has every circumstance to please us,
Though fools may doubt his faith in Jesus.
But why should he with that be loaded,
Now twenty years from court exploded?
And is not this objection odd

From rogues who ne'er believed a God?
For liberty a champion stout,
Though not so Gospel-ward devout.
While others, hither sent to save us,

Come but to plunder and enslave us ;

Nor ever own'd a power divine,
But Mammon, and the German line.
Say, how did Rundle undermine 'em?
Who shew'd a better jus divinum?
From ancient canons would not vary,
But thrice refused episcopari.

Our bishop's predecessor, Magus,
Would offer all the sands of Tagus ;
Or sell his children, house, and lands,
For that one gift, to lay on hands:
But all his gold could not avail
To have the spirit set to sale.
Said surly Peter, "Magus, prithee,
Be gone thy money perish with thee."
Were Peter now alive, perhaps,

He might have found a score of chaps,
Could he but make his gift appear
In rents three thousand pounds a-year.
Some fancy this promotion odd,
As not the handiwork of God;
Though e'en the bishops disappointed
Must own it made by God's anointed,
And well we know, the congé regal
Is more secure as well as legal;
Because our lawyers all agree,

That bishoprics are held in fee.

Dear Baldwin1 chaste, and witty Crosse,

Richard Baldwin, Provost of Trinity College in 1717. He left behind him many natural children.---Scott.

* Rector of St. Mary's Dublin, in 1722; before which