Was both a Boat, and in one sense a pilot.
With every wind he sail'd, and well could tack:
Had many pendants, but abhorr'd a Jack.1
He's gone, although his friends began to hope,
That he might yet be lifted by a rope.
Behold the awful bench, on which he sat!
He was as hard and ponderous wood as that:
Yet when his sand was out, we find at last,
That death has overset him with a blast.
Our Boat is now sail'd to the Stygian ferry,
There to supply old Charon's leaky wherry;
Charon in him will ferry souls to Hell;
A trade our Boat has practised here so well:
And Cerberus has ready in his paws
Both pitch and brimstone, to fill up his flaws.
Yet, spite of death and fate, I here maintain
We may place Boat in his old post again.
The way
is thus and well deserves your thanks:
Take the three strongest of his broken planks,
Fix them on high, conspicuous to be seen,
Form'd like the triple tree near Stephen's Green :3
And, when we view it thus with thief at end on't,
We'll cry; look, here's our Boat, and there's the
pendant.
A cant word for a Jacobite.---F.
2 In condemning malefactors, as a judge.---F.
3 Where the Dublin gallows stands.---F.
HERE lies Judge Boat within a coffin:
Pray, gentlefolks, forbear your scoffing.
A Boat a judge! yes; where's the blunder?
A wooden judge is no such wonder.
And in his robes you must agree,
No boat was better deckt than he.
"Tis needless to describe him fuller;
In short, he was an able sculler.1
OCCASIONED BY WHITSHED'S MOTTO ON
LIBERTAS et natale solum : 3
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;
Query, Whether the author meant scholar, and wilfully mistook?---Dublin Edit.
2 That noted chief-justice who twice prosecuted the Drapier, and dissolved the grand jury for not finding the bill against him.--- F.
3 This motto is repeatedly mentioned in the Drapier's Letters.---Scott.
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.
Libertas bears a large import:
First, how to swagger in a court;
And, secondly, to show my fury
Against an uncomplying 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 ;1
And, fifthly, (you know whom 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.
Allan Broderick, Lord Viscount Middleton, was then lord-chancellor of Ireland.---F.
2 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.---Scott.
ON THE REVIVAL OF THE ORDER OF THE BATH, DURING WALPOLE'S ADMINISTRATION,
A. D. 1724. BY AN UNKNOWN
QUOTH King Robin, our ribbons I see are too few
Of St. Andrew's the green, and St. George's the
I must find out another of colour more gay, [blue.
That will teach all my subjects with pride to obey.
Though the exchequer be drain'd by prodigal donors,
Yet the king ne'er exhausted his fountain of honours.
Men of more wit than money our pensions will fit,
And this will fit men of more money than wit.
Thus my subjects with pleasure will obey my com-
mands,
Though as empty as Younge, and as saucy as Sandes.
And he who'll leap over a stick for the king,
Is qualified best for a dog in a string.
EPIGRAM ON WOOD'S BRASS MONEY.
CARTERET was welcomed to the shore
First with the brazen cannon's roar;
To meet him next the soldier comes,
With brazen trumps and brazen drums ;
1 These verses were communicated by Dr. Barrett, from a copy in his father's hand-writing. The subject and style authorize the tradition which ascribes them to Swift.---Scott.
Approaching near the town he hears
The brazen bells salute his ears:
But when Wood's brass began to sound,
Guns, trumpets, drums, and bells, were drown'd.
ON OUR WANT OF SILVER, AND THE ONLY
WAY TO REMEDY IT. 1725.
As when of old some sorceress threw
O'er the moon's face a sable hue,
To drive unseen her magic chair,
At midnight, through the darken'd air;
Wise people, who believed with reason
That this eclipse was out of season,
Affirm'd the moon was sick, and fell
To cure her by a counter spell.
Ten thousand cymbals now begin,
To rend the skies with brazen din;
The cymbals' rattling sounds dispel
The cloud, and drive the hag to hell.
The moon, deliver'd from her pain,
Displays her silver face again.
Note here, that in the chemic style,
The moon is silver all this while.
So (if my simile you minded,
Which I confess is too long-winded)
When late a feminine magician,1
1 The Duchess of Kendal, who was to have a share of Wood's profits.---Scott.
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