THE VIRTUES OF SID HAMET THE
MAGICIAN'S ROD. 1710.

When Swift came to London, in 1710, just about the time the ministry was changed, his reception from Lord-Treasurer Godolphin was, as he stated to Archbishop King, "different from what he had received from any great man in his life; altogether short, dry, and morose." To Stella, he owns that this coldness had so enraged him, that he was vowing revenge. The fruits of his resentment was the following lampoon on the treasurer's abdication. It was read at Harley's, on the 15th October, 1710; but was not then suspected to be Swift's. The success of this jeu d'esprit was prodigious. See Vol. II. p. 47, 48.-The allusion to Godolphin's family name, Sidney, and to his staff of office, are sufficiently obvious.]

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THE rod was but a harmless wand,
While Moses held it in his hand
But, soon as e'er he laid it down,
'Twas a devouring serpent grown.

Our great magician, Hamet Sid,
Reverses what the prophet did:
His rod was honest English wood,
That senseless in a corner stood,
Till metamorphos'd by his grasp,
It grew an all-devouring asp;
Would hiss, and sting, and roll, and twist,
By the mere virtue of his fist:
But, when he laid it down, as quick
Resumed the figure of a stick.

So, to her midnight feasts, the hag
Rides on a broomstick for a nag,
That, rais'd by magic of her breech,
O'er sea and land conveys the witch;
But with the morning dawn resumes
The peaceful state of common brooms.
They tell us something strange and odd,
About a certain magic rod, *

That, bending down its top, divines
Whene'er the soil has golden mines;
Where there are none, it stands erect,
Scorning to show the least respect:
As ready was the wand of Sid

To bend where golden mines were hid:
In Scottish hills found precious ore, †
Where none e'er look'd for it before;
And by a gentle bow divined
How well a cully's purse was lined;
To a forlorn and broken rake,
Stood without motion like a stake.

The rod of Hermes was renown'd
For charms above and under ground;
To sleep could mortal eyelids fix,
And drive departed souls to Styx.
That rod was a just type of Sid's,
Which o'er a British senate's lids
Could scatter opium full as well,
And drive as many souls to hell.

Sid's rod was slender, white, and tall,
Which oft he used to fish withal;
A place was fasten'd to the hook,
And many score of gudgeons took;

*The virgula divina, said to be attracted by minerals. SWIFT, + Supposed to allude to the union. SWIFT.

Yet still so happy was his fate,
He caught his fish and saved his bait.
Sid's brethren of the conjuring tribe,
A circle with their rod describe,
Which proves a magical redoubt,
To keep mischievous spirits out.
Sid's rod was of a larger stride,
And made a circle thrice as wide,
Where spirits throng with hideous din,
And he stood there to take them in;
But when th' enchanted rod was broke,
They vanish'd in a stinking smoke.
Achilles' sceptre was of wood,
Like Sid's, but nothing near so good;
Though down from ancestors divine
Transmitted to the hero's line;

Thence, through a long descent of kings,
Came an HEIRLOOM,* as Homer sings.
Though this description looks so big,
That sceptre was a sapless twig,
Which, from the fatal day, when first
It left the forest where 'twas nurs'd,
As Homer tells us o'er and o'er,
Nor leaf, nor fruit, nor blossom bore.
Sid's sceptre, full of juice, did shoot
In golden boughs, and golden fruit;
And he, the dragon never sleeping,
Guarded each fair Hesperian pippin.
No hobby horse, with gorgeous top,
The dearest in Charles Mather's † shop,
Or glittering tinsel of May-fair,
Could with the rod of Sid compare.

Godolphin's favour arose from his connection with the family of Marlborough.

† An eminent toyman in Fleet-street. SWIFT.

Dear Sid, then, why wert thou so mad
To break thy rod like naughty lad? *
You should have kiss'd it in your distress,
And then return'd it to your mistress;
Or made it a Newmarket switch, †
And not a rod for thy own breech.
But since old Sid has broken this,
His next may be a rod in piss.

* When Godolphin received the queen's message, removing him from the office of treasurer, he broke his whole rod into two pieces, and threw them into the chimney, desiring the messenger to bear witness he had obeyed her majesty's commands.

† Lord Godolphin is satirized by Mr Pope, for a strong attachment to the turf. See his Moral Essays.