Since Harley bid me first attend,*
And chose me for an humble friend;
Would take me in his coach to chat,
And question me of this and that;

As "What's o'clock?" And, "How's the wind?"
"Whose chariot's that we left behind?"
Or gravely try to read the lines

Writ underneath the country signs;†

-Subjectior in diem et horam

Invidiæ.

Frigidus a rostris manat per compita rumor;
Quicunque obvius est, me consulit.

* The rise and progress of Swift's intimacy with Lord Oxford is minutely detailed in his very interesting Journal to Stella. And the reasons why a man that served the ministry so effectually, was so tardily, and so difficultly, and so poorly rewarded, are well explained in Sheridan's Life of Swift, and arose principally from the insuperable aversion the queen had conceived to the author of a Tale of a Tub as a profane book; which aversion was kept alive and increased by the Duchess of Somerset, against whom Swift had written a severe lampoon. It appears from this Life, that Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke always kept concealed from Swift their inability to serve him. One of the common artifices of ministers and great men is to retain in their service those whom they cannot reward, and " spe pascere inani," for year after year. With whatever secrets Swift might have been trusted, it does not appear he knew anything of a design to bring in the Pretender.-Swift was a true Whig. His political principles are amply unfolded in an excellent letter written to Pope, January 20, 1721 and indeed they had been sufficiently displayed, many years before, in The Sentiments of a Church of England Man; a treatise replete with strong sense, sound principles, and clear reasoning.-WARTON.

The real cause of Swift's disappointment in his hopes of preferment is explained in Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole. Both Gay and Swift conceived everything was to be gained by the interest of Mrs. Howard, to whom they paid incessant court.-BOWLES.

† Another of their amusements in these excursions consisted in Lord Oxford and Swift's counting the poultry on the road, and whichever reckoned thirty-one first, or saw a cat, or an old

Or, "Have you nothing new to-day
From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?"
Such tattle often entertains

My lord and me as far as Staines,
As once a week we travel down
To Windsor, and again to town,
Where all that passes inter nos
Might be proclaim'd at Charing-cross.
Yet some I know with envy swell,
Because they see me used so well:
"How think you of our friend the Dean?
I wonder what some people mean!
My lord and he are grown so great,
Always together tête-à-tête ;

What! they admire him for his jokes?—
See but the fortune of some folks!"

There flies about a strange report
Of some express arrived at court:
I'm stopped by all the fools I meet,
And catechised in every street.
"You, Mr. Dean, frequent the great:
Inform us, will the emperor treat?
Or do the prints and

papers lie?

Jurantem me scire nihil, miratur, ut unum
Scilicet egregii mortalem altique silentî.

Perditur hæc inter misero lux, non sine votis,

O rus, quando ego te aspiciam ? quandoque, licebit,

woman, won the game. Bolingbroke, overtaking them one day in their road to Windsor, got into Lord Oxford's coach, and began some political conversation; Lord Oxford said, "Swift, I am up; there is a cat." Bolingbroke was disgusted with this levity, and went again into his own carriage. This was

-“Nugari et discincti ludere "

with a witness.-WARTON.

Faith, sir, ye know as much as I.
"Ah, Doctor, how you love to jest!
'Tis now no secret "-I protest
'Tis one to me-"Then tell us pray,
When have the troops to have their pay?
And, though I solemnly declare

I know no more than my lord mayor,
They stand amazed, and think me grown
The closest mortal ever known.
Thus in a sea of folly toss'd,

My choicest hours of life are lost;
Yet always wishing to retreat,
O, could I see my country-seat!
There leaning near a gentle brook,
Sleep, or peruse some ancient book;
And there in sweet oblivion drown

Those cares that haunt the court and town.*

Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, et inertibus horis,
Ducere sollicitæ jucunda, oblivia vitæ ?

O quando faba Pythagoræ cognata, simulque
Uncta satis pingui ponentur oluscula lardo?

* Thus far was translated by Dr. Swift in 1714. The remaining part of the satire was afterwards added by Mr. Pope in whose works the whole is printed. See Dr. Warton's edition, vol. VI. p. 13.

HORACE, BOOK II. ODE I. PARA-
PHRASED.*

ADDRESSED TO RICHARD STEELE, ESQ. 1714.

DICK, thou'rt resolved, as I am told,
Some strange arcana to unfold,
And with the help of Buckley's+ pen,
To vamp the good old cause again :

Which thou (such Burnet's shrewd advice is)
Must furbish up, and nickname Crisis.
Thou pompously wilt let us know
What all the world knew long ago,
(E'er since Sir William Gore was mayor,
And Harley filled the commons' chair,)
That we a German prince must own,
When Anne for Heaven resigns her throne.
But, more than that, thou'lt keep a rout,
With-who is in-and who is out;
Thou'lt rail devoutly at the peace,
And all its secret causes trace,

The bucket-play 'twixt Whigs and Tories,
Their ups and downs, with fifty stories
Of tricks the Lord of Oxford knows,
And errors of our plenipoes.

Thou'lt tell of leagues among the great,
Portending ruin to our state:

And of that dreadful coup d'eclat,

Which has afforded thee much chat.

*This, and the next poem, were first added to the Dean's Works by Mr. Nichols, from copies in the Lambeth Library, K. I, 2, 29, 30. 4to.

† Samuel Buckley, publisher of the Crisis.

The queen, forsooth! (despotic,) gave
Twelve coronets without thy leave!
A breach of liberty, 'tis own'd,

For which no heads have yet atoned!
Believe me, what thou'st undertaken
May bring in jeopardy thy bacon;
For madmen, children, wits, and fools,
Should never meddle with edged tools.
But, since thou'st got into the fire,
And can'st not easily retire,

Thou must no longer deal in farce,
Nor pump to cobble wicked verse;
Until thou shalt have eased thy conscience,
Of spleen, of politics, and nonsense;
And, when thou'st bid adieu to cares,
And settled Europe's grand affairs,
'Twill then, perhaps, be worth thy while
For Drury-lane to shape thy style :
"To make a pair of jolly fellows,
The son and father, join to tell us,
How sons may safely disobey,
And fathers never should say nay;
By which wise conduct they grow friends
At last-and so the story ends."*

When first I knew thee, Dick, thou wert
Renown'd for skill in Faustus' art; †
Which made thy closet much frequented
By buxom lasses-some repented
Their luckless choice of husbands-others,
Impatient to be like their mothers,

* This is said to be a plot of a comedy, with which Mr. Steele has long threatened the town.-SWIFT.

† Not alluding, as I conceive, to Steele's researches in alchemy, but to his assumed character of Squire Bickerstaff, a conjuror, whose advice to various distressed females may be seen in the Tatler, and is ridiculed in the lines which follow.