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Then to her glass; and, "Betty, pray
Don't I look frightfully to-day?
But was it not confounded hard?
Well, if I ever touch a card!
Four mattadores, and lose codille!
Depend upon't, I never will.
But run to Tom, and bid him fix
The ladies here to-night by six."
"Madam, the goldsmith waits below;
'His business is to know

He says,

If you'll redeem the silver cup

He keeps in pawn?'"-" First, show him up."
"Your dressing-plate he'll be content
To take, for interest cent. per cent.
And, madam, there's my lady Spade,
Hath sent this letter by her maid.”
"Well, I remember what she won;
And hath she sent so soon to dun?
Here, carry down those ten pistoles
My husband left to pay for coals :
I thank my stars, they all are light ;
And I may have revenge to-night."
Now, loitering o'er her tea and cream,
She enters on her usual theme;
Her last night's ill success repeats,
Calls lady Spade a hundred cheats:
"She slipt spadillo in her breast,
Then thought to turn it to a jest:
There's Mrs Cut and she combine,
And to each other give the sign."
Through every game pursues her tale,
Like hunters o'er their evening ale.

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FROM THE DEATH OF DR SWIFT."1

We all behold with envious eyes
Our equals rais'd above our size.
Who would not at a crowded show
Stand high himself, keep others low?
I love my friend as well as you:
But why should he obstruct my view?
Then let me have the higher post;
Suppose it but an inch at most.
If in a battle you should find

One, whom you love of all mankind,

1 This singular poem was prompted by the following maxim of Rochefoucault" Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose que ne nous déplait pas." The verses on his death and the Rhapsody on Poetry are the best of Swift's poetical productions, though they cannot be called true poetry."-Warton.

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The time is not remote when I
Must by the course of nature die;
When, I foresee, my special friends
Will try to find their private ends:
And, though 'tis hardly understood
Which way my death can do them good,
Yet thus, methinks, I hear them speak:
"See how the Dean begins to break!
Poor gentleman, he droops apace!
You plainly find it in his face.
That old vertigo in his head
Will never leave him till he's dead.
Besides, his memory decays:
He recollects not what he says;
He cannot call his friends to mind;
Forgets the place where last he din'd;
Plies you with stories o'er and o'er;
He told them fifty times before.
How does he fancy we can sit
To hear his out-of-fashion wit?
But he takes up with younger folks,
Who for his wine will bear his jokes.
Faith he must make his stories shorter,
Or change his comrades once a quarter ;
In half the time he talks them round,
There must another set be found."

In such a case they talk in tropes,
And by their fears express their hopes.
Some great misfortune to portend,
No enemy can match a friend.

With all the kindness they profess,

The merit of a lucky guess

(When daily how-d'ye's come of course,

And servants answer, "Worse and worse!")

Would please them better, than to tell,

That, "God be prais'd, the Dean is well."

Then he who prophesy'd the best,
Approves his foresight to the rest :
"You know I always fear'd the worst,
And often told you so at first."

He'd rather choose that I should die,
Than his predictions prove a lie.
Not one foretells I shall recover;
But, all agree to give me over.

*

Behold the fatal day arrive!

"How is the Dean ?"-" He's just alive."
Now the departing prayer is read;
He hardly breathes-the Dean is dead.
Before the passing-bell begun,

The news through half the town is run.
"Oh! may we all for death prepare!
What has he left? and who's his heir?"
"I know no more than what the news is;
"Tis all bequeath'd to public uses."
"To public uses! there's a whim!
What had the public done for him?
Mere envy, avarice, and pride:
He gave it all-but first he died.
And had the Dean, in all the nation,
No worthy friend, no poor relation?
So ready to do strangers good,
Forgetting his own flesh and blood !"

Now Grub-street wits are all employ'd ;
With elegies the town is cloy'd:
Some paragraph in every paper,
To curse the Dean, or bless the Drapier.1
The doctors, tender of their fame,
Wisely on me lay all the blame.
"We must confess, his case was nice;
But he would never take advice.

Had he been rul'd, for aught appears,
He might have liv'd these twenty years:
For, when we open'd him, we found
That all his vital parts were sound."

*

#

Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains:
Three genuine tomes of Swift's remains!
And then, to make them pass the glibber,
Revis'd by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber.
He'll treat me as he does my betters,
Publish my will, my life, my letters;
Revive the libels born to die:

Which Pope must bear as well as I.3
Here shift the scene, to represent

1 The letters that so successfully opposed the introduction of Wood's halfpence into Ireland, were signed in the character of a Dublin tradesman, M. B. Drapier.

2 An alleged surreptitious edition of Pope's letters was published by Curll, an enterprising but unscrupulous bookseller. All the names in the preceding lines are pilloried in Pope's Dunciad.

How those I love my death lament.
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day.

St John' himself will scarce forbear
To bite his pen, and drop a tear.
The rest will give a shrug, and cry,
"I'm sorry-but we all must die!"
Indifference, clad in wisdom's guise,
All fortitude of mind supplies:
For how can stony bowels melt
In those who never pity felt!

When we are lash'd, they kiss the rod,
Resigning to the will of God.

*

Why do we grieve that friends should die?

No loss more easy to supply.

One year is past; a different scene!

No farther mention of the Dean,

Who now, alas! no more is miss'd,
Than if he never did exist.

Where's now the favourite of Apollo?
Departed:-and his works must follow;
Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.

Some country squire to Lintot2 goes,
Inquires for Swift in verse and prose.
Says Lintot, "I have heard the name;
He died a year ago?"-" The same."
He searches all the shop in vain.
"Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane:
I sent them, with a load of books,
Last Monday, to the pastry-cook's.
To fancy they could live a year!
I find you're but a stranger here.
The Dean was famous in his time,
And had a kind of knack at rhyme.
His way of writing now is past:
The town has got a better taste.
I keep no antiquated stuff;
But spick and span I have enough."

Suppose me dead; and then suppose
A club assembled at the Rose.

One, quite indifferent in the cause,
My character impartial draws.
"The Dean, if we believe report,

1 Lord Bolingbroke.

3

2 The celebrated bookseller whose name is so closely connected with that of Pope.

3 In the succeeding passages it will easily be perceived that different members of the club are represented by Swift as expressing their opinions of his character.

Was never ill receiv'd at Court;
Although, ironically grave,

He sham'd the fool, and lash'd the knave;
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own."
"Sir, I have heard another story;
He was a most confounded Tory,
And grew, or he is much belied,
Extremely dull, before he died."

"Can we the Drapier then forget? Is not our nation in his debt?

'Twas he that writ the Drapier's letters!"— "He should have left them for his betters: We had a hundred abler men,

Nor need depend upon his pen.—

Say what you will about his reading,
You never can defend his breeding;
Who, in his satires running riot,
Could never leave the world in quiet;
Attacking, when he took the whim,
Court, city, camp-all one to him.-
But why would he, except he slobber'd,
Offend our patriot, great Sir Robert,1
Whose counsels aid the sovereign power
To save the nation every hour!
What scenes of evil he unravels,
In satires, libels, lying travels;
Not sparing his own clergy cloth,
But eats into it, like a moth!"

Perhaps I may allow the Dean
Had too much satire in his vein,
And seem'd determin'd not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim;

He lash'd the vice, but spar'd the name.
No individual could resent,

Where thousands equally were meant :
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr'd the senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe:
He spar'd a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux.
True genuine dulness mov'd his pity,
Unless it offer'd to be witty.
Those who their ignorance confest,
He ne'er offended with a jest ;
But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote
A verse from Horace learn'd by rote.

1 Sir Robert Walpole.

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