Part 102 (1/2)

Why do we grieve that friends should die?

No loss more easy to supply.

One year is past; a different scene!

No further mention of the Dean, Who now, alas! no more is missed, 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Departed:--and his works must follow; Must undergo the common fate; His kind of wit is out of date.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 Lintot 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.

Pray, do but give me leave to show 'em: Here's Colley Cibber's birthday poem.

This ode you never yet have seen, By Stephen Duck, upon the queen.

Then here's a letter finely penned Against the Craftsman and his friend: It clearly shows that all reflection On ministers is disaffection.

Next, here's Sir Robert's vindication, And Mr Henley's last oration.

The hawkers have not got them yet; Your honour please to buy a set?

'Here's Wolston's tracts, the twelfth edition; 'Tis read by every politician: The country-members, when in town, To all their boroughs send them down: You never met a thing so smart; The courtiers have them all by heart: Those maids of honour who can read, Are taught to use them for their creed.

The reverend author's good intention Hath been rewarded with a pension: He doth an honour to his gown, By bravely running priestcraft down: He shows, as sure as G.o.d's in Gloucester, That Moses was a grand impostor; That all his miracles were cheats, Performed as jugglers do their feats: The church had never such a writer; A shame he hath not got a mitre!'

Suppose me dead; and then suppose A club a.s.sembled at the Rose; Where, from discourse of this and that, I grow the subject of their chat.

And while they toss my name about, With favour some, and some without; One, quite indifferent in the cause, My character impartial draws:

'The Dean, if we believe report, Was never ill received at court, Although, ironically grave, He shamed the fool, and lashed 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 s...o...b..red, Offend our patriot, great Sir Robert, 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 seemed determined not to starve it, Because no age could more deserve it.

Yet malice never was his aim; He lashed the vice, but spared 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 abhorred the senseless tribe Who call it humour when they gibe: He spared a hump or crooked nose, Whose owners set not up for beaux.

True genuine dulness moved his pity, Unless it offered to be witty.

Those who their ignorance confessed He ne'er offended with a jest; But laughed to hear an idiot quote A verse from Horace learned by rote.

Vice, if it e'er can be abashed, Must be or ridiculed, or lashed.

If you resent it, who's to blame?

He neither knows you, nor your name.