How patiently you hear him groan!
How gląd the case is not your own!

What poet would not grieve to see
His brother write as well as he ?
But, rather than they should excel,
Would wish his rivals all in hell ?

Her end when emulation misses,
She turns to envy, stings, and hisses :
The strongest friendship yields to pride,
Unless the odds be on our side.
Vain human-kind ! fantastic race!
Thy various follies who can trace ?
Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,
Their empire in our heart divide.
Give others riches, power, and station,
'Tis all to me an usurpation.
I have no title to aspire ;
Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher.
In Pope I cannot read a line,
But with a sigh I wish it mine :
When he can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six;
It gives me such a jealous fit,
I cry, “ Pox take him and his wit!"
I grieve to be outdone by Gay
In my own humorous biting way.
Arbuthnot is no more my friend,
Who dares to irony pretend,
Which I was born to introduce,
Refind at first, and show'd its use.
St. John, as well as Pulteney, knows
That I had some repute for prose;
And, till they drove me out of date,
Could maul a minister of state.
If they have mortified my pride,
And made me throw my pen aside;
If with such talents Heaven hath bless'd 'em,
Have I not reason to detest 'em ?

To all my foes, dear Fortune, send
Thy gifts; but never to my friend :
I lamely can endure the first;
But this with envy makes me burst.

Thus much may serve by way of proem ;
Proceed we therefore to our poem.

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.

“For poetry, he's past his prime;
He takes an hour to find a rhyme :
His fire is out, his wit decay'd,
His fancy sunk, his Muse a jade.
I'd have him throw away his pen ;
But there's no talking to some men !"

And then their tenderness appears
By adding largely to my years :
“He's older than he would be reckon'd,
And well remembers Charles the Second.
He hardly drinks a pint of wine ;
And that, I doubt, is no good sign.
His stomach too begins to fail ;
Last year we thought him strong and hale;
But now he's quite another thing :
I wish he may hold out till spring!"
They hug themselves, and reason thus :
" It is not yet so bad with us!"

In such a case they talk in tropes,
And by their fear 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 prophesied the best.
Approves his foresight to the rest :
“You know I always feard 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.

Yet should some neighbor feel a pain
Just in the parts where I complain;
How many a message would he send !
What hearty prayers that I should mend!
Inquire what regimen I kept ?
What gave me easę, and how I slept ?
And more lament, when I was dead,
Than all the snivellers round my bed.

My good companions, never fear;
For, though you may mistake a year,
Though your prognostics run too fast,
They must be verified at last.

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

Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend !
No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight;
And he's engag'd to-morrow night :
My lady Club will take it ill,
If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loy'd the Dean—(I lead a heart :)
But dearest friends, they say, must part.
His time was come; he ran his race;
We hope he's in a better place."

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 favorite 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 'en.:
Here's Colley Cibber's birth-day poem.
This ode you never yet have seen,
By Stephen Duck, upon the queen.
Then here's a letter finely penn'd
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 honor, 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 honor 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 honor to his gown,
By bravely running priestcroft down:
He shows, as sure as God's in Gloucester,
That Moses was a grand impostor;
That all his miracles were cheats,
Perform'd as jugglers do their feats:
The church had never such a writer :
A shame he hath not got a mitre!"

66

Suppose me dead; and then suppose A club assembled 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 favor some, and some without; One, quite indifferent in the cause, My character impartial draws. * The Dean, if we believe report, 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 salires 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,
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 humor when they gibe:
He spar'd a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux.
True genuine dullness 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.
Vice, if it e'er can be abash'd,
Must be or ridiculd or lash'd.
If you resent it, who's to blame?
He neither knows you, nor your name.
Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke ?
His friendships, still to few confin'd,
Were always of the middling kind;
No fools of rank, or mongrel breed,
Who fain would pass for lords indeed :
Where titles give no right or power,
And peerage is a wither'd flower;

He would have deem'd it a disgrace,
If such a wretch had known his face.
On rural squires, that kingdom's bane,
He vented oft his wrath in vain :
******* squires to market brought,
Who sell their souls and **** for nought:
The **** ****

go joyful back,
To rob the church, their tenants rack;
Go snacks with ***** justices,
And keep the peace to pick up fees;
In every job to have a share,
A gaol or turnpike to repair;
And turn *******

to public roads Commodious to their own abodes.

" He never thought an honor done him,
Because a peer was proud to own him;
Would rather slip aside, and choose
To talk with wits in dirty shoes ;
And scorn the tools with stars and garters,
So often seen caressing Chartres.
He never courted men in station,
Nor persons held in admiration ;
Of no man's greatness was afraid,
Because he sought for no man's aid.
Though trusted long in great affairs,
He gave himself no haughty airs :
Without regarding private ends,
Spent all his credit for his friends ;
And only chose the wise and good;
No flatterers; no allies in blood :
But succor'd virtue in distress,
And seldom fail'd of good success ;
As numbers in their hearts must own,
Who, but for him, had been unknown.

“He kept with princes due decorum;
Yet never stood in awe before 'em,
He follow'd David's lesson just;
In princes never put his trust;
And, would you make him truly sour,
Provoke him with a slave in power.
The Irish senate if you nam'd,
With what impatience he declaim'd!
Fair LIBERTY was all his cry;
For her he stood prepar'd to die;
For her he boldly stood alone;
For her he oft expos'd his own.
Two kingdoms, just as faction led,
Had set a price upon his head ;
But not a traitor could be found,
To sell him for six hundred pound.

“Had he but spar'd his tongue and pen,
He might have rose like other men:
But power was never in his thought,
And wealth he valued not a groat :
Ingratitude he often found,
And pitied those who meant the wound;
But kept the tenor of his mind,
To merit well of human-kind;
Nor made a sacrifice of those
Who still were true, to please his foes.
He labor'd many a fruitless hour,
To reconcile his friends in power;
Saw mischief by a faction brewing,
While they pursued each other's ruin.
But, finding vain was all his care,
He left the court in mere despair.

" And, oh! how short are human schemes'
Here ended all our golden dreams.
What St. Jobn's skill in state affairs,
What Ormond's valor, Oxford's cares,