Talents for conversation fit

Are humour, breeding, sense, and wit:
The last, as boundless as the wind,
Is well conceiv'd, though not defin'd :
For, sure by wit is chiefly meant
Applying well what we invent.
What humour is, not all the tribe
Of logic-mongers can describe;
Here nature only acts her part,
Unhelp'd by practice, books, or art :
For wit and humour differ quite;
That gives surprise, and this delight.
Humour is odd, grotesque, and wild,
Only by affectation spoil'd:
'Tis never by invention got,
Men have it when they know it not.
Our conversation to refine,

Humour and wit must both combine:
From both we learn to rally well,
Wherein sometimes the French excel;
Voiture, in various lights, displays
That irony which turns to praise :
His genius first found out the rule
For an obliging ridicule :
He flatters with peculiar air
The brave, the witty, and the fair :
And fools would fancy he intends
A satire where he most commends. *

*These lines are perfectly characteristic of Voiture, who was famous for introducing new and easy graces into the French language, and giving a more agreeable turn to many trite and fami liar modes of expression, by a happiness peculiar to himself. His irony has been particularly admired for its singularity and address. He, as well as the courtly Waller, was the poet of the fair;

But as a poor pretending beau,
Because he fain would make a show,
Nor can arrive at silver lace,

Takes up with copper in the place:
So the pert dunces of mankind,
Whene'er they would be thought refin'd,
As if the difference lay abstruse
'Twixt raillery and gross abuse;
To show their parts, will scold and rail,
Like porters o'er a pot of ale..

Such is that clan of boisterous bears,
Always together by the ears;
Shrewd fellows and arch wags, à tribe
That meet for nothing but a gibe;
Who first run one another down,
And then fall foul on all the town;
Skill'd in the horse-laugh and dry rub,
And call'd by excellence The Club.
I mean your Butler, Dawson, Car,
All special friends, and always jar.
The mettled and the vicious steed
Differ as little in their breed!
Nay, Voiture is as like Tom Leigh,
As rudeness is to repartee.

If what you said I wish unspoke,
'Twill not suffice it was a joke;
Reproach not, though in jest, a friend
For those defects he cannot mend;

and both have celebrated the charming Countess of Carlisle.* It has been observed, that few authors have suffered so much by translation as Voiture. His native beauties are of too delicate a kind to be copied in a foreign language.

* It appears, by Voiture's Letters, that he was in England in 1653.

His lineage, calling, shape, or sense,
If nam'd with scorn, gives just offence.
What use in life to make men fret,
Part in worse humour than they met?
Thus all society is lost,

Men laugh at one another's cost;
And half the company is teas'd
That came together to be pleas'd:
For all buffoons have most in view
To please themselves, by vexing you.
You wonder now to see me write
So gravely on a subject light;
Some part of what I here design
Regards a friend * of yours and mine;

Who neither void of sense nor wit,

Yet seldom judges what is fit,

But sallies oft beyond his bounds,
And takes unmeasurable rounds.

When jests are carried on too far,
And the loud laugh begins the war,
You keep your countenance for shame,
Yet still you think your friend to blame:
For though men cry they love a jest,
'Tis but when others stand the test;
And (would you have their meaning known)
They love a jest that is their own.
You must, although the point be nice,
Bestow your friend some good advice;
One hint from you will set him right,
And teach him how to be polite.
Bid him like you observe with care,
Whom to be hard on, whom to spare;

* Dr Sheridan.-H.

Nor indistinctly to suppose

All subjects like Dan Jackson's nose.
To study the obliging jest,

By reading those who teach it best;
For
prose I recommend Voiture's, †
For verse (I speak my judgment) yours.
He'll find the secret out from thence,
To rhyme all day without offence;
And I no more shall then accuse
The flirts of his ill-manner'd muse.

If he be guilty, you must mend him?
If he be innocent, defend him.

* Which was afterward the subject of several poems by Dr Swift and others.-H.

+ Sa prose, dit Pelisson, est ce qu'il y a de plus châtié, et de plus exact; elle a un certain air de galanterie, qui ne se trouve point ailleurs, et quelque chose de si naturel, et de si fin tout ensemble, que la lecture, en est infinitement agréable, Ses vers ne sont peut-être guéres moins beaux, encore qu'ils soient plus négligez; mais quand il méprise les régles, c'est en maître."-Moreri, VIII. 167.

1

AN ELEGY

ON THE DEATH OF DEMAR, THE USURER:

WHO DIED THE SIXTH OF JULY, 1720.

[My late regretted friend, Mr Cooper Walker, favoured me with the following notices concerning this elegy: "The subject was John Demar, a great merchant in Dublin, who died 6th July 1720. Swift, with some of his usual party, happened to be in Mr Sheridan's, in Capel Street, when the news of Demar's death was brought to them; and the elegy was the joint com. position of the company."]

KNOW all men by these presents, Death, the tamer,
By mortgage has secur'd the corpse of Demar:
Nor can four hundred thousand sterling pound
Redeem him from his prison under ground.
His heirs might well, of all his wealth possess'd,
Bestow to bury him one iron chest.

Plutus, the god of wealth, will joy to know
His faithful steward in the shades below.

He walk'd the streets and wore a threadbare cloak;
He din'd and supp'd at charge of other folk:
And by his looks, had he held out his palms,
He might be thought an object fit for alms.
So, to the poor if he refus'd his pelf,
He us'd them full as kindly as himself.