A DIALOGUE

BETWEEN

SIR WILLIAM HANDCOCK AND THADY FITZPATRCK, IN THE DEVIL'S ANTI-CHAMBER.

Also from the Whimsical Miscellany.

THADY.

YOU'RE welcome, Sir William; by my shoul and salvation,

I rejoice for to see one from my own nation.

We have long wanted news: Was it growing wealthy
Has made all my brothers so damnable healthy?
When I think of their number, I look for them faster;
Sure they are not grown honest, and quitted their
Master.

Come, never look squeamish, nor be out of order,
We're here on a level, good Master Recorder.
Let me know what has pass'd, and you'll find I'll
be civil,

And speak a good word for you here to the Devil.

SIR WILLIAM.

Oh, thank you, dear Thady, and must own, for my
part,
It's much more your goodness than it is my desert;
But, to speak for his fee, you know 'twas our calling;
Which because I could not, I then fell a-bawling.
I never stuck out to quote a false case :
And to back it, I e'er had an impudent face;

Or on my right hand I had always my brother,
To vouch, which we still did, the one for the other.
To be sure, to be rich was always my guide;
To take, when I could, a fee on each side.
All this you well know. But, pr'ythee, now tell
If I have any more acquaintance in hell.
Is not that Tullamore ?*

THADY.

You see how he trudges At the head of a shoal of unrighteous judges. By oppression and cheating, by rapine and lust, We shall in good time have the rest of the Trust. But our Master, the Devil, has solemnly swore, Till they're out of commission, not to admit more. If you speak me but fair, you shall not go far To meet with your friends of the Bench or the Bar; Look at Reynolds, and Lyndon, and Whitshed, and Keating,

The four rogues are all got together a-prating.

SIR WILLIAM.

Pr'ythee, where is fat Hely? I durst lay my life,
That he's got to heaven, by help of his wife.

THADY.

You'll ever be urging a reason that's faint;
If that would have done, we might each be a saint.

* John Moore, of Croghan, in the King's county; created in 1715, Baron Moore of Tullamore: in 1716, and again in Feb. 1722-3, appointed one of the Lords Commissioners for holding the great seal during the absence of Lord Chancellor Middleton. -BARRETT.

*

But what is become of Sir Toby and Stephen?
There's neither of them, I am sure, gone to heaven.
Does your brother as yet speak law in a cause;
And has Pauca left off making use of his claws?
Does the Bar from the Bench with patience still
pocket

The calling them rogue, and rascal, and blockhead ?

SIR WILLIAM.

Faith, Thady, our judges are grown very humble;
And one is suspicious he'll soon have a tumble.
The new ones they keep the old ones in awe,
And have taught them civility, prudence and law.

THADY.

Pox take me, Sir William, why was not I asking, All this time you've been here, for poor Clara Gascoyne?

The woman that lay so long by my side;-
But I shew'd I forgot her before that I died.
I believe she's unmarried, for I think I took care
To leave her but little, and much to my heir.

SIR WILLIAM.

She still is thy widow, thou barbarous teague;
Both living and dead, thou'st to her been a plague;
It's not for that sin, that I am come here,
Having left all the wealth I had to my dear.

* Probably Sir Theobald Butler, and Sir Stephen Rice. The latter was Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.-BARRETT.

THADY.

That thou e'er wert a blockhead, you need not now

own,

But this thy last action all others does crown ;
Thou scarce wert got hither, thou pitiful cully,
Before she had gotten a lusty young bully;
I have of our Master a proverb to tell you:
What's got o'er his back, is spent under his belly.

This Dialogue is taken from the same MS.; and ascribed to Swift on conjecture. It must have been written about 1703, about which time Sir William Handcock, Recorder of Dublin, died, and was succeeded in that office by Mr. John Forster. Thady Fitzpatrick represented the town of Maryborough, in King James's Parliament.-BARRETT.

TO LORD HARLEY, ON HIS MARRIAGE. OCTOBER 31, 1713.

LORD HARLEY married Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, the daughter and sole heiress of John Duke of Newcastle. Bolingbroke malignantly called this match "the ultimate end of a certain administration." It was certainly the only advantage which the Earl of Oxford's family derived from his possession of ministerial power.

AMONG the numbers who employ

Their tongues and pens to give you joy,
Dear Harley! generous youth, admit
What friendship dictates more than wit.

Forgive me, when I fondly thought
(By frequent observations taught)
A spirit so inform'd as yours
Could never prosper in amours.

The God of Wit, and Light, and Arts,
With all acquired and natural parts,

Whose harp could savage beasts enchant,
Was an unfortunate gallant.

Had Bacchus after Daphne reel'd,

The nymph had soon been brought to yield;
Or, had embroider'd Mars pursued,

The nymph would ne'er have been a prude.
Ten thousand footsteps full in view,
Mark out the way where Daphne flew ;
For such is all the sex's flight,

They fly from learning, wit, and light;
They fly, and none can overtake
But some gay coxcomb, or a rake.

How then, dear Harley, could I guess
That you should meet in love, success?
For, if those ancient tales be true,
Phoebus was beautiful as you :
Yet Daphne never slack'd her pace,
For wit and learning spoil'd his face.
And since the same resemblance held
In gifts wherein you both excell'd,
I fancied every nymph would run
From you, as from Latona's son.
Then where, said I, shall Harley find
A virgin of superior mind,
With wit and virtue to discover,
And pay the merit of her lover?
This character shall Ca'endish claim,
Born to retrieve her sex's fame.
The chief among the glittering crowd,
Of titles, birth, and fortune proud,