Her matchlefs fons, whofe valour still remains
On French records for twenty long campaigns
Yet, from an emprefs now a captive grown,
She fav'd Britannia's rights, and loft her own.
In fhips decay'd no mariner confides,
Lur'd by the gilded ftern and painted fides;
Yet at a ball unthinking fools delight
In the gay trappings of a birth-day night:
They on the gold brocades and fattins rav'd,
And quite forgot their country was enslav’d.
Dear veffel, ftill be to thy fteerage just,
Nor change thy course with every fudden guft;
Like fupple patriots of the modern fort,

Who turn with every gale that blows from court.
Weary and fea-fick when in thee confin'd,
Now for thy fafety cares diftract my mind;
As those who long have stood the storms of state
Retire, yet ftill bemoan their country's fate.
Beware, and when you hear the furges roar,
Avoid the rocks on Britain's angry fhore.
They lie, alas too eafy to be found;
For thee alone they lie the island round.

WERSES ON THE SUDDEN DRYING-UP OF

ST. PATRICK'S-WELL,

NEAR TRINITY,COLLEGE, DUBLIN, 1726.

BY holy zeal infpir'd, and led by fame,

To thee, once favourite ifle, with joy I came ;
What time the Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun,
Had my own native Italy * o'er-run.
Ierne, to the world's remotest parts,
Renown'd for valour, policy, and arts.

Hither from Colchos †, with the fleecy ore,

Jafon arriv'd two thousand

years

before.

Thee, happy island, Pallas call'd her own,
When haughty Britain was a land unknown:

* Italy was not properly the native place of St. Pa trick, but the place of his education, and where he received his miffion; and because he had his new birth there, hence, by poetical licence, and by scripture-figure, qur author calls that country his native Italy. IRISHED.

+ Orpheus, or the antient author of the Greek poem on the Argonautic expedition, whoever he be, fays, that Jason, who manned the ship Argos at Theffaly, failed to Ireland. IRISH ED.

Tacitus, in the life of Julius Agricola, fays, that the harbours of Ireland, on account of their commerce, were better known to the world than thofe of Britain.. IRISH ED.

B 4

From

From thee, with pride, the Caledonians trace
The glorious founder of their kingly race:
Thy martial fons, whom now they dare despise,
Did once their land fubdue and civilize :

Their dress, their language, and the Scottish name,
Confefs the foil from whence the victors came *.
Well may they boast that ancient blood, which runs
Within their veins, who are thy younger fons †,

A con

*The argument here turns on, what the author of courfe took for granted, the prefent Scots being the defcendants of Irish emigrants. This fact, however true, was not in Dr. Swift's time afcertained with any degree of precifion. Ireland even to this day "remains fuper"ftitioufly devoted to her antient hiftory," and "wraps "herfelf in the gloom of her own legendary annals." Mr. Whitaker has difplayed an uncommon fund of knowledge on this very curious fubject, both in his "Hiftory of Manchefter," and in "The Genuine Hiftory of the Britons afferted." N.

66

"The Scots (fays Dr. Robertfon) carry their pre"tenfions to antiquity as high as any of their neigh"bours. Relying upon uncertain legends, and the tra"ditions of their bards, ftill more uncertain, they rec "kon up a feries of kings feveral ages before the birth: "of Chrift; and give a particular detail of occurrences, "which happened in their reigns. In the beginning of "the fixteenth century, John Major and Hector "Boëthius publifhed their Hiftories of Scotland; the "former a fuccinct and dry writer, the latter a copious

" and

A conqueft and a colony from thee.
The mother-kingdom left her children free;
From thee no mark of flavery they felt :
Not fo with thee thy base invaders dealt;
Invited here to vengeful Morrough's aid *,
Those whom they could not conquer, they betray'd.

"and florid one; and both equally credulous. Not "many years after, Buchanan undertook the fame “work; and if his accuracy and impartiality had been "in any degree equal to the elegance of his tafte, and "to the purity and vigour of his ftyle, his hiftory might "be placed on a level with the most admired compoff❝tions of the ancients. But, inftead of rejecting the "improbable tales of Chronicle-writers, he was at the "utmoft pains to adorn them, and hath cloathed with "all the beauties and graces of fiction thofe legends "which formerly had only its wildness and extrava“gance.”—On the authority of Buchanan and his predeceffors the historical part of this poem feems founded, as well as the notes figned IRISH ED. fome of which, I believe, were written by the Dean himself. N.

* In the reign of king Henry II, Dermot M'Morrough, king of Leinster, being deprived of his kingdom by Roderick O'Connor, king of Connaught, he invited the English over as auxiliaries, and promised Richard Strangbow earl of Fembroke his daughter and all his dominions as a portion. By this affiftance, McMorrongh recovered his crown, and Strangbow became poffeiled of all Leinfter. IRISH ED.

Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful ifle !
Not by thy valour, but fuperior guile :
Britain, with fhame, confefs this land of mine
First taught thee human knowledge and divine *;
My prelates and my ftudents, fent from hence,
Made your fons converts both to God and fense:
Not like the pastors of thy ravenous breed,
Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed.
Wretched Ierne! with what grief I see
The fatal changes Time hath made in thee !
The Chriftian rites I introduc'd in vain :
Lo! infidelity return'd again !

Freedom and virtue in thy fons I found,
Who now in vice and flavery are drown'd.

By faith and prayer, this crofier in my hand,
I drove the venom'd ferpent from thy land;
The fhepherd in his bower might fleep or fing t
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor fcorpion's fting.

*St. Patrick arrived in Ireland in the year 431, and compleated the converfion of the natives, which had been begun by Palladius and others. And, as bishop Nicholson obferves, Ireland foon became the fountain of learning, to which all the Weftern Christians, as well as the English, had recourfe, not only for inftructions in the principles of religion, but in all forts of literature, viz. Legendi et Scholafticæ eruditionis gratia. IRISH ED.

There are no fnakes, vipers, or toads, in Ireland; and even frogs were not known here until about the year 1700. The magpyes came a fhort time before ; and the Norway rats fince. IRISH ED.