AND now I find my mufe but ill able To hold out longer in triffyllable.

I chose these rhymes out, for their difficulty:

Will you return as hard ones if I call t'ye ?

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Written in the year 1713, when the Queen's mini

fters were quarrelling among themselves *.

BSERVE the dying father speak:

OBSERVE

Try, lads, can you this bundle break;

Then bids the youngest of the fix

Take up a well-bound heap of fticks.
They thought it was an old man's maggot;
And trove by turns to break the faggot :
In vain the complicated wands
Were much too strong for all their hands.

See, faid the fire, how foon 'tis done :
Then tock and broke them one by one.
So ftrong you'll be, in friendship ty'd;
So quickly broke, if you divide.
Keep close then, boys, and never quarrel.
Here ends the fable and the moral.

THIS tale may be apply'd in few words
To treasurers, comptrollers, ftewards,
And others, who in folemn fort
Appear with flender wands at court:
Not firmly join'd to keep their ground,
But lafhing one another round:

While wife men think they ought to fight
With quarter faves, instead of white;
Or conftable, with Raff of peace,

Should come and make the clatt'ring cease;

See more of the author's endeavours to procure a reconcilement among them, in the letters to and from Dr Swift, in vol iv. let. 6. 93.

See alfo Free thoughts on the prefent state of affairs, in vol. ii,

Which now disturbs the Queen and court,

And gives the Whigs and rabble fport.

IN hiftory we never found,

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The Conful's * fafces were unbound ;

Those Romans were too wife to think on't,

Except to lash some grand delinquent.

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How would they blush to hear it faid,
The Prætor broke the Conful's head;
Or Conful in his purple gown,

Come, trimming Harcourt 1, bring your mace;
And fqueeze it in, or quit your place:

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Difpatch or elfe that rafcal Northey .
Will undertake to do it for thee:
And be affur'd the court will find him
Prepar'd to leap o'er flicks, or bind 'em.

To make the bundle ftrong aird fafe,
Great Ormond, lend thy gen'ral's staff:
And, if the crafier could be cramm'd in,
A fig for Lechmere, King, and Hambden. 1
You'll then defy the, ftrongest Whig

45.

With both his hands to bend a twig.

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Tho' with united ftrength they all pull,

From Somers down to Craggs and Walpole.

The

* Fafces, a bundle of rods, or small ticks carried before the

confuls at Rome.

+ Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford.

Lord Chancellor.

Sir Edward Northey, Attorney-General, brought in by Lord

Harcourt, yet very defirous of the great feal,

The

AUTHOR upon himself.

Written in the year 1713.

A few of the firft lines were wanting in the copy fent us by a friend of the author's.

Y an old

BY

-purfa'd

A crazy prelate, and a royal prude +;
By dull divines, who look with envious eyes
On ev'ry genius that attempts to rife;
And paufing o'er a pipe with doubtful nod,
Give hints, that poets ne'er believe in God;
So clowns on scholars as on wizards look,
And take a folio for a conj'ring book 1,

SWIFT had the fin of wit, no venial crime; Nay, 'tis affirm'd he fometimes dealt in rhyme: Humour and mirth had place in all he writ; He reconcil'd divinity and wit:

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He mov'd, and bow'd, and talk'd with too much grace;
Nor fhew'd the parfon in his gait or face;
Defpis'd luxurious wines, and cofly meat;
Yet ftill was at the tables of the great;
Frequented Lords; faw thofe that faw the Queen
At Child's or Truby's || never once had been;
Where town and country vicars flock in tribes,
Secur'd by numbers from the laymen's gibes,

J

Dr Sharp, Archbishop of York. bu

Her late Majesty Queen Anne.

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Archbishop Sharp, according to Swift's account, had reprefented him to the Queen as a perfon that was not a Chriftian ; great lady had fupported the afperfion; and the Queen, upon fuch affurances, had given away the bishoprick contrary to her Maje fty's first intentions, which were in favour of Dr Swift. Orrery.

A coffeehouse and tavern near St Paul's, at that time much frequented by the clergy.

And deal in vices of the graver fort,

Tobacco, cenfure, coffee, pride, and port.

But after fage monitions from his friends
His talents to employ for nobler ends;
To better judgments willing to fubmit,
He turns to politics his dang'rous wit.

AND now the public int'reft to fupport,
By Harley Swift invited comes to court;
In favour grows with minifters of state ;
Admitted private, when fuperiors wait":"
And Harley, not asham'd his choice to own,
Takes him to Windsor in his coach alone.
At Windfor Swift no fooner can appear,
But St John comes and whispers in his ear:
The waiters ftand in ranks; the yeomen cry,

Make room, as if a Duke were paffing by.

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30

35

Now Finch + alarms the Lords: he hears for certain This dang❜rous priest is got behind the curtain. Finch fam'd for tedious elocution, proves

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That Swift oils many a spring which Harley moves. Walpole and Aislabie ; to clear the doubt, Inform the Commons, that the fecret's out: "A certain doctor is obferv'd of late "To haunt a certain minister of state:

"From hence with half an eye we may discover 45 "The peace is made, and Perkin muft come over." YORK is from Lambeth fent to fhew the Queen A dangerous treatise writ against the spleen ||; Which, by the ftyle, the matter, and the drift, "Tis thought could be the work of none but Swift..50

Then Secretary of State, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke. + The late Earl of Nottingham, who made a speech in the houfe of Lords against the author.

They both fpoke against the author in the houfe of Com mons, altho' Aiflabie profeffed much friendship for him. Tale of a Tub.

Poor York! the harmless tool of others hate;
He fues for pardon *, and repents too late.

Now,- -her vengeance vows

On Swift's reproaches for her

From her red locks her mouth with venom fills; 55
And thence into the royal ear inftills.

The Queen incens'd, his fervices forgot,
Leaves him a victim to the vengeful Scot.
Now thro' the realm a proclamation spread †,
To fix a price on his devoted head.
While innocent, he fcorns ignoble flight;
His watchful friends preferve him by a fleight.
By Harley's favour once again he shines ;
Is now carefs'd by candidate divines,

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Who change opinions with the changing fcene: 65
Lord! how were they mistaken in the Dean!
Now Delaware ‡ again familiar grows;

And in Swift's ear thrusts half his powder'd nose.
The Scottish nation, whom he durft offend,
Again apply that Swift would be their friend .

By faction tir'd, with grief he waits a while
His great contending friends to reconcile,
Performs what friendship, juftice, truth require :
What could he more but decently retire ** ?

70

* His Grace was forry for what he had faid, and fent a mef fage to the author to defire his pardon.

The proclamation was against the author of a pamphlet, called, The public fpirit of the Whigs, against which the Scotch Lords complained. See it in vol. v.

Delaware, then Lord Treasurer of the household, always careffed the author at court; but, during the trial of the printers before the house of Lords, and while the proclamation hung over the author, his Lordship would not feem to know him.

The Scotch Lords treated and vifited the author more after the proclamation than before, except the Duke of Argyll, who would never be reconciled.

* About ten weeks before the Queen's death, I left the town upon occafion of that incurable breach among the great men at court, and went down to Berkshire. See vol. iv. p. 22.