In a few pieces cut it,
In the stewing-pan put it.
Salt, pepper, and mace
Must season this knuckle;
Then what's joined to a place
With other herbs muckle,
That which killed King Will,+
And what never + stands still;
Some sprigs of that bed
Where children are bred ;-
Which much you will mend if
Both spinnage and endive,
And lettuce and beet,
With marygold meet,-
Put no water at all,

For it maketh things small;
Which, lest it should happen,
A close cover cap on.
Put this pot of Wood's metal §
In a hot boiling kettle,
And there let it be
(Mark the doctrine I teach)
About-let me see-
Thrice as long as you preach.
So, skimming the fat off,
Say grace, with your hat off.
Oh, then with what rapture
Will it fill dean and chapter!"

The mention of Twickenham, where Swift was so keenly missed, reminds us of Pope's lines suggested by the vexed question of his descent. Swift in Ireland was contented to be called an Irishman; but the monument he put up to his grandfather in Goodrich (or Gotheridge) Church, to which he also presented a cup, implies, as Pope also took it, a desire to assert his English origin. He had sent a pencilled elevation of the tablet to Mrs Howard, who returned it with these lines on it scribbled by Pope. The paper was found endorsed in Swift's hand, "Model of a monument to my grandfather, with Mr Pope's roguery":

"Jonathan Swift
Had the gift

By fatheridge, motheridge,
And by brotheridge,
To come from Gotheridge,
But now is spoil'd clean
And an Irish dean.

* Vulgo salary.

In this church he has put A stone of two foot; With a cup and a can, sir, In respect to his grandsire. So Ireland change thy tone, And cry O hone, O hone! For England hath its own."

Swift is rarely spoken of in these days but as a misanthrope, abhorring as well as despising his fellowcreatures. Misanthrope as he might be towards parties and people he did not like or did not know, he could not live without friends, who were more necessary to him than they are to many philanthropists, and more constantly in his mind for their amusement and his own; and trusting, no doubt, to their immense opinion of his genius, he delighted, among other uses of the "Little language," in stringing together, in a sort of horse-play, jingling rhymes and interminable lines, in bold defiance of metrical rule, like the following,-certainly never designed for the public eye, though they found their way to it :

"SWIFT'S AND HIS THREE FRIENDS' INVITATION TO DR SHERIDAN. "Dear Tom, this verse, which, however the beginning may appear, yet in the end's good metre,

Is sent to desire that, when your august vacation comes, your friends you'd meet here;

For why should stay you in that filthy hole-I mean the city so smoakyWhen you have not one friend left in town, or at least no one that's witty to joke wi ye?"

How he served his friends is shown, in one instance, by Gay's acknowledgments, who attributes to his good offices his appointment to attend Lord Clarendon to the House in capacity of secretary. am every day," he writes, "attending my Lord Treasurer for his

Thyme or time.

"I

။

VOL. CXV.-NO. DCCIV.

2 z

bounty to help me out, which he hath promised me upon the following petition, which I have sent him by Dr Arbuthnot:

"THE EPIGRAMMATICAL PETITION OF JOHN GAY.

But we are digressing, and must not leave the elder generation without one specimen, gathered from his

swains,

But go where fine people resort. One can live without money on plains, But never without it at court. If, when with the swains I did gambol, I arrayed me in silver and blue, When abroad and in courts I shall ramble, Pray, my lord, how much money will do?"

Instead of the terrors of a competitive examination, his wardrobe was obviously Gay's first care on entering the public service: for subdivision of labour is a modern idea. A genius or a clever fellow used to be considered fit, and to hold himself fit, at a moment's warning, for any employment that would bring him an income. A place or an appointment, whatever the duties, was an appropriate recognition of any form of merit or success. Scarcely more than half a century ago, Theodore Hook was made accountantgeneral to the Mauritius, and treasurer to the colony, for rattling off such verses as these in ridicule of the tag-rag deputations to Queen Caroline :

"A rout of sham sailors

Escaped from their jailors,
As sea-bred as tailors

In Shropshire or Wilts,

And Mark Oldi's smile, and her's,
Greeting as Highlanders,
Half a score Mile-enders

Shivering in kilts."

It was a fit sequel to such a choice that the luckless treasurer, having got the money affairs of the island into inextricable confusion, was brought back in disgrace, entertaining his custodians, and amusing the tedium of the voyage by extemporising songs, of which himself and his own predicament was the theme, and denouncing

style, addressed to the honoured friend who was emphatically the poet of the brilliant circle. It is an example of his delightfully easy versification, so peculiarly adapted for familiar uses :

"DR SWIFT TO MR POPE, While he was writing the 'Dunciad.'

"Pope has the talent well to speak,

But not to reach the ear;

His loudest voice is low and weak,

The Dean too deaf to hear.

A while they on each other look,

Then different studies chuse ;
The Dean sits plodding on a book-
Pope walks and courts the muse.
Now backs of letters, though design'd

For those who more will need 'em,
Are filled with hints, and interlined,
Himself can hardly read 'em.
Each atom by some other struck,

All turns and motions tries;
Till in a lump together stuck,

Behold a poem rise!

Yet to the Dean his share allot;
He claims it by a canon;
That without which a thing is not,
Is causa sine quâ non.

Thus, Pope, in vain you boast your wit;
For, had our deaf divine

Been for your conversation fit,

You had not writ a line.

Of prelate thus for preaching fam'd
The sexton reason'd well;
And justly half the merit claim'd
Because he rang the bell."

Amongst epistolary effusions, Gray's lines to Mason must find a place. Whether Mason had any idea of editing Shakespeare we cannot now remember, but doubtless Gray had been irritated by a good deal of the criticism laboriously bestowed on the poet by his numerous commentators, and thus expressed his opinion of their value:

you see.

Much have I borne from canker'd critic's spite,

From fumbling baronets, and poets small, Pert barristers, and parsons nothing bright;

But what awaits me now is worst of all.

"Tis true our Master's temper natural Was fashion'd fair in meek, dove-like guise;

But may not honey's self be turned to gall

By residence, by marriage, and sore eyes?

If then he wreak on me his wicked will, Steal to his closet at the hour of prayer;

And (then thou hear'st the organ piping

shrill),

Grease his best pen, and all he scribbles

put in my marriage settlement, as a provision for my younger daughters." Editors have been often provocatives of verse. Tom Moore has his thoughts on editors, though on different grounds, but mingled in his case also with good cheer. The following querulous effusion fails to distinguish between the private, the social, and the public duties of the critic. "I see my Lord Edward," he writes, " announced as one of the articles in the 'Quarterly,' to be abused of course; and this so immediately after my dinings and junketings with both editor and publisher." Having occasion to write to Murray, he sent him the following squib:

"THOUGHTS ON EDITORS.
Editur et edit.

"No, editors don't care a button
What false and faithless things they do;
They'll let you come and cut their mutton,
And then they'll have a cut at you.
With Barnes I oft my dinner took,

Nay, met ev'n Horace Twiss to please
him;

Yet Mister Barnes traduced my book,
For which may his own devils seize
him!

With Doctor Bowring I drank tea,
Nor of his cakes consumed a particle ;
And yet th' ungrateful LL.D.

Let fly at me next week an article.
John Wilson gave me suppers hot,
With bards of fame like Hogg and
Packwood;

A dose of black strap then I got,

And after a still worse of 'Blackwood!' Alas! and must I close the list

With thee, my Lockhart, of the 'Quarterly!'

So kind, with bumper in thy fist

With pen, so very gruff and tarterly. Now in thy parlour feasting me,

Now scribbling at me from thy garret, Till 'twixt the two in doubt I be Which sourest is, thy wit or claret."

Byron never made verse his plaything. Even where it affected to be, it was a weapon which would have altogether failed of its purpose if it did not find its way and hit far