Oh! were the wretch but living still,
And in his place my good friend Will!
Or had a mitre on his head,
Provided Bolingbroke were dead!'
Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains :
Three genuine tomes of Swift's Remains!
And then, to make them pass the glibber,
Revised by Tibbald, Moore, and Cibber.
He'll treat me as he does my betters,
Publish my will, my life, my letters;
Revive the libels born to die,
Which Pope must bear as well as I.
Here shift the scene, to represent
How those I love my death lament:
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day.
St. John himself will scarce forbear
To bite his pen and drop a tear:
The rest will give a shrug, and cry,
'I'm sorry-but we all must die!'
Indifference, clad in Wisdom's guise,
All fortitude of mind supplies;
For how can stony bowels melt
In those who never pity felt?
When we are lash'd, they kiss the rod,
Resigning to the will of God.
The fools, my juniors by a year,
Are tortured with suspense and fear,
Who wisely thought my age a screen,
When death approach'd, to stand between;
The screen removed, their hearts are trembling;
They mourn for me without dissembling.
My female friends, whose tender hearts
Have better learn'd to act their parts,
Receive the news in doleful dumps;
'The Dean is dead, (pray what is trumps?)
Then, Lord have mercy on his soul!
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)
Six deans, they say, must bear the pall,
(I wish I knew what king to call.)
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend.'
'No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight,
And he's engaged to-morrow night;
My Lady Club will take it ill
If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loved the Dean--(I lead a heart)
But dearest friends, they say, must part.
His time was come; he ran his race;
We hope he's in a better place.'
Why do we grieve that friends should die?
No loss more easy to supply.
One year is pass'd: a different scene!
No farther mention of the Dean,
alas! is no more miss'd
Than if he never did exist.
Where's now the favourite of Apollo? Departed:- and his Works must follow :' Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.
Some country squire to Lintot goes,
Inquires for Swift in verse and prose?
Says Lintot, I have heard the name;
He died a year ago.'' The samé.'
He searches all the shop in vain :
Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane;
I sent them with a load of books,
Last Monday, to the pastrycook's.
To fancy they could live a year!
I find you're but a stranger here.
The Dean was famous in his time,
And had a kind of knack at rhyme:
His way of writing now is pass'd;
The town has got a better taste.
I keep no antiquated stuff,
But spick and span I have enough.
Pray, do but give me leave to show 'em:
Here's Colly Cibber's birthday poem.
This ode you never yet have seen,
By Stephen Duck upon the Queen.
Then here's a letter finely penn'd
Against the Craftsman and his friend;
It clearly shows that all reflection
On ministers is disaffection.
Next, here's Sir Robert's Vindication,
And Mr. Henley's last oration:
The hawkers have not got them yet:
Your honour, please to buy a set?
'Here's Woolston's Tracts, the twelfth edition;
"Tis read by every politician.
The country members, when in town,
To all their boroughs send them down;
You never met a thing so smart;
The courtiers have them all by heart;
Those maids of honour who can read
Are taught to use them for their creed.
The reverend author's good intention
Hath been rewarded with a pension:
He doth an honour to his gown,
By bravely running priestcraft down;
He shows, as sure as God's in Gloster,
That Moses was a grand impostor,
That all his miracles were cheats,
Perform'd as jugglers do their feats:
The church had never such a writer;
A shame he hath not got a mitre !'
Suppose me dead, and then suppose
A club assembled at the Rose,
Where from discourse of this and that,
I grow the subject of their chat,
And while they toss my name about,
With favour some, and some without,
One, quite indifferent in the cause,
My character impartial draws.
'The Dean, if we believe report, Was never ill received at court: Although ironically grave,
He shamed the fool, and lash'd the knave:
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own."
6 Sir, I have heard another story,
He was a most confounded Tory;
And grew, or he is much belied,
Extremely dull before he died.'
'Can we the Drapier then forget? Is not our nation in his debt?
'Twas he that writ the Drapier's Letters!'
'He should have left them for his betters;
We had a hundred abler men,
Nor need depend upon his pen.
Say what you will about his reading,
You never can defend his breeding,
Who, in his satires running riot,
Could never leave the world in quiet,
Attacking, when he took the whim,
Court, city, camp,-all one to him..
But why would he, except he slobber'd,
Offend our patriot, great Sir Robert;
Whose counsels aid the sovereign power
To save the nation every hour?
What scenes of evil he unravels
In satires, libels, lying travels!
Not sparing his own clergy-cloth,
But eats into it like a moth!'-
'Perhaps I may allow the Dean
Had too much satire in his vein,
And seem'd determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it:
Yet malice never was his aim;
He lash'd the vice, but spared the name:
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant:
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe.
He spared a hump or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux:
True genuine dulness moved his pity,
Unless it offer'd to be witty.
Those who their ignorance confess'd
He ne'er offended with a jest ;
But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote
A verse from Horace, learn'd by rote.
Vice, if it e'er can be abash'd,
Must be or ridiculed or lash'd.
If you resent it, who's to blame?
He neither knew you nor your name.
Should vice expect to scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke?
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