Then cheerful healths, (your mistress shall have
And, what's more rare, a poet shall say grace.
Fortune not much of humbling me can boast:
Though double-tax'd, how little have I lost!
My life's amusements have been just the same
Before and after standing armies came.
My lands are sold, my father's house is gone;
I'll hire another's; is not that my own,
And yours, my friends? through whose free-op'ning
None comes too early, none departs too late ;
(For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.)
• Pray Heav'n it last! (cries Swift) as you go on;
I wish to God this house had been your own!
Pity! to build without a son or wife :
Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life.'
Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
What's property? dear Swift! you see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter ;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share,
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or in pure Equity (the case not clear)
The chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year:
At best, it falls to some ungracious son,
Who cries, My father's damn'd, and all's my
own.'
Shades that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;
And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scriv'ner, or a city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will, Let us be fix'd, and our own masters still.
HORACE, BOOK II. SAT. VI.
The First Part imitated in the year 1714, by Dr. Swift, the latter part added afterwards.
I've often wish'd that I had clear
For life six hundred pounds a-year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace-walk, and half a rood
Of land set out to plant a wood.
Well, now I have all this, and more,
But here a grievance seems to lie,
I ask not to increase my store;
'All this is mine but till I die;
'I can't but think 'twould sound more clever,
'To me and to my heirs for ever.'
If I ne'er got or lost a groat,
By any trick or any fault;
And if I pray by Reason's rules,
And not like forty other fools,
As thus, Vouchsafe, oh, gracious Maker!
To grant me this and t' other acre;
Or, if it be thy will and pleasure,
• Direct my plough to find a treasure ;
But only what my station fits,
And to be kept in my right wîts;
• Preserve, almighty Providence!
Just what you gavet me, competence;
And let me in these shades compose
Something in verse as true as prose;
Remov'd from all th' ambitious scene,
Nor puff'd by pride, nor sunk by spleen."
In short, I'm perfectly content,
Let me but live on this side Trent,
Nor cross the Channel twice a-year,
To spend six months with statesmen here.
I must by all means come to Town,
"Tis for the service of the Crown;
Lewis, the Dean will be of use;
Send for him up, take no excuse.'
The toil, the danger, of the seas,
Great ministers ne'er think of these ;
Or, let it cost five hundred pound,
No matter where the money's found,
It is but so much more in debt,
And that they ne'er consider'd yet.
• Good Mr. Dean, go change your gown,
Let my Lord know you're come to town.'
+ The Editor would read Thou gav❜st.
Iburry me in haste away,
Not thinking it is levee-day,
And find his Honor in a pound,
Hemm'd by a triple circle round,
Chequer'd with ribbons blue and green,
How should I thrust myself between ?
Some wag observes me thus perplex'd,
And, smiling, whispers to the next,
'I thought the Dean had been too proud
'To jostle here among a crowd.'
Another, in a surly fit,
Tells me I have more zeal than wit;
'So eager to express your love,
'You ne'er consider whom you shove,
'But rudely press before a duke.'
Lown I'm pleas'd with this rebuke,
And take it kindly meant, to show
What I desire the world should know.
I get a whisper, and withdraw;
When twenty fools I never saw
Come with petitions fairly penn'd,
Desiring I would stand their friend.
This humbly offers me his case-
That begs my int❜rest for a place-
A hundred other men's affairs,
Like bees, are humming in my ears,
'To-morrow my appeal comes on,
'Without your help the cause is gone.'-
The duke expects my lord and you
About some great affair at two
O charming noons! and nights divine !
Or when I sup, or when I dine,
My friends above, my folks below,
Chatting and laughing all-a-row;
The beans and bacon set before 'em,
The grace-cup serv'd with all decorum ;
Each willing to be pleas'd, and please,
And ev❜n the very dogs at ease!
Here no man prates of idle things,
How this or that Italian sings,
A neighbor's madness, or his spouse's,
Or what's in either of the Houses;
But something much more our concern,
And quite a scandal not to learn :
Which is the happier or the wiser,
A man of merit, or a miser?
Whether we ought to chuse our friends
For their own worth, or our own ends?
What good, or better, we may call,
And what the very best of all?
Our friend Dan Prior, told (you know)
A tale extremely a propos :
Name a Town life, and in a trice
He had a story of two Mice.
"Once on a time (so runs the fable)
A country mouse, right hospitable,
Receiv'd a town mouse at his board,
Just as a farmer might a lord.
A frugal mouse upon the whole,
Yet lov'd his friend, and had a soul;
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