In a few pieces cut it, For it maketh things small; 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 By fatheridge, motheridge, * 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 + Supposed sorrel. Thyme or time. "I § Copper. The allusion is to Wood, the coiner of Irish halfpence, who furnished the text of the Drapier Letters. ။ "Which we suppose to be near four hours." 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 "I'm no more to converse with the letters, of Swift's graver epistolary 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, In Shropshire or Wilts, And Mark Oldi's smile, and her's, 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 ; For those who more will need 'em, All turns and motions tries; Behold a poem rise! Yet to the Dean his share allot; Thus, Pope, in vain you boast your wit; Been for your conversation fit, You had not writ a line. Of prelate thus for preaching fam'd 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. "No, editors don't care a button Nay, met ev'n Horace Twiss to please Yet Mister Barnes traduced my book, With Doctor Bowring I drank tea, Let fly at me next week an article. 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 His mind, we see, ran on the scene where his name was spoken and his works inquired after. He liked to recall "the table's baize so green," the comings and goings, the literary gossip, and all that was most opposed to the line he had chosen for himself. It associated him with poets, not only of the day, but of the earlier times : beyond its seeming destination. Self- timacies. "There's Byron too, who once did better, And others, neither bards nor wits. sion Strahan, Jonson, Lintot of the times, To thee with hope and terror dumb Upon thy table's baize so green My Murray! Along thy sprucest book-shelves shine My Murray. Tours, travels, essays, too, I wist, And Heaven forbid I should conclude Complimentary verses, if pre- if any question the choice of subject, let them remember the argument of the "Splendid Shilling" "Sing, heavenly Muse! Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme, A shilling, breeches, and chimeras dire." "These lines were addressed to Mrs Legh on her wedding-day, in reference to a present of a pair of shooting-breeches she had made to Canning while he was a Christ Church undergraduate: "To MRS LEGH. "While all to this auspicious day, A hundred civil speeches; Soon shall the tailor's subtle art And fastened well in every part With twenty thousand stitches; As these my shooting-breeches ! And when, to ease the load of life, I ask not rank or riches; Not wear herself, the breeches." No man that has much in him can write to amuse himself in ever so easy a vein, without telling something that will convey information a hundred years or so after. Take, for example, Cowper's song on the History of a Walk in the Mud. What a picture it raises of the roads and paths of his day! Often it occurs to the reader to speculate on the use that is made of gardens in literature of a former date. How constantly Pepys, e. g., "walks up and down," in discussion! what provision was made for this exercise in all old gardens! A terrace, we . see, was no affair of mere state, it was "THE DISTRESSED TRAVELLERS, OR An excellent new song, to a tune never "I sing of a journey to Clifton, We would have performed if we could, Stuck in the mud; O it is pretty to wade through a flood! |