The shepherd in his bower might sleep or sing
Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor scorpion's sting.
With omens oft I strove to warn thy swains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains,
I sent the magpie from the British soil,
With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil;
To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,
And haunt thy holy walls in white and black.
What else are those thou seest in bishop's geer,
Who crop the nurseries of learning here;
Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state?
As you grew more degenerate and base,
I sent you millions of the croaking race;
Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn
Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn ;
A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls,
And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls!
See, where that new devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns!
With harpy-claws it undermines the ground,
And sudden spreads a numerous offspring round.
Th' amphibious tyrant, with his ravenous band,
Drains all thy lakes of fish, of fruits thy land.
Where is the holy well that bore my name?
Fled to the fountain back, from whence it came!
Fair Freedom's emblem once, which smoothly flows,
And blessings equally on all bestows.
Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts †, The students, drinking, rais'd their wit and parts; Here, for an age and more, improv'd their vein, Their Phoebus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
* There are no snakes, vipers, or toads, in Ireland; and even frogs were not known here till about the year 1700. The mag pies came a short time before; and the Norway rats since. H.
The university of Dublin, called Trinity College, was found ed by queen Elizabeth in 1591. H.
Discourag'd youths! now all their hopes must fail,
Condemn'd to country cottages and ale;
To foreign prelates make a slavish court,
And by their sweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the classicks, read "Th' Attorney's Guide;"
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.
O! had I been apostle to the Swiss,
Or hardy Scot, or any land but this;
Combin'd in arms, they had their foes defied,
And kept their liberty, or bravely died.
Thou still with tyrants in succession curst,
The last invaders trampling on the first:
Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of misery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon shall thy sons (the time is just at hand)
Be all made captives in their native land;
When, for the use of no Hihernian born,
Shall rise one blade of grass, one ear of corn;
When shells and leather shall for money pass,
Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee brass *.
But all turn leasers to that mongrel breed †,
Who, from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed;
Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear,
And waste in luxury thy harvest there;
For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jest of wits, and to the court unknown.
I scorn thy spurious and degenerate line,
And from this hour my patronage resign.
Wood's project in 1724. H.
The absentees, who spent the income of their Irish estates, places, and pensions, in England. H.
ON READING DR. YOUNG'S SATIRES
CALLED THE UNIVERSAL PASSION. 1726.
If there be truth in what you sing,
Such godlike virtues in the king;
A minister so fill'd with zeal
And wisdom for the commonweal;
If he who in the chair presides
So steadily the senate guides:
If others, whom you make your theme,
Are seconds in the glorious scheme:
If every peer, whom you commend,
To worth and learning be a friend:
If this be truth, as you attest,
What land was ever half so blest!
No falsehood now among the great,
And tradesmen now no longer cheat;
Now on the bench fair Justice shines;
Her scale to neither side inclines:
Now Pride and Cruelty are flown,
And Mercy here exalts her throne:
For such is good example's power,
It does its office every hour,
Where governours are good and wise;
Or else the truest maxim lyes:
For so we find all ancient sages
Decree, that, ad exemplum regis,
Through all the realm his virtues run,
Ripening and kindling like the sun.
If this be true, then how much more
When you have nam'd at least a score
Sir Robert Walpole, afterward earl of Orford. H. + Sir Spencer Compton, then speaker, afterward earl of Wilmington, H.
Of courtiers, each in their degree,
If possible, as good as he!
Or take it in a different view.
I ask (if what you say be true)
If you affirm the present age
Deserves your satire's keenest rage:
If that same universal passion
With every vice has fill'd the nation:
If virtue dares not venture down
A single step beneath the crown:
If clergymen, to show their wit,
Praise classicks more than holy writ:
If bankrupts, when they are undone,
Into the senate house can run,
And sell their votes at such a rate,
As will retrieve a lost estate:
If law be such a partial whore,
Το spare the rich, and plague the
If these be of all crimes the worst,
What land was ever half so curst?
QUOTH the thief to the dog, let me into your door,
And I'll give you these delicate bits.
Quoth the dog, I shall then be more villain than you're,
And besides must be out of my wits.
Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal,
But my master each day gives me bread;
You'll fly, when you get what you came here to steal,
And I must be hang'd in your stead.
The stockjobber thus from 'Change alley goes down,
And tips you the freeman a wink;
Let me have but your vote to serve for the town,
And here is a guinea to drink.
Says the freeman, your guinea to night would be spent!
Your offers of bribery cease:
I'll vote for my landlord, to whom I pay rent,
Or else I may forfeit my lease.
From London they come, silly people to chouse,
Their lands and their faces unknown:
Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament house,
That would turn a man out of his own?
TO THE GRUB-STREET VERSE-WRITERS. 1726.
Yв poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste.
I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:
Your stillborn poems shall revive,
And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,
Then let them well be dried;
And Curll must have a special care
To leave the margin wide..
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