My finking fpirits now fupplies bed. I blefs the hand from whence they came, VERSES ΟΝ ΤΗΕ DEATH OF DR. SWIFT, Occafioned by reading the following maxim in ROCHEFOUCAULT. Written in Nov. 1731. Dans l'adverfité de nos meilleurs amis nous trouvous toujours quelque chofes, qui ne nous deplaift pas. In the adverfity of our best friends we always find fomething that doth not displease us. S As Rochefoucault his maxims drew From nature, I believe them true: They argue no corrupted mind This maxim more than all the reft Is thought too bafe for human breast: "In all diftreffes of our friends "We first confult our private ends; "While nature, kindly bent to ease us, "Points out fome circumftance to please ❝ us." If this perhaps your patience move, Let reafon and experience prove. We all behold with envious eyes Our equal rais'd above our fize. I love my friend as well as you: But why should he obftruct my view? Then let me have the higher poft; Suppose it but an inch at most. If in a battle you should find One, whom you love of all mankind, Had fome heroick action done, A champion kill'd, or trophy won; Rather than thus be overtopt, Would you not wifh his laurels cropt? Dear honeft Ned is in the gout, Lies rack'd with pain, and you without: How patiently you hear him groan! How glad, the cafe is not your own! What poet would not grieve to see Her end when emulation miffes, She turns to envy, ftings and hiffes: The strongest friendship yields to pride, Unless the odds be on our fide. Vain human-kind! fantastick race! Yet, when you fink, I seem the higher. I cry, pox take him and his wit. I grieve to be outdone by Gay In my own hum'rous biting way. Arbuthnot is no more my friend, Who dares to irony pretend, Which I was born to introduce, Refin'd it firft, and fhew'd its use. St. John, as well as Pulteney †, knows That I had fome repute for profe; And, till they drove me out of date, Could maul a minifter of ftate. Lord viscount Bolingbroke. William Pulteney, efq; now earl of Bath, If they have mortify'd my pride, To all my foes, dear fortune, fend Thus much may serve by way of proem; Proceed we therefore to our poem. The time is not remote, when I Muft by the course of nature die; When, I foresee, my special friends Will try to find their private ends: And, though 'tis hardly understood, Which way my death can do them good, Yet thus, methinks, I hear them speak: See, how the dean begins to break! Poor gentleman! he droops apace! You plainly find it in his face. That old vertigo in his head Will never leave him, till he's dead. Befides, his memory decays: He recollects not what he fays; He |