My finking fpirits now fupplies
With cordials in her hands and eyes;
Now with a foft and filent tread
Unheard fhe moves about my
I fee her tafte each naufeous draught,
And fo obligingly am caught:

bed.

I blefs the hand from whence they came,
Nor dare distort my face for fhame.
Beft pattern of true friends, beware:
You pay too dearly for your care,
If, while your tenderness secures
My life, it must endanger yours;
For fuch a fool was never found,
Who pull'd a palace to the ground
Only to have the ruins made
Materials for an houfe decay'd.

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
In him; the fault is in mankind.

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
His brother write as well as he?
But, rather than they fhould excell,
Would wifh his rivals all in hell?

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!
Thy various follies who can trace?
Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,
Their empire in our hearts divide.
Give others riches, power, and ftation;
'Tis all on me an ufurpation.
I have no title to afpire;

Yet, when you fink, I seem the higher.
In Pope I cannot read a line,
But with a figh I wish it mine;
When he can in one couplet fix
More fense, than I can do in fix,
It gives me fuch a jealous fit,

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,
And made me throw my pen afide;
If with fuch talents heav'n hath bleft 'em,
Have I not reafon to deteft 'em?

To all my foes, dear fortune, fend
Thy gifts, but never to my friend:
I tamely can endure the first;
But this with envy makes me burst.

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