Had set a price upon his head;
But not a traitor could be found,
To sell him for six hundred pound.

"Had he but spared his tongue and pen
He might have rose like other men:
But power was never in his thought,
And wealth he valued not a groat:
Ingratitude he often found,

And pitied those who meant the wound:
But kept the tenor of his mind,
To merit well of human kind:
Nor made a sacrifice of those

Who still were true, to please his foes.
He labour'd many a fruitless hour,
To reconcile his friends in power;
Saw mischief by a faction brewing,
While they pursued each other's ruin.
But finding vain was all his care,
He left the court in mere despair.1

"And, oh! how short are human schemes!
Here ended all our golden dreams.
What St. John's skill in state affairs,
What Ormond's valour, Oxford's cares,
To save their sinking country lent,
Was all destroy'd by one event.

1 Queen Anne's ministry fell to variance from the first year after their ministry began; Harcourt, the chancellor, and Lord Bolingbroke, the secretary, were discontented with the treasurer Oxford, for his too much mildness to the Whig party; this quarrel grew higher every day till the queen's death. The Dean, who was the only person that endeavoured to reconcile them, found it impossible, and thereupon retired to the country about ten weeks before that event: upon which he returned to his deanery in Dublin, where for many years he was worryed by the new people in power, and had hundreds of libels writ against him in England.-HAWKES

WORTH.

Too soon that precious life was ended,
On which alone our weal depended.1
When up a dangerous faction starts,
With wrath and vengeance in their hearts;
By solemn League and Cov'nant bound,
To ruin, slaughter, and confound;
To turn religion to a fable,

And make the government a Babel;
Pervert the laws, disgrace the gown,
Corrupt the senate, rob the crown;
To sacrifice old England's glory,
And make her infamous in story:
When such a tempest shook the land,
How could unguarded Virtue stand!
With horror, grief, despair, the Dean
Beheld the dire destructive scene:
His friends in exile, or the tower,
Himself 2 within the frown of power,
Pursued by base envenom'd pens,
Far to the land of slaves and fens;
A servile race in folly nursed,
Who truckle most, when treated worst.
"By innocence and resolution,
He bore continual persecution;

While numbers to preferment rose,
Whose merits were, to be his foes;
When ev'n his own familiar friends,
Intent upon their private ends,
Like renegadoes now he feels,

1 In the height of the quarrel between the ministers, the queen died.-HAWKESWORTH.

2 Upon the queen's death, the Dean returned to live in Dublin at his Deanery House. Numberless libels were written against him in England as a Jacobite; he was insulted in the street, and at night he was forced to be attended by his servants armed.-HAWKESWORTH.

1

Against him lifting up their heels.
"The Dean did, by his pen, defeat
And infamous destructive cheat;
Taught fools their int'rest how to know,
And gave them arms to ward the blow.
Envy has own'd it was his doing,
To save that hapless land from ruin;
While they who at the steerage stood,
And reap'd the profit, sought his blood.
"In exile, with a steady heart,
He spent his life's declining part;
Where folly, pride, and faction sway,
Remote from St. John, Pope, and Gay.
"Alas, poor Dean! his only scope
Was to be held a misanthrope.
This into gen'ral odium drew him,
Which if he liked, much good may't do him.
His zeal was not to lash our crimes,
But discontent against the times:
For had we made him timely offers
To raise his post, or fill his coffers,
Perhaps he might have truckled down,
Like other brethren of his gown.
For party he would scarce have bled:
I say no more-because he's dead.
What writings has he left behind?
I hear, they're of a different kind;
A few in verse; but most in prose-
Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose;-
All scribbled in the worst of times,
To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes,

To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her,

1 One Wood, a hardware-man from England, had a patent for coining copper halfpence in Ireland, to the sum of £108,000, which, in the consequence, must leave that kingdom without gold or silver.-HAWKESWORTH.

As never fav'ring the Pretender;
Or libels yet conceal'd from sight,
Against the court to show his spite;
Perhaps his travels, part the third;
A lie at very second word-
Offensive to a loyal ear:

1

But not one sermon, you may swear."
His friendships there, to few confined
Were always of the middling kind; 1
No fools of rank, a mongrel breed,
Who fain would pass for lords indeed:
Where titles give no right or power,2
And peerage is a wither'd flower;
He would have held it a disgrace,
If such a wretch had known his face.
"Perhaps I may allow the Dean,
Had too much satire in his vein;
And seem'd determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim;

He lash'd the vice, but spared the name;
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant;
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe:
He spared a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux.

1 In Ireland the Dean was not acquainted with one single lord, spiritual or temporal. He only conversed with private gentlemen of the clergy or laity, and but a small number of either.-DUBLIN ED.

2 The peers of Ireland lost their jurisdiction by one single act, and tamely submitted to this infamous mark of slavery without the least resentment or remonstrance-Dublin ED.

True genuine dulness moved his pity,
Unless it offer'd to be witty.
Those who their ignorance confest,
He ne'er offended with a jest;
But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote
A verse from Horace learn'd by rote.
Vice, if it e'er can be abash'd,
Must be or ridiculed or lash'd.
If you resent it, who's to blame?
He neither knew you nor your name.
Should vice expect to 'scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke?

"He knew an hundred pleasant stories, With all the turns of Whigs and Tories: Was cheerful to his dying day;

And friends would let him have his way.
"He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And show'd by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
That kingdom he hath left his debtor,
I wish it soon may have a better."
And, since you dread no farther lashes,
Methinks you may forgive his ashes.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

WITH a whirl of thought oppress'd,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
An horrid vision seized my head;
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove, arm'd with terrors, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amaz'd, confus'd, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hung his head,