Methinks with thee I've trod Sigæan ground,
And heard the shores of Hellespont resound.

Did I not see thee when thou first sett'st sail
To seek adventures fair in Homer's land?
Did I not see thy sinking spirits fail,

And wish thy bark had never left the strand?
Ev'n in mid ocean often didst thou quail,

And oft lift up thy holy eye and hand,
Praying the Virgin dear, and saintly choir,
Back to the port to bring thy bark entire.
Cheer up, my friend! thy dangers now are o'er,
Methinks-nay, sure the rising coasts appear;
Hark! how the guns salute from either shore,

As thy trim vessel cuts the Thames so fair:
Shouts answering shouts from Kent and Essex roar,
And bells break loud through every gust of air:
Bonfires do blaze, and bones and cleavers ring,
As at the coming of some mighty king.
Now pass we Gravesend with a friendly wind,

And Tilbury's white fort, and long Blackwall;
Greenwich, where dwells the friend of human kind,
More visited than or her park or hall,
Withers the good, and (with him ever join'd)
Facetious Disney, greet thee first of all:
I see his chimney smoke, and hear him say,
"Duke' that's the room for Pope, and that for
Gay.

"Come in, my friends! here shall ye dine and lie,
And here shall breakfast, and here dine again;
And sup and breakfast on, (if ye comply)

For I have still some dozens of champaign."
His voice still lessens as the ship sails by;

He waves his hand to bring us back in vain;
For now I see, I see proud London's spires;
Greenwich is lost, and Deptford-dock retires.
Oh, what a concourse swarms on yonder quay!
The sky re-echoes with new shouts of joy:
By all this show, I ween, 'tis Lord-mayor's day;
I hear the voice of trumpet and hautboy.—
No, now I see them near.-Oh, these are they,
Who come in crowds, to welcome thee from Troy.
Hail to the bard, whom long as lost we mourn'd;
From siege, from battle, and from storm, return'd!
Of goodly dames, and courteous knights, I view
The silken petticoat, and broider'd vest;
Yea, peers and mighty dukes, with ribbands blue
(True blue, fair emblem of unstained breast).
Others I see, as noble, and more true,

By no court-badge distinguish'd from the rest :
First see I Methuen, of sincerest mind,
As Arthur grave, as soft as woman-kind.

2

What lady's that, to whom he gently bends?
Who knows not her? ah! those are Wortley's
eyes:

How art thou honour'd, number'd with her friends!
For she distinguishes the good and wise.
The sweet-tongu'd Murray near her side attends;
Now to my heart the glance of Howard flies;
Now Harvey, fair of face, I mark full well,
With thee, youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell.

'He was usually called Duke Disney. N.

2 This person is mentioned in Pope's Epistle to Arbuthnot, ver. 23.

Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me, and my damn'd works, the cause.

I see two lovely sisters, hand in hand,

The fair-hair'd Martha, and Teresa brown; Madge Bellenden, the tallest of the land;

And smiling Mary, soft and fair as down.

Yonder I see the cheerful dutchess stand, [known:
For friendship, zeal, and blithsome bumours
Whence that loud shout in such a hearty strain?
Why, all the Hamiltons are in her train.

See next the decent Scudamore advance,

With Winchelsea, still meditating song:
With her perhaps Miss Howe came there by chance,
Nor knows with whom, or why she comes along.
Far off from these see Santlow, fam'd for dance
And frolic Bicknell, and her sister young;
With other names, by me not to be nam'd,
Much lov'd in private, not in public fam'd!
But now behold the female band retire,

And the shrill music of their voice is still'd!
Methinks I see fam'd Buckingham admire,

That in Troy's ruin thou hadst not been kill'd; Sheffield, who knows to strike the living lyre

With hand judicious, like thy Homer skill'd, Bathurst impetuous hastens to the coast, Whom you and I strive who shall love the most. See generous Burlington, with goodly Bruce

(But Bruce comes wafted in a soft sedan); Dan Prior next, belov'd by every Muse;

And friendly Congreve, unreproachful man! (Oxford by Cunningham hath sent excuse ;)

See hearty Watkins comes with cup and can;
And Lewis, who has never friend forsaken;
And Laughton, whispering, asks-" Is Troy town
taken ?"

Earl Warwick comes, of free and honest mind;
Bold, generous Craggs, whose heart was ne'er
disguis'd:

Ah, why, sweet St. John, cannot I thee find?
St. John, for every social virtue priz'd.—
Alas! to forcign climates he's confin'd,

Or else to see thee here I well surmis'd:
Thou too, my Swift, dost breathe Boeotian air;
When wilt thou bring back wit and humour here?

Harcourt I see, for eloquence renown'd,
The mouth of justice, oracle of law!
Another Simon is beside him found,

Another Simon, like as straw to straw.
How Lansdown smiles, with lasting laurel crown'd!
What mitred prelate there commands our awe?
See Rochester approving nods his head',
And ranks one modern with the mighty dead.
Carleton and Chandos thy arrival grace;

Hanmer, whose eloquence th' unbiass'd sways;
Harley, whose goodness opens in his face,
And shows his heart the seat where virtue stays.
Ned Blount advances next, with busy pace,

In haste, but sauntering, hearty in his ways:
I see the friendly Carylls come by dozens,
Their wives, their uncles, daughters, sons, and

cousins.

1 She afterwards married Booth the player. S.

2 Mrs. Bicknell, the actress, is mentioned in the Spectator, Tatler, and Guardian, with applause. S.

3 So in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot.

Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head. S.

Arbuthnot there I see, in physic's art,

As Galen learn'd, or famed Hippocrate;
Whose company drives sorrow from the heart,
As all disease his med'cines dissipate:
Kneller amid the triumph bears his part',

Who could (were mankind lost) anew create:
What can th' extent of his vast soul confine?
A painter, critic, engineer, divine!

Thee Jervas hails, robust and debonair,

"Now have [we] conquer'd Homer, friends!" he cries:

Darteneuf, grave joker, joyous Ford is there 2,

And wondering Maine, so fat with laughing eyes,
(Gay, Maine, and Cheney, boon companions dear,
Gay fat, Maine fatter, Cheney huge of size)
Yea Dennis, Gildon, (hearing thou hast riches)
And honest, hatless Cromwell, with red breeches.
O Wanley! whence com'st thou with shorten'd hair,
And visage from thy shelves with dust besprent';
"Forsooth," quoth he, "from placing Homer there,
For ancients to compyle is myne entente:
Of ancients only hath lord Harley care;

But hither me hath my meeke lady sent:-
In manuscript of Greeke rede we thilke same,
But book yprint best plesyth myn gude dame."
Yonder I see, among th' expecting crowd,

Evans with laugh jocose, and tragic Young; High-buskin'd Booth, grave Mawbert, wandering Frowde,

And Titcomb's belly waddles slow along.
See Digby faints at Southern talking loud,

Yea, Steele and Tickell mingle in the throng:
Tickell, whose skiff (in partnership, they say ')
Set forth for Greece, but founder'd in the way.
Lo, the two Doncastles in Berkshire known!
Lo, Bickford, Fortescue, of Devon land!
Lo, Tooker, Eckershall, Sykes, Rawlinson!
See hearty Morley takes thee by the hand!
Ayrs, Graham, Buckridge, joy thy voyage done;
But who can count the leaves, the stars, the
sand?

6

Lo, Stonor, Fenton, Caldwell, Ward, and Broome!
Lo, thousands more; but I want rhyme and room!

'This is no more than a compliment to the
vanity of sir Godfrey, which Pope and other wits
were always putting to the strongest trials. S.
2 Charles Ford, esq. writer of the Gazette. S.
'So in the Dunciad, b. iii. 185.

But who is he in closet close ypent,
Of sober face, with learned dust besprent.
Humphrey Wanley was librarian to lord Ox-
ford. S.

The names of the majority of persons here enumerated are in want of no illustration; and concerning a few of them, it would be difficult to supply any. Titcomb, however, is mentioned in a letter from Pope to Congreve. "There is a grand revolution at Will's. Morrice has quitted for a coffee-house in the city; and Titcomb is restored, to the great joy of Cromwell, who was at a loss for a person to converse with on the fathers and church history." S.

How lov'd! how honour'd thou! yet be not vain :
And sure thou art not, for I hear thee say,
"All this, my friends, I owe to Homer's strain,
On whose strong pinions I exalt my lay.
What from contending cities did he gain?

And what rewards his grateful country pay?
None, none were paid-why then all this for me?
These honours, Homer, had been just to thee."

EPISTLE VII.

ΤΟ

MR. THOMAS SNOW,

GOLDSMITH, NEAR TEMPLE-BAR.

A PANEGYRIC,

OCCASIONED BY HIS BUYING AND SELLING OF THE THIRD
SOUTH-SEA SUBSCRIPTIONS, TAKEN IN BY THE DI-
RECTORS AT A THOUSAND PER CENT.

DISDAIN not, Snow, my humble verse to hear:
Stick thy black pen awhile behind thy ear.
Whether thy compter shine with sums untold,
And thy wide-grasping hand grow black with gold;
Whether thy mien erect, and sable locks,
In crowds of brokers over-awe the stocks;
Suspend the worldly business of the day,
And, to enrich thy mind, attend my lay.

O thou, whose penetrative wisdom found
The South-sea rocks and shelves, where thousands
drown'd!

When credit sunk, and commerce gasping lay,
Thou stood'st; nor sent'st one bill unpaid away.
When not a guinea chink'd on Martin's boards,
And Atwell's self was drain'd of all his hoards,
Thou stood'st, (an Indian king in size and hue)
Thy unexhausted shop was our Peru.
Why did 'Change-alley waste thy precious hours
Among the fools, who gap'd for golden showers?
No wonder if we found some poets there,
Who live on fancy, and can feed on air;
No wonder they were caught by South-sea schemes,
Who ne'er enjoy'd a guinea, but in dreams;
No wonder they their third subscriptions sold,
For millions of imaginary gold;

No wonder, that their fancies wild can frame
Strange reasons, that a thing is still the same,
Tho' chang'd throughout in substance and in name.
But you (whose judgment scorns poetic flights)
With contracts furnish boys with paper-kites.

Let Vulture Hopkins stretch his rusty throat,
Who'd ruin thousands for a single groat.

I know thou spurn'st his mean, his sordid mind;
Nor with ideal debts would'st plague mankind.
Why strive his greedy hands to grasp at more?-
The wretch was born to want, whose soul is poor.

Madmen alone their empty dreams pursue,
And still believe the fleeting vision true;
Then wake, and fancy all the world in debt.
They sell the treasure which their slumbers get,
If to instruct thee all my reasons fail,
Yet be diverted by this moral tale.

Thro' fam'd Moorfields extends a spacious seat,
Where mortals of exalted wit retreat;
Where, wrapp'd in contemplation and in straw,

See the first book of the Iliad among the poems The wiser few from the mad world withdraw.

of Mr. Tickell.

N.

See Prior's ballad of Down Hall. M

There, in full opulence, a banker dwelt,
Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt :

His side-board glitter'd with imagin'd plate;
And his proud fancy held a vast estate.

As on a time he pass'd the vacant hours,
In raising piles of straw and twisted bowers;
A poet enter'd, of the neighbouring cell,
And with fix'd eyes observ'd the structure well;
A sharpen'd skewer cross his bare shoulders bound
A tatter'd rag, which dragg'd upon the ground.

The banker cry'd, "Behold my castle-walls,
My statues, gardens, fountains, and canals;
With land of twenty thousand acres round'!
All these I sell thee for ten thousand pound."
The bard with wonder the cheap purchase saw,
So sign'd the contract (as ordains the law).

[clear;

The banker's brain was cool'd, the mist grew The visionary scene was lost in air. He now the vanish'd prospect understood, And fear'd the fancied bargain was not good: Yet, loath the sum entire should be destroy'd, "Give me a penny, and thy contract's void." The startled bard with eye indignant frown'd. "Shall I, ye gods," he cries, my debts compound!"

So saying, from his rug the skewer takes,
And on the stick ten equal notches makes;
With just resentment flings it on the ground;
"There, take my tally of ten thousand pound!"

EPISTLE VIII.

MARY GULLIVER

TO

CAPTAIN LEMUEL GULLIVER.

ARGUMENT.

THE captain, some time after his return, being retired to Mr. Sympson's in the country; Mrs. Gulliver, apprehending from his late behaviour some estrangement of his affections, writes him the following expostulating, soothing, and tenderly-complaining epistle.

WELCOME, thrice welcome, to thy native place! -What, touch me not? What, shun a wife's embrace?

Have I for this thy tedious absence borne,
And wak'd and wish'd whole nights for thy return?
In five long years I took no second spouse;
What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows?
Your eyes, your nose, inconstancy betray,
Your nose you stop, your eyes you turn away.
'Tis said, that thou should'st cleave unto thy wife;
Once thou didst cleave, and I could cleave for life.
Hear, and relent! hark, how thy children moan!
Be kind at least to these-they are thy own!
Be bold, and count them all; secure to find
The honest number that you left behind.
See how they pat thee with their pretty paws;
Why start you? are they snakes? or have they

claws?

Thy Christian seed, our mutual flesh and bone :
Be kind at least to these--they are thy own!

Biddel', like thee, might farthest India rove;
He chang'd his country, but retains his love:

There's captain Pannel', absent half his life,
Comes back, and is the kinder to his wife;
Yet Pannel's wife is brown, compar'd to me,
And mistress Biddel sure is fifty-three!

Not touch me! never neighbour call'd me slut:
Was Flimnap's name more sweet in Lilliput?
I've no red hair, to breathe an odious fume;
At least, thy consort's cleaner than thy groom.
Why then that dirty stable-boy thy care?
What mean those visits to the sorrel mare?
Say, by what witchcraft, or what demon led,
Preferr'st thou litter to the marriage-bed!

Some say the Devil himself is in that mare:
If so, our dean shall drive him forth by prayer.
Some think you mad; some think you are possest;
That Bedlam and clean straw will suit you best.
Vain means, alas! this phrenzy to appease!
That straw, that straw, would heighten the disease.
My bed (the scene of all our former joys,
Witness two lovely girls, two lovely boys)
Alone I press; in dreams I call my dear,
I stretch my hand; no Gulliver is there!
I wake, I rise, and, shivering with the frost,
Search all the house: my Gulliver is lost!
Forth in the streets I rush with frantic cries,
The windows open; all the neighbours rise:
"Where sleeps my Gulliver? O tell me where!"
The neighbours answer, "With the sorrel mare !"
At early morn, I to the market haste
(Studious in every thing to please thy taste);
A curious fowl and 'sparagus I chose

(For I remember'd you were fond of those):
Three shillings cost the first, the last seven groats;
Sullen you turn from both, and call for oats.

Others bring goods and treasure to their houses,
Something to deck their pretty babes and spouses;
My only token was a cup like horn,

That's made of nothing but a lady's corn.
'Tis not for that I grieve; no, 'tis to see
The groom and sorrel mare preferr'd to me!

These for some moments when you deign to quit,
And (at due distance) sweet discourse admit,
'Tis all my pleasure thy past toil to know,
For pleas'd remembrance builds delight on woe.
At every danger pants thy consort's breast,
And gaping infants squall to hear the rest.
How did I tremble when, by thousands bound,
I saw thee stretch'd on Lilliputian ground!
When scaling armies climb'd up every part,
Each step they trod I felt upon my heart.
But, when thy torrent quench'd the dreadful
blaze,

King, queen, and nation, staring with amaze,
Full in my view how all my husband came!
And what extinguish'd theirs, increas'd my flame.
Those spectacles, ordain'd thine eyes to save,
Were once my present; Love that armour gave.
How did I mourn at Bolgolam's decree!
For, when he sign'd thy death, he sentenc'd me.

When folks might see thee all the country round
For sixpence, I'd have given a thousand pound.
Lord! when that giant babe that head of thine
Got in his mouth, my heart was up in mine!
When in the marrow-bone I see thee ramin'd,
Or on the house-top by the monkey cramm'd,
The piteous images renew my pain,
And all thy dangers I weep o'er again.

Names of the sea-captains mentioned in the Travels.