fing-room, which have fo highly inflamed the whole fex, (except a very few of better judgement); as I can by no means juftify the vulgar opinion, that feemeth to fix it upon a perfon fo well known for works of a very different nature; fo I cannot but lament the prevailing ill taste among us, which is not able to discover that useful fatire running thro' every line, and the matter as decently wrapped up as it is poffible the fubject could bear.

Cleaninefs hath, in all polite ages and nations, been efteemed the chief corporal perfection in women; as it is well known to thofe who are converfant with the ancient poets. And fo it is ftill among the young people of judgement and fobriety, when they are difpofed to marry. And I do not doubt, but that there is a great number of young lain this town and kingdom, who, in reading that poem, find great complacency in their own minds, from a confcioufnefs, that the fatirical part in the Lady's Dreffing-room doth not in the least affect

them.

Wherefore it is manifeft, that no poem was ever written with a better defign for the fervice of the sex: wherein our author hath obferved, to a title, the precepts of his master Horace; or, indeed, rather hath gone very far beyond him, in the article of decency.

That great poet, inftructing us what actions are fitteft to be produced openly upon the fcene, and which are most proper to be only related to the audience, goeth many lengths beyond the author of the Lady's Dreffing-room; for, at the fame inftant when he faith, fome actions should not appear as done upon the ftage, he allows, they may be recited with pleasure and elegance; and yet when he cometh to particulars, his recital is extremely grofs, and fo are his very precepts which forbid the actions that if our infinitely more modeft author had imitated his master's style, the whole world

might, with great appearance of reafon, have been up in arms against him.

Therefore, to fet these two poets in a true light, I have ventured, for the fatisfaction of both fexes, to tranflate as literally as I could, ten lines in Horace, upon the very fame fubject, which our author hath handled with a decency fo far fuperior to his Roman mafter.

To juftify the truth of my translation, I defire all fine gentlemen and ladies will appeal from me to the information of the learned, that I may be wholly clear from the leaft cenfure of mifrepresenting fo great an authority; for, indeed, if I have been guilty of any fault, it is in palliating the grofs expreffions in the original, and foftening them very much to the politenefs of the prefent age.

The Latin is word for word as follows.

Aut agitur res in fcenis, aut alta refertur,
Segnius irritant animos demiffa per aurem,
Quam quæ funt oculis fubjecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipfe fibi tradit fpectator. Non tamen intus
Digna geri promes in fcenam ; multaque tolles
Ex oculis, quæ mox narret facundia prefens.
Nex pueros coram populo Medea trucidet;
Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus.
Aut in avem Progne vertetur. Cadmus in anguem.
Quodcunque oftendis mihi fic, incredulus odi.

The literal tranflation whereof is thus.
Some ladies do their need before your face:
Some only tell the action and the place.
Our mind is lefs provok'd by what it hears,
Than what the fact before our eyes appears.
In closet dark, your cedar-box be hid;
Not in a parlour fhown without the lid.
Some actions must be always out of fight,
Yet, elegantly told, may give delight.

Nurse must not hold the child, and cry Hee Hee,
When Madam and her friends are o'er their tea.
Atreus, with ladies by, mistakes his wit,
In new-born t- ―s to run a red-hot fpit.
Miss Progne must not cry, A bird, a bird!
Before good company, and fhew a t d.
Cadmus, who voids out worms of monstrous fize,
In mere good manners should deceive our eyes;
Muft do his dirty work behind the scene,
And ere he fhews the vermin, wipe them clean.
To bring fuch odious objects full in view,
Tho' fools may laugh, 'twill make a wife man spuc.

I defire the reader will compare the most exceptionable lines in the Lady's Dreffing-room with the leaft offenfive of thefe in Horace; although purged by me, as much as could confift with preferving the true fenfe of the original. Yet this was the great mafter of politenefs in the Roman empire, at the time it flourished most in arts and arms.

Horace, you fee, makes ufe of the plain flovenly words, which our decent Irish poet industriously avoideth, and skippeth over a hundred dirty places, without fouling his fhoes. Horace, on the contrary, plainly calleth a fpade, a spade, when there was not the least neceffity; and when, with equal eafe, as well as fignificancy, he might have expreffed his meaning in homely terms, fit for the niceft ears of a queen or a duchefs.

I do therefore pofitively decide in favour of our Hibernian bard, upon the article of decency; and am ready to defend my propofition against all mankind; that, in the ten lines of Horace, here faithfully and favourably tranflated, there are ten times. more flovenly expreffions, than in the whole poem called 'The Lady's Dreffing-room; and for the truth of this propofition, I am ready to appeal to all the young ladies of the kingdom, or to such a committee as my very adverfaries fhall appoint. B b

VOL. X.

The

The Addrefs of the Inhabitants of the Liberty of the Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick's, Dublin *.

WE,

E, the inhabitants of the liberty of the Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick's, Dublin, and the neighbourhood of the fame, having been informed, by universal report, that a certain man of this city hath openly threatened and fworn, before many hundred people, as well perfons of quality as others, that he refolves, upon the first opportunity, by the help of feveral ruffians, to murder or maim the Reverend the Dean of St. Patrick's, our neighbour, benefactor, and head of the liberty of St. Patrick's, upon a frivolous unproved fufpicion, of the faid Dean's having written fome lines in verse reflecting on the said man :

Therefore we, the faid inhabitants of the faid liberty, and in the neighbourhood thereof, from our great love and refpect to the faid Dean, to whom the whole kingdom hath fo many obligations, as well as we of the liberty, do unanimously declare, that we will endeavour to defend the life and limbs of the faid Dean against the said man, and all his ruffians and murderers, as far as the law will allow if he, or any of them, prefume to come into the faid liberty, with any wicked malicious intent, against the houfe, or family, or perfon, or goods of the faid Dean. To which we have chearfully, fincerely, and heartily fet our hands.

The Dean being in bed, very much indifpofed,

*See an account of the occafion of this addrefs, and the answer, in Dr. Swift's life, prefixed to vol, i.

and

and not able to receive the faid perfons, dictated the following anfwer.

GENTLEMEN,

I receive with great thankfulness these many kind expreffions of your concern for my fafety, as well as your declared refolution to defend me (as far as the laws of God and man will allow), against all murderers and ruffians, who fhall attempt to enter into the liberty with any bloody or wicked defigns, upon my life, my limbs, my houfe, or my goods. Gentlemen, my life is in the hands of God; and whether it may be cut off by treachery, or open violence, or by the common way of other men, as long as it continues, I fhall ever bear a grateful memory for this favour you have fhewn, beyond my expectation, and almoft exceeding my withes. The inhabitants of the liberty, as well as thofe of the neighbourhood, have lived with me in great amity for near twenty years; which, I am confident, will never diminish during my life. I am chiefly forry, that by two cruel diforders of deafnefs and giddinefs, which have purfued me for four months, I am not in a condition either to hear, or to receive you, much lefs to return my most fincere acknowledgements, which in justice and gratitude I ought to do. May God blefs you and your families in this world, and make you for ever happy in