An account of MONUMENT erected to -the memory of Dr SWIFT in Ireland. I SIR, Taken from the DUBLIN JOURNAL. Have at last finished what you have often heard me wish I might be able to do, a_monument for the greatest genius of our age, the late Dean of St Patrick's. The thing in itself is but a trifle; but it is more than I should ever have attempted, had I not with indignation feen a country (fo honoured by the birth of fo great a man, and fo faithfully ferved by him all his life) fo long and fo fhamefully negligent in erecting fome monument of gratitude to his memory. Countries are not wife in fuch a neglect; for they hurt themselves. Men of genius are encouraged to apply their talents to the fervice of their country, when they fee in it gratitude to the memory of those that have deferved well of them. The ingenious Pere Caftell told me at Paris, that he reckoned it the greatest misfortune to him that he was not born an Englishman; and when he explained himfelf, it was only for this, that after two hundred years they had erected a monument to Shakespear; and another to a modern, but to the greatest of them, Sir Ifaac Newton. Great fouls are very difinterested in the affairs of life; they look for fame and immortality, fcorning the mean paths of intereft and lucre: and, furely, in an age fo mercenary as ours, men fhould not be fe fparing to give public marks of their gratitude to men of fuch virtue, dead, however they may treat them. living; fince, in fo doing, they befpeak, and almost infure to themfelves a fucceffion of fuch ufeful perfons in fociety. It was with this view that I determined to throw in my mite In a fine lawn below my houfe, I have planted an hippodrome. It is a circular plantation, confifting of five walks, the central of which is a horfe-courfe, and three rounds make exactly a mile. All the lines are fo laid out, that, from the centre, the fix rows of trees appear but one, and form 100 arches round the field; in the centre of which I have erected a mount, and placed placed a marble column on its proper pedeftal, with all the decorations of the order; on the fummit of which I placed a Pegasus, juft feeming to take flight to heaven; and on the dye of the pedestal I have ingraved the following infcription, wrote by an ingenious friend. In memoriam JONATHAN SWIFT, S. T. P. viri fine pari. Arte nova; ethereas propriis üt Pegafus alis 1750. I have also appointed a small fund for annual premiums to be diftributed in the celebration of games at the monument yearly. The ceremony is to last three days, beginning the ift of May yearly. On this day, young maids and men in the neighbourhood are to affemble in the hippodrome, with their garlands and chaplets of flowers, and to dance round the monument, finging the praises of this ingenious patriot, and ftrowing with flowers all the place: after which they are to dance for a prize; the best dancer among the maids is to be prefented with a cap and ribbands; and after the dance, the young men are to run for a hat and gloves. THE fecond day, there is to be a large market upon the ground; and the girl who produces the finest hank of yarn, and the most regular reel and count, is to have a guinea premium; and the perfon who buys the greatest quantity of yarn, is to have a premium of two guineas. THE third day, the farmer who produces the best yearling calf of his own breed, is to have two guineas premium; and he that produces the fairest colt or filly, of his own breed likewife, not over two years old, shall receive a premium of two guineas alfo. Thus the whole will not exceed ten pounds; and all these useful branches of our growth and manufacture will be encouraged, in remembring the patron who with fo much care and tenderness recommended them to others, and cherished them himself. I am &c. THE A TALE OF A TU B. Written for the UNIVERSAL IMPROVEMENT O F MANKIND. Diu multumque defideratum. With the AUTHOR'S APOLOGY; AND EXPLANATORY NOTES, By W. Wotton, B. D. and others. |