TO MR. LEMUEL GULLIVER,

THE GRATEFUL ADDRESS OF THE UNHAPPY HOUYHNHNMS,1 NOW IN SLAVERY AND BONDAGE IN ENGLAND.

To thee, we wretches of the Houyhnhnm band, Condemned to labour in a barbarous land, Return our thanks. Accept our humble lays, And let each grateful Houyhnhnm neigh thy praise.

O happy Yahoo, purged from human crimes,
By the sweet sojourn in those virtuous climes,
Where reign our sires; there, to thy country's shame,
Reason, you found, and virtue were the same.
Their precepts razed the prejudice of youth,
And even a Yahoo learned the love of truth.

Art thou the first who did the coast explore;
Did never Yahoo tread that ground before?
Yes, thousands! But in pity to their kind,
Or swayed by envy, or through pride of mind,
They hid their knowledge of a nobler race,

Which owned, would all their sires and sons disgrace.

2

You, like the Samian, visit lands unknown,

And by their wiser morals mend your own.
Thus Orpheus travelled to reform his kind,

Came back, and tamed the brutes he left behind.

You went, you saw, you heard: with virtue fought, Then spread those morals which the Houyhnhnms taught.

Our labours here must touch thy gen'rous heart,
To see us strain before the coach and cart;
Compelled to run each knavish jockey's heat!
Subservient to Newmarket's annual cheat!

With what reluctance do we lawyers bear,
To fleece their country clients twice a year?
Or managed in your schools, for fops to ride,
How foam, how fret beneath a load of pride!
Yes, we are slaves-but yet, by reason's force,
Have learned to bear misfortune, like a horse.

1 Horses, See "Gulliver's Travels,"

2 Pythagoras.

O would the stars, to ease my bonds, ordain,
That gentle Gulliver might guide my rein!
Safe would I bear him to his journey's end,
For 'tis a pleasure to support a friend.
But if my life be doomed to serve the bad,
O! mayst thou never want an easy pad!

HOUYHNHNM.

LINES ON SWIFT'S ANCESTORS.

Swift set up a plain monument to his grandfather, and also presented a cup to the church of Goodrich, or Gotheridge, in Herefordshire. He sent a pencilled elevation of the monument (a simple tablet) to Mrs. Howard, who returned it with the following lines, inscribed on the drawing by Pope. The paper is endorsed, in Swift's hand: "Model of a monument for my grandfather, with Pope's roguery."-Scott's "Lives of Eminent Dramatists and Novelists" (Swift, p. 2, Chandos Classics).

JONATHAN SWIFT
Had the gift,

By fatherige, motherige,
And by brotherige,

To come from Gotherige,
But now is spoiled clean,
And an Irish dean:
In this church he has put
A stone of two foot,
With a cup and a can, sir,
In respect to his grandsire;
So, Ireland, change thy tone,
And cry, O hone! O hone!
For England hath its own.

ON CERTAIN LADIES.

WHEN other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloe, Flavia, Delia, stay in town:
Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside,
And haunt the places where their honour died.

INSCRIPTION ON A GROTTO, THE WORK
OF NINE LADIES.1

HERE, shunning idleness at once and praise,
This radiant pile nine rural sisters raise;
The glitt'ring emblem of each spotless dame,
Clear as her soul and shining as her frame;
Beauty which nature only can impart,
And such a polish as disgraces art;

But fate disposed them in this humble sort,
And hid in deserts what would charm a court.

EPIGRAM ON EPITAPHS.

FREIND, for your Epitaphs I'm grieved,
Where still so much is said,

One half will never be believed,
The other never read.

EPIGRAM.

OCCASIONED BY AN INVITATION TO COURT (BY THE MAIDS OF HONOUR).

In the lines that you sent are the Muses and Graces, You've the nine in your wit, and the three in your faces.

EPIGRAM.

ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS
ROYAL HIGHNESS. 3

I AM his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

The Miss Lisles, sisters of Dr. Lisle, who wrote fugitive poetry. 2 The person here meant was Dr. Robert Freind, head-master of Westminster School.

3 This was said to have been the answer of Mr. Grantham's Fool to one who asked him whose fool he was.- Warton.

TO SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

ON HIS PAINTING FOR ME THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS,
AND HERCULES.

WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move,
When Kneller painted these?

Twas Friendship-warm as Phoebus, kind as Love,
And strong as Hercules.

TO A LADY WITH "THE

FAME."

TEMPLE OF

WHAT'S fame with men, by custom of the nation,
Is called in women only reputation;

About them both why keep we such a pother?
Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

EPIGRAM.

WRITTEN ON A GLASS WITH LORD CHESTERFIELD'S2 DIAMOND PENCIL.

ACCEPT a miracle instead of wit;

See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ.

THE BALANCE OF EUROPE.

Now Europe's balanced, neither side prevails;
For nothing's left in either of the scales.

1 Martha Blount (from letter to her).

2 Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, was one of the greatest wits of his day. He was born in 1694, died 1773. He was in the opposition against Sir Robert Walpole. His manners were considered perfect.

[From the Miscellany.]

BISHOP HOUGH.1

A BISHOP, by his neighbors hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated;
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteemed by all the nation?
Yet if it be the old man's case,

I'll lay my life I know the place:

'Tis where God sent some that adore him,
And whither Enoch went before him.

[From the Letters.]
TO GAY.

This is my birthday; and this is my reflection on it.
WITH added days, if Life give nothing new,
But, like a sieve, let ev'ry pleasure through;
Some joy still lost as each vain year runs o'er
And all we gain some sad reflection more!

Is this a birthday?-Tis alas! too clear
'Tis but the funeral of another year.

EPIGRAM.

BEHOLD, ambitious of the British bays,
Cibber and Duck' contend in rival lays.
But, gentle Colley, should thy verse prevail,
Thou hast no fence, alas! against his flail:
Therefore thy claim resign, allow his right:
For Duck can thresh, you know, as well as write.

1 Hough, Bishop of Worcester, was born 1651, died 1743. He was elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford, in opposition to the king's (James II.) order that Dr. Farmer, and afterwards Bishop Parker, should be chosen. The fellows were consequently all expelled but two. When the king's affairs became desperate, the fellows and Hough were restored, 1688. In 1690 he was made Bishop of Oxford, from thence translated to Litchfield, and died Bishop of Worcester. He was famed for his piety and munificence.

2 Stephen Duck was a thresher poet, who was patronised by Queen Caroline.