470

ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON.

Though now on loftier themes he sings,
Than to bestow a word on kings,
Has sworn by Styx, the poet's oath,
And dread of dogs and poets both,
Man and his works he'll soon renounce,
And roar in numbers worthy Bounce.

ON THE COUNTESS OF BURLINGTON CUTTING PAPER.

PALLAS grew vap'rish once and odd ;
She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess or for god,

Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.
Jove frown'd, and "Use (he cried) those eyes
"So skilful, and those hands so taper;
"Do something exquisite and wise-"
She bow'd, obey'd him, and cut paper.

This vexing him who gave her birth,
Thought by all Heaven a burning shame;
What does she next, but bids, on earth,
Her Burlington do just the same.

Pallas, you give yourself strange airs;
But sure you'll find it hard to spoil
The sense and taste of one, that bears
The name of Saville and of Boyle.

Alas! one bad example shown,
How quickly all the sex pursue !
See, madam, see the arts o'erthrown
Between John Overton and you!

ON

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT.

I KNOW the thing that's most uncommon,
(Envy be silent, and attend!)

I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warp'd by passion, aw'd by rumour;
Not grave thro' pride, or gay thro' folly;
An equal mixture of good humour,
And sensible, soft melancholy.

" Has she no faults, then (Envy says) sir?"
Yes, she has one, I mutaver :
When all the world conspires to praise her,
The woman's deaf, and does not hear.

In the PICTURE GALLERY at OXFORD, is placed the Portrait of Mr. POPE, with this Inscription:

ALEXANDER POPE, ARMIGER.

ET,

QUOD EXIMIO APVD ERVDITAS NOMINI

INVIDENDAM ATTVLIT DIGNITATIS

ACCESSIONEM,

EFFIGIEM DEDIT,

ET VIRVM COHONESTAVIT,

A. D. MDCCXXII,

HONORATISSIMVS

EDWARDVS COMES OXON. ET MORTIMER.

In English:

ALEXANDER POPE, ESQUIRE.

And, what gives to a Name admired by

An Accession of Dignity even to be envied,
This Shadow was presented,
And the Original honoured,

A. D. MDCCXXII,

By the Right Honourable
Edward Earl of Oxford and Mortimer.

A Portrait of Dr. SWIFT, presented to the University of OXFORD by the late JOHN, BARBER, Esq., is placed in the PICTURE GALLERY there, with this Inscription:

IONATHAN SWIFT,

DECAN. S. PATRIC. DVBL.

EFFIGIEM VIRI MVSIS AMICISSIMI,
INGENIO PRORSVS SIBI PROPRIO CELEBERRIMI,
VT IPSVM SVIS OXONIENSIBVS ALIQVATENVS
REDONARET,

PARIETEM HABERE VOLVIT BODLEIANVM,

A. D. MDCCXXXIX,

IOHANNES BARBER, ARMIGER,

ALDERMANNVS,

NEC ITA PRIDEM PRAETOR LONDINENSIS.

In English :

JONATHAN SWIFT,

DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S DUBLIN.

This portrait of the Muses' friend,

Of a happy turn of wit, peculiar to himself,

That he might in some sort be restored to his Oxford

Friends,

Was placed in the wall of the Bodleian gallery,

A. D. MDCCXXXIX,

At the desire of JOHN BARBER, Esquire,

Alderman, and some time Lord Mayor of London.

AFTER

AFTER this general Oxford testimony of the dean, in which that university affectionately asserts her right to him as no degenerate son, we shall subjoin that of another writer, whom, it is said, she refused to accept as an adopted one.

" The religious author of the Tale of a Tub will " tell you, religion is but a reservoir of fools and " madmen; and the virtuous Lemuel Gulliver will " answer for the state, that it is a den of savages and "cut-throats. What think you, reader? is not the " system round and great? and now the fig-leaf is so " clearly plucked off, what remains, but bravely to " strike away the rotten staff, that yet keeps our old " doting parents on their last legs?

" Seriously let it be as they say, that ridicule and " satire are the supplement of publick laws; should " not then, the ends of both be the same ; the benefit " of mankind? but where is the sense of a general "satire, if the whole species be degenerated? And " where is the justice of it if it be not? The punish"ment of lunaticks is as wise as the one; and a ge"neral execution as honest as the other. In short, a “ general satire, the work only of ill men or little ge"niuses, was proscribed of old both by the critick " and the magistrate, as an offence equally against " justice and common sense." A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, &c. Lond. 1727, p. 33, supposed to be written by the right reverend author of the Divine Legation of Moses: which is the more probable, because we find, in the dedication to the latter, p. 15, a similar censure on another part of this collection in these words:

"How

"However, once on a time a great wit set upon " this task [ridiculing a love of publick liberty); he " undertook to laugh at this very virtue, and that so "successfully, that he set the whole nation a laugh"ing with him. What mighty engine, you will ask, " was employed to put in motion so large a body, "and for so extraordinary a cause? In truth, a very " simple one: a discourse, of which all the wit con"sists in the title; and that too skulking, as you will "see, under one unlucky word. Mrs. Bull's vindi"cation of the indispensable duty of cuckoldom, in"cumbent upon wives, in case of the tyranny, infi"delity, or insufficiency of husbands *. Now had "the merry reader been but so wise as to reflect, that "reason was the test of ridicule, and not ridicule the " test of truth, he would have seen to rectify the pro" position, and to state it fairly thus; The indispen"sable duty of divorce, &c. And then the joke "had been over, before the laugh could have " begun."

Another author however, who is allowed by the bishop to be no ill judge of the province of ridicule, speaks of the former work in somewhat more moderate

terms:

"There is not perhaps in any language a bolder " or stronger ridicule, than the well known apologue " of the Tale of a Tub. Its manifest design is to re" commend the English church, and to disgrace the " two extremes of popery and puritanism †. Now if

* History of John Bull, part i, chap. 13.

"we

"Some indeed have pretended otherwise. -The pious au"thor of the Independent Whig affirms (with the above author " of the Critical Enquiry) that it was an open attack upon "Chris