mistress of George the Second. She had offended Pope by not doing something for Swift, which, according to the Dean and his friends, she had led him to believe she would. But Swift was full of fancies; and Lady Suffolk, by the consent of all that were in habits of intimacy with her, was a most amiable as well as even-tempered woman.

THE RULING PASSION.

In this one passion man can strength enjoy,
As fits give vigour just when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,
Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand.
Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest nature ends as she begins.
Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last;
As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out,
As sober Lanesb'row dancing in the gout.

Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace

Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shov'd from the wall, perhaps, or rudely press'd
By his own son, that passes by unbless'd;
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies every sparrow that he sees.

A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor call'd, declares all help too late :
"Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul!
Is there no help?-alas !-then bring the jowl."

The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still strives to save the hallow'd taper's end,
Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,

For one puff more, and in that puff expires.
"Odious! in woollen! 't would a saint provoke,"
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke)
"No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face :
One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead-
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red." 20

The courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd
An humble servant to all human kind,

Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir : "If-where I'm going-I could serve you, sir?''

"I give and I devise" (old Euclio said,

And sigh'd) "my lands and tenements to Ned."
"Your money,
sir?" "My money, sir! what all?
Why, if I must-(then wept)-I give it Paul."

"The manor, sir?" "The manor! hold!" he cried;

"Not that, I cannot part with that"-and died.

20 And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.-The "little red" is a poetical addition; but it really appears, from the "Life" above mentioned, that Mrs. Oldfield was handsomely dressed in her coffin, by her own direction. The charmer of the stage could not bear to fancy herself in mortal attire.

SWIFT.

BORN, 1667-DIED, 1745.

For the qualities of sheer wit and humour, Swift had no superior, ancient or modern. He had not the poetry of Aristophanes, or the animal spirits of Rabelais; he was not so incessantly witty as Butler; nor did he possess the delicacy of Addison, or the good nature of Steele or Fielding, or the pathos and depth of Sterne; but his wit was perfect, as such; a sheer meeting of the extremes of difference and likeness; and his knowledge of character was unbounded. He knew the humour of great and small, from the king down to the cook-maid. Unfortunately, he was not a healthy man; his entrance into the church put him into a false position; mysterious circumstances in his personal history conspired with worldly disappointment to aggravate it; and that hypochondriacal insight into things, which might have taught him a doubt of his conclusions and the wisdom of patience, ended

in making him the victim of a diseased blood and angry passions. Probably there was something morbid even in his excessive coarseness. Most of his contemporaries were coarse, but not so outrageously as he.

When Swift, however, was at his best, who was so lively, so entertaining, so original? He has been said to be indebted to this and that classic, and this and that Frenchman;-to Lucian, to Rabelais, and to Cyrano de Bergerac; but though he was acquainted with all these writers, their thoughts had been evidently thought by himself; their quaint fancies of things had passed through his own mind; and they ended in results quite masterly, and his own. A great fanciful wit like his wanted no helps to the discovery of Brobdignag and Laputa. The Big and Little Endians were close to him every day, at court and at church.

Swift took his principal measure from Butler, and he emulated his rhymes; yet his manner is his own. There is a mixture of care and precision in it, announcing at once power and fastidiousness, like Mr. Dean going with his verger before him, in flowing gown and five times washed face, with his nails pared to the quick. His long irregular prose verses with rhymes at the end, are an invention of and a similar mixture is discernible even in those, not excepting a feeling of musical proportion. Swift had more music in him than he loved

his own;

to let "fiddlers" suppose; and throughout all his writings there may be observed a jealous sense of power, modifying the most familiar of his impulses.

After all, however, Swift's verse, compared with Pope's or with Butler's, is but a kind of smart prose. It wants their pregnancy of expression. His greatest works are Gulliver's Travels, and the Tale of a Tub.

THE GRAND QUESTION DEBATED.'

WHETHER HAMILTON'S BAWN SHOULD BE TURNED INTO A BARRACK OR A MALT-HOUSE, 1729.

Thus spoke to my lady the knight full of care:
"Let me have your advice in a weighty affair.
This Hamilton's bawn, whilst it sticks on my hand,

I lose by the house what I get by the land,

But how to dispose of it to the best bidder,
For a barrack or malt-house, we now must consider.
First, let me suppose I make it a malt-house;
Here I have computed the profit will fall t' us;
There's nine hundred pounds for labour and grain;
I increase it to twelve, so three hundred remain ;
A handsome addition to wine and good cheer,
Three dishes a day, and three hogsheads a year.
With a dozen large vessels my vaults shall be stor❜d;
No little scrub joint shall come on my board;
And you and the dean no more shall combine
To stint me at night to one bottle of wine;
Nor shall I, for his humour, permit you to purloin
A stone and a quarter of beef from my surloin.