BY DR. DELANY. 1729[1]
Credis ob haec me, Pastor, opes fortasse rogare,
Propter quae vulgus crassaque turba rogat.
MART., Epig., lib. ix, 22.
Thou wise and learned ruler of our isle,
Whose guardian care can all her griefs beguile;
When next your generous soul shall condescend
T' instruct or entertain your humble friend;
Whether, retiring from your weighty charge,
On some high theme you learnedly enlarge;
Of all the ways of wisdom reason well,
How Richelieu rose, and how Sejanus fell:
Or, when your brow less thoughtfully unbends,
Circled with Swift and some delighted friends;
When, mixing mirth and wisdom with your wine,
Like that your wit shall flow, your genius shine:
Nor with less praise the conversation guide,
Than in the public councils you decide:
Or when the Dean, long privileged to rail,
Asserts his friend with more impetuous zeal;
You hear (whilst I sit by abash'd and mute)
With soft concessions shortening the dispute;
Then close with kind inquiries of my state,
"How are your tithes, and have they rose of late?
Why, Christ-Church is a pretty situation,
There are not many better in the nation!
This, with your other things, must yield you clear
Some six—at least five hundred pounds a-year."
Suppose, at such a time, I took the freedom
To speak these truths as plainly as you read 'em;
You shall rejoin, my lord, when I've replied,
And, if you please, my lady shall decide.
"My lord, I'm satisfied you meant me well,
And that I'm thankful, all the world can tell;
But you'll forgive me, if I own the event
Is short, is very short, of your intent:
At least, I feel some ills unfelt before,
My income less, and my expenses more."
"How, doctor! double vicar! double rector!
A dignitary! with a city lecture!
What glebes—what dues—what tithes—what fines—what rent!
Why, doctor!—will you never be content?"
"Would my good Lord but cast up the account,
And see to what my revenues amount;[2]
My titles ample; but my gain so small,
That one good vicarage is worth them all:
And very wretched, sure, is he that's double
In nothing but his titles and his trouble.
And to this crying grievance, if you please,
My horses founder'd on Fermanagh ways;
Ways of well-polish'd and well-pointed stone,
Where every step endangers every bone;
And, more to raise your pity and your wonder,
Two churches—twelve Hibernian miles asunder:
With complicated cures, I labour hard in,
Beside whole summers absent from—my garden!
But that the world would think I play'd the fool,
I'd change with Charley Grattan for his school.[3]
What fine cascades, what vistoes, might I make,
Fixt in the centre of th' Iërnian lake!
There might I sail delighted, smooth and safe,
Beneath the conduct of my good Sir Ralph:[4]
There's not a better steerer in the realm;
I hope, my lord, you'll call him to the helm."—
"Doctor—a glorious scheme to ease your grief!
When cures are cross, a school's a sure relief.
You cannot fail of being happy there,
The lake will be the Lethe of your care:
The scheme is for your honour and your ease:
And, doctor, I'll promote it when you please.
Meanwhile, allowing things below your merit,
Yet, doctor, you've a philosophic spirit;
Your wants are few, and, like your income, small,
And you've enough to gratify them all:
You've trees, and fruits, and roots, enough in store:
And what would a philosopher have more?
You cannot wish for coaches, kitchens, cooks—"
"My lord, I've not enough to buy me books—
Or pray, suppose my wants were all supplied,
Are there no wants I should regard beside?
Whose breast is so unmann'd, as not to grieve,
Compass'd with miseries he can't relieve?
Who can be happy—who should wish to live,
And want the godlike happiness to give?
That I'm a judge of this, you must allow:
I had it once—and I'm debarr'd it now.
Ask your own heart, my lord; if this be true,
Then how unblest am I! how blest are you!"
"'Tis true—but, doctor, let us wave all that—
Say, if you had your wish, what you'd be at?"
"Excuse me, good my lord—I won't be sounded,
Nor shall your favour by my wants be bounded.
My lord, I challenge nothing as my due,
Nor is it fit I should prescribe to you.
Yet this might Symmachus himself avow,
(Whose rigid rules[5] are antiquated now)—
My lord; I'd wish to pay the debts I owe—
I'd wish besides—to build and to bestow."
[Footnote 1: Delany, by the patronage of Carteret, and probably through
the intercession of Swift, had obtained a small living in the north of
Ireland, worth about one hundred pounds a-year, with the chancellorship
of Christ-Church, and a prebend's stall in St. Patrick's, neither of
which exceeded the same annual amount. Yet a clamour was raised among the
Whigs, on account of the multiplication of his preferments; and a charge
was founded against the Lord-Lieutenant of extravagant favour to a Tory
divine, which Swift judged worthy of an admirable ironical confutation
in his "Vindication of Lord Carteret." It appears, from the following
verses, that Delany was far from being of the same opinion with those who
thought he was too amply provided for.—Scott. See the "Vindication,"
"Prose Works," vii, p. 244.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 2: Which, according to Swift's calculation, in his "Vindication
of Lord Carteret," amounted only to £300 a year. "Prose Works," vol. vii,
p. 245.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 3: A free school at Inniskillen, founded by Erasmus Smith,
Esq.—Scott.]
[Footnote 4: Sir Ralph Gore, who had a villa in the lake of
Erin.—F.]
[Footnote 5: Symmachus, Bishop of Rome, 499, made a decree, that no man
should solicit for ecclesiastical preferment before the death of the
incumbent.—H.]
AN EPISTLE UPON AN EPISTLE
FROM A CERTAIN DOCTOR TO A CERTAIN GREAT LORD. BEING A CHRISTMAS-BOX FOR DR. DELANY
As Jove will not attend on less,
When things of more importance press:
You can't, grave sir, believe it hard,
That you, a low Hibernian bard,
Should cool your heels a while, and wait
Unanswer'd at your patron's gate;
And would my lord vouchsafe to grant
This one poor humble boon I want,
Free leave to play his secretary,
As Falstaff acted old king Harry;[1]
I'd tell of yours in rhyme and print,
Folks shrug, and cry, "There's nothing in't."
And, after several readings over,
It shines most in the marble cover.
How could so fine a taste dispense
With mean degrees of wit and sense?
Nor will my lord so far beguile
The wise and learned of our isle;
To make it pass upon the nation,
By dint of his sole approbation.
The task is arduous, patrons find,
To warp the sense of all mankind:
Who think your Muse must first aspire,
Ere he advance the doctor higher.
You've cause to say he meant you well:
That you are thankful, who can tell?
For still you're short (which grieves your spirit)
Of his intent: you mean your merit.
Ah! quanto rectius, tu adepte,
Qui nil moliris tarn inepte?[2]
Smedley,[3] thou Jonathan of Clogher,
"When thou thy humble lay dost offer
To Grafton's grace, with grateful heart,
Thy thanks and verse devoid of art:
Content with what his bounty gave,
No larger income dost thou crave."
But you must have cascades, and all
Iërne's lake, for your canal,
Your vistoes, barges, and (a pox on
All pride!) our speaker for your coxon:[4]
It's pity that he can't bestow you
Twelve commoners in caps to row you.
Thus Edgar proud, in days of yore,[5]
Held monarchs labouring at the oar;
And, as he pass'd, so swell'd the Dee,
Enraged, as Ern would do at thee.
How different is this from Smedley!
(His name is up, he may in bed lie)
"Who only asks some pretty cure,
In wholesome soil and ether pure:
The garden stored with artless flowers,
In either angle shady bowers:
No gay parterre with costly green
Must in the ambient hedge be seen;
But Nature freely takes her course,
Nor fears from him ungrateful force:
No shears to check her sprouting vigour,
Or shape the yews to antic figure."
But you, forsooth, your all must squander
On that poor spot, call'd Dell-ville, yonder;
And when you've been at vast expenses
In whims, parterres, canals, and fences,
Your assets fail, and cash is wanting;
Nor farther buildings, farther planting:
No wonder, when you raise and level,
Think this wall low, and that wall bevel.
Here a convenient box you found,
Which you demolish'd to the ground:
Then built, then took up with your arbour,
And set the house to Rupert Barber.
You sprang an arch which, in a scurvy
Humour, you tumbled topsy-turvy.
You change a circle to a square,
Then to a circle as you were:
Who can imagine whence the fund is,
That you quadrata change rotundis?
To Fame a temple you erect,
A Flora does the dome protect;
Mounts, walks, on high; and in a hollow
You place the Muses and Apollo;
There shining 'midst his train, to grace
Your whimsical poetic place.
These stories were of old design'd
As fables: but you have refined
The poets mythologic dreams,
To real Muses, gods, and streams.
Who would not swear, when you contrive thus,
That you're Don Quixote redivivus?
Beneath, a dry canal there lies,
Which only Winter's rain supplies.
O! couldst thou, by some magic spell,
Hither convey St. Patrick's well![6]
Here may it reassume its stream,
And take a greater Patrick's name!
If your expenses rise so high;
What income can your wants supply?
Yet still you fancy you inherit
A fund of such superior merit,
That you can't fail of more provision,
All by my lady's kind decision.
For, the more livings you can fish up,
You think you'll sooner be a bishop:
That could not be my lord's intent,
Nor can it answer the event.
Most think what has been heap'd on you
To other sort of folk was due:
Rewards too great for your flim-flams,
Epistles, riddles, epigrams.
Though now your depth must not be sounded,
The time was, when you'd have compounded
For less than Charley Grattan's school!
Five hundred pound a-year's no fool!
Take this advice then from your friend,
To your ambition put an end,
Be frugal, Pat: pay what you owe,
Before you build and you bestow.
Be modest, nor address your betters
With begging, vain, familiar letters.
A passage may be found,[7] I've heard,
In some old Greek or Latian bard,
Which says, "Would crows in silence eat
Their offals, or their better meat,
Their generous feeders not provoking
By loud and inharmonious croaking,
They might, unhurt by Envy's claws,
Live on, and stuff to boot their maws."
[Footnote 1: "King Henry the Fourth," Part I, Act ii,
Scene 4.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 2: Adapted from Hor., "Epist. ad Pisones," 140.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 3: See the "Petition to the Duke of Grafton," post,
p. 345.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 4: Alluding to Dr. Delany's ambitious choice of fixing in the
island of the Lake of Erin, where Sir Ralph Gore had a villa.—Scott.]
[Footnote 5: When residing at Chester, he obliged eight of his tributary
princes to row him in a barge upon the Dee. Hume's "History of England,"
vol. i, p. 106.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 6: Which had suddenly dried up. See post, vol. ii, "Verses on
the sudden drying up of St. Patrick's Well, near Trinity College,
Dublin."—W.E.B.]
[Footnote 7: Hor., "Epist.," lib. I, xvii, 50.
"Sed tacitus pasci si corvus posset, haberet
Plus dapis, et rixae multo minus invidiaeque."
I append the original, for the sake of Swift's very free
rendering.—W. E. B.]