[Footnote 1: This is the version of the poem as altered by Swift in
accordance with Addison's suggestions.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 2: La Pucelle d'Orléans. See "Hudibras," "Lady's Answer," verse
285, and note in Grey's edition, ii, 439.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 3: Mary Ambree, on whose exploits in Flanders the popular
ballad was written. The line in the text is from "Hudibras," Part I,
c. 2, 367, where she is compared with Trulla:
"A bold virago, stout and tall,
As Joan of France, or English Mall."
The ballad is preserved in Percy's "Reliques of English Poetry," vol. ii,
239.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 4: The tribes of Israel were sometimes distinguished in country
churches by the ensigns given to them by Jacob.—Dublin Edition.]
[Footnote 5: In the churchyard to fetch a walk.—Dublin Edition.]
THE HISTORY OF VANBRUGH'S HOUSE
1708
When Mother Cludd[1] had rose from play,
And call'd to take the cards away,
Van saw, but seem'd not to regard,
How Miss pick'd every painted card,
And, busy both with hand and eye,
Soon rear'd a house two stories high.
Van's genius, without thought or lecture
Is hugely turn'd to architecture:
He view'd the edifice, and smiled,
Vow'd it was pretty for a child:
It was so perfect in its kind,
He kept the model in his mind.
But, when he found the boys at play
And saw them dabbling in their clay,
He stood behind a stall to lurk,
And mark the progress of their work;
With true delight observed them all
Raking up mud to build a wall.
The plan he much admired, and took
The model in his table-book:
Thought himself now exactly skill'd,
And so resolved a house to build:
A real house, with rooms and stairs,
Five times at least as big as theirs;
Taller than Miss's by two yards;
Not a sham thing of play or cards:
And so he did; for, in a while,
He built up such a monstrous pile,
That no two chairmen could be found
Able to lift it from the ground.
Still at Whitehall it stands in view,
Just in the place where first it grew;
There all the little schoolboys run,
Envying to see themselves outdone.
From such deep rudiments as these,
Van is become, by due degrees,
For building famed, and justly reckon'd,
At court,[2] Vitruvius the Second:[3]
No wonder, since wise authors show,
That best foundations must be low:
And now the duke has wisely ta'en him
To be his architect at Blenheim.
But raillery at once apart,
If this rule holds in every art;
Or if his grace were no more skill'd in
The art of battering walls than building,
We might expect to see next year
A mouse-trap man chief engineer.
[Footnote 1: See ante, p. 51, "The Reverse."—W, E. B.]
[Footnote 2: Vitruvius Pollio, author of the treatise "De
Architectura."—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 3: Sir John Vanbrugh held the office of Comptroller-General of
his majesty's works.—Scott.]
A GRUB-STREET ELEGY
ON THE SUPPOSED DEATH OF PARTRIDGE THE ALMANACK MAKER.[1] 1708
Well; 'tis as Bickerstaff has guest,
Though we all took it for a jest:
Partridge is dead; nay more, he dy'd,
Ere he could prove the good 'squire ly'd.
Strange, an astrologer should die
Without one wonder in the sky;
Not one of all his crony stars
To pay their duty at his hearse!
No meteor, no eclipse appear'd!
No comet with a flaming beard!
The sun hath rose and gone to bed,
Just as if Partridge were not dead;
Nor hid himself behind the moon
To make a dreadful night at noon.
He at fit periods walks through Aries,
Howe'er our earthly motion varies;
And twice a-year he'll cut th' Equator,
As if there had been no such matter.
Some wits have wonder'd what analogy
There is 'twixt cobbling[2] and astrology;
How Partridge made his optics rise
From a shoe-sole to reach the skies.
A list the cobbler's temples ties,
To keep the hair out of his eyes;
From whence 'tis plain the diadem
That princes wear derives from them;
And therefore crowns are now-a-days
Adorn'd with golden stars and rays;
Which plainly shows the near alliance
'Twixt cobbling and the planet's science.
Besides, that slow-paced sign Böötes,
As 'tis miscall'd, we know not who 'tis;
But Partridge ended all disputes;
He knew his trade, and call'd it boots.[3]
The horned moon,[4] which heretofore
Upon their shoes the Romans wore,
Whose wideness kept their toes from corns,
And whence we claim our shoeing-horns,
Shows how the art of cobbling bears
A near resemblance to the spheres.
A scrap of parchment hung by geometry,
(A great refiner in barometry,)
Can, like the stars, foretell the weather;
And what is parchment else but leather?
Which an astrologer might use
Either for almanacks or shoes.
Thus Partridge, by his wit and parts,
At once did practise both these arts:
And as the boding owl (or rather
The bat, because her wings are leather)
Steals from her private cell by night,
And flies about the candle-light;
So learned Partridge could as well
Creep in the dark from leathern cell,
And in his fancy fly as far
To peep upon a twinkling star.
Besides, he could confound the spheres,
And set the planets by the ears;
To show his skill, he Mars could join
To Venus in aspect malign;
Then call in Mercury for aid,
And cure the wounds that Venus made.
Great scholars have in Lucian read,
When Philip King of Greece was dead
His soul and spirit did divide,
And each part took a different side;
One rose a star; the other fell
Beneath, and mended shoes in Hell.[5]
Thus Partridge still shines in each art,
The cobbling and star-gazing part,
And is install'd as good a star
As any of the Caesars are.
Triumphant star! some pity show
On cobblers militant below,
Whom roguish boys, in stormy nights,
Torment by pissing out their lights,
Or through a chink convey their smoke,
Enclosed artificers to choke.
Thou, high exalted in thy sphere,
May'st follow still thy calling there.
To thee the Bull will lend his hide,
By Phoebus newly tann'd and dry'd;
For thee they Argo's hulk will tax,
And scrape her pitchy sides for wax:
Then Ariadne kindly lends
Her braided hair to make thee ends;
The points of Sagittarius' dart
Turns to an awl by heavenly art;
And Vulcan, wheedled by his wife,
Will forge for thee a paring-knife.
For want of room by Virgo's side,
She'll strain a point, and sit[6] astride,
To take thee kindly in between;
And then the Signs will be Thirteen.
[Footnote 1: For details of the humorous persecution of this impostor by
Swift, see "Prose Works," vol. i, pp. 298 et seq.—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 2: Partridge was a cobbler.—Swift.]
[Footnote 3: See his Almanack.—Swift.]
[Footnote 4: Allusion to the crescent-shaped ornament of gold or silver
which distinguished the wearer as a senator.
"Appositam nigrae lunam subtexit alutae."—Juvenal, Sat. vii, 192; and
Martial, i, 49, "Lunata nusquam pellis."—W. E. B.]
[Footnote 5: Luciani Opera, xi, 17.]
[Footnote 6:
"ipse tibi iam brachia contrahit ardens
Scorpios, et coeli iusta plus parte reliquit."
VIRG., Georg., i, 34.]