His poems, think them all not worth a straw.
Thrice happy Duck! employed in threshing stubble
Thy toils were lessen’d and thy profits doubled.
Close by Merlin’s Cave the Queen raised another quaint conceit known as the “Hermitage,” in which she placed busts of Adam Clarke, Newton, Locke and other dead philosophers. These busts excited the ire of living worthies. Swift in his Elegant Extracts wrote:—
Lewis, the living genius fed
And rais’d the scientific head:
Our Queen, more frugal of her meat,
Raises those heads that cannot eat.
This drew forth the following repartee, addressed to Swift:—
Since Anna, whom bounty thy merits had fed,