This world he cumber'd long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a st→k.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's sighs nor orphan's tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his herse.
But what of that? his friends may say
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he dy'd.
Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of kings,
Who flote upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate!
Let pride be taught by this rebuke
How very mean a thing's a duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.
UNDER this stone lie Dicky and Dolly;
Doll dying first, Dick grew melancholy,
For Dick without Doll thought living a folly.
Dick lost in Doll a wife tender and dear,
But Dick lost by Doll twelve hundred a-year,
A loss that Dick thought no mortal could bear.
Dick sigh'd for his Doll, and his mournful arms crost, Thought much of his Doll and the jointure he lots; The first vex'd him much, the other vex'd most.
Thus loaded with grief Dick sigh'd and he cry'd; 10
To live without both full three days he try'd,
But lik'd neither loss, and so quietly dy❜d.
Dick left a pattern few will copy after:
Then, Reader, pray shed some tears of salt water, For so sad a tale is no subject of laughter.
M-th smiles for the jointuer, tho' gotten so late, The son laughs that got the hard-gotten estate, And Cuff* grins, forgetting the Alicant plate.
Here quiet they lie, in hopes to rise one day,
Both solemnly put in this hole on a Sunday,
And here rest. Sic transit gloria mundi.
V. A QUIBBLING ELEGY,
ON THE WORSHIPFUL JUDGE BOAT.
Written in the year 1723.
To mournful ditties, Clio, change thy note,
Since cruel Fate hath sunk our Justice Boat.
Why should he sink where nothing seem'd to press ?
His lading little, and his ballast less,
Tost in the waves of this tempestuous world,
At length his anchor fix'd and canvass furl'd,
To Lacy-hill retiring from his court,
At his Ring's-end he founders in the port;
With water fill'd†, he could no longer flote,
The common death of many a stronger Boat.
A post so fill'd on Nature's laws intrenches;
Benches on boats are plac'd, not Boats on bencnes:
And yet our Boat, how shall I reconcile it?
Was both a Boat, and in one sense a pilot!
With every wind he sail'd, and well could tack, 15
Had many pendants, but abhorr'd a Jack ‡.
He's gone, altho' his friends began to hope
That he might yet be lifted by a rope.
Behold the awful bench on which he sat !
He was as hard and pond'rous wood as that:
*Two villages near the sea, where boatmen and seamen live.
It was said he died of a dropsy.
A cant word for a Jacobite.
Yet when his sand was out, we find, at last,
That Death has overset him with a blast.
Our Boat is now sail'd to the Stygian ferry,
There to supply old Charon's leaky wherry:
Charon in him will ferry souls to hell,
A trade our Boat * hath practis'd here so well;
And Cerberus hath ready in his paws
Both pitch and brimstone to fill up his flaws.
Yet, spite of Death and Fate, I here maintain
We may place Boat in his old post again.
The way is thus, and well deserves your thanks;
Take the three strongest of his broken planks,
Fix them on high, conspicuous to be seen,
Form'd like the triple tree near Stephen's Greent,
And when we view it thus with thief at end on't,
We'll cry," Look! here's our Boat, and there's the
pendent."
HERE lies Judge Boat within a coffin;
Pray, gentle folks! forbear your scoffing.
A Boat a judge! yes; where's the blunder?
A wooden judge is no such wonder:
And in his robes, you must agree,
No Boat was better deck'd than he.
'Tis needless to describe him fuller;
In short, he was an able sculler.
* In hanging people as a judge.
Where the Dublin gallows stands.
VI. AN EPITAPH,
To the memory of Frederick Duke of Schomberg, who was unhappily killed in crossing the river Boyne, on the first day of July 1690, and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, where the Dean and Chapter erected a small monument to his honour at their own expense.
Hic infra situm est corpus
PREDERICI DUCIS DE SCHOMBERG,
Ad Bubindam occisi, A. D. 1690.
Decanus et capitulum maximopere
Etiam atque etiam petierunt,
Ut heredes Ducis monumentum
In memoriam parentis erigendum curarent:
Sed postquam per epistolas, per amicos,
Diu ac sæpe orando nil profecere;
Hunc demum lapidem ipsi statuerunt,
Saltem* ut scias, hospes,
Ubinam terrarum Sconbergenses cineres delitescunt.
Plus potuit fama virtutis apud alienos,
Quam sanguinis proximitas apud suos. 14
A. D. 1731.
*The words that Dr. Swift first concluded the Epitaph with were, Sultem ut scias, viator indignabundus, quali in cellula tanti ductoris cineris delitescunt: for the Author was always heard to speak with great reverence of the memory of that brave Duke, as well as his glorious master King William; and indeed of all others who have struggled for the liberties of these kingdoms against the repeated attempts of arbitrary power.
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