[Footnote 1:  Occasioned by two bills; a Bill of Residence to compel the clergy to reside on their livings, and a Bill of Division, to divide the church livings.  See Considerations upon two Bills, “Prose Works,” iii, and Swift’s letter to the Bishop of Clogher, July, 1733, in which he describes “those two abominable bills for enslaving and beggaring the clergy.”  Edit.  Scott, xviii, p. 147.  The bills were passed by the House of Lords, but rejected by the Commons.  See note, next page.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Dr. Tennison, Bishop of Ossory, who promoted the Bills.  See “Prose Works,” xii, p.26.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 3:  Theophilus Bolton, Archbishop of Cashel from 1729 to 1744; Charles Carr, Bishop of Killaloe from 1716 to 1739; and Robert Howard, Bishop of Elphin from 1729 to 1740, who voted against the bills on a division.—­W.  E. B.]

HORACE, BOOK IV, ODE IX

ADDRESSED TO HUMPHRY FRENCH, ESQ.[1]
LATE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN

PATRON of the tuneful throng,
  O! too nice, and too severe! 
Think not, that my country song
  Shall displease thy honest ear. 
Chosen strains I proudly bring,
  Which the Muses’ sacred choir,
When they gods and heroes sing,
  Dictate to th’ harmonious lyre. 
Ancient Homer, princely bard! 
  Just precedence still maintains,
With sacred rapture still are heard
  Theban Pindar’s lofty strains. 
Still the old triumphant song,
  Which, when hated tyrants fell,
Great Alcaeus boldly sung,
  Warns, instructs, and pleases well. 
Nor has Time’s all-darkening shade
  In obscure oblivion press’d
What Anacreon laugh’d and play’d;
  Gay Anacreon, drunken priest! 
Gentle Sappho, love-sick muse,
  Warms the heart with amorous fire;
Still her tenderest notes infuse
  Melting rapture, soft desire. 
Beauteous Helen, young and gay,
  By a painted fopling won,
Went not first, fair nymph, astray,
  Fondly pleased to be undone. 
Nor young Teucer’s slaughtering bow,
  Nor bold Hector’s dreadful sword,
Alone the terrors of the foe,
  Sow’d the field with hostile blood. 
Many valiant chiefs of old
  Greatly lived and died before
Agamemnon, Grecian bold,
  Waged the ten years’ famous war. 
But their names, unsung, unwept,
  Unrecorded, lost and gone,
Long in endless night have slept,
  And shall now no more be known. 
Virtue, which the poet’s care
  Has not well consign’d to fame,
Lies, as in the sepulchre
  Some old king, without a name. 
But, O Humphry, great and free,
  While my tuneful songs are read,
Old forgetful Time on thee
  Dark oblivion ne’er shall spread. 
When the deep cut notes shall fade
  On the mouldering Parian stone,
On the brass no more be read
  The perishing inscription;
Forgotten all the enemies,