The greatest favour grimful Death can show,
Is with swift dart to expedite the blow. 
So thought the Dean, who, anxious for his fate,
Sigh’d for release, and deem’d the blessing late. 
And sure if virtuous souls (life’s travail past)
Enjoy (as churchmen teach) repose at last,
There’s cause to think, a mind so firmly good,
Who vice so long, and lawless power, withstood,
Has reach’d the limits of that peaceful shore,
Where knaves molest, and tyrants awe, no more;
These blissful seats the pious but attain,
Where incorrupt, immortal spirits reign. 
There his own Parnell strikes the living lyre. 
And Pope, harmonius, joins the tuneful choir;
His Stella too, (no more to forms confined,
For heavenly beings all are of a kind,)
Unites with his the treasures of her mind,
With warmer friendships bids their bosoms glow,
Nor dreads the rage of vulgar tongues below. 
Such pleasing hope the tranquil breast enjoys,
Whose inward peace no conscious crime annoys;
While guilty minds irresolute appear,
And doubt a state their vices needs must fear.

R——­T B——­N.

Dublin, Nov. 4, 1755.

[Footnote 1:  Compare the Earl of Orrery’s “Verses to Swift on his birthday” (vol. i, 228) with his “Remarks on the Life and writings of Swift.”  And see post, p. 406.  The next line refers to Faulkner.—­W.  E. B.]

A SCHOOLBOY’S THEME

The following lines were enclosed in a letter from Mr. Pulteney, (afterwards Earl of Bath,) to Swift, in which he says—­“You must give me leave to add to my letter a copy of verses at the end of a declamation made by a boy at Westminster school on this theme,—­Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?”

Dulce, Decane, decus, flos optime gentis Hibernae
  Nomine quique audis, ingenioque celer: 
Dum lepido indulges risu, et mutaris in horas,
  Quo nova vis animi, materiesque rapit? 
Nunc gravis astrologus, coelo dominaris et astris,
  Filaque pro libitu Partrigiana secas. 
Nunc populo speciosa hospes miracula promis,
  Gentesque aequoreas, aeriasque creas. 
Seu plausum captat queruli persona Draperi,
  Seu levis a vacuo tabula sumpta cado. 
Mores egregius mira exprimis arte magister,
  Et vitam atque homines pagina quaeque sapit;
Socraticae minor est vis et sapientia chartae,
  Nec tantum potuit grande Platonis opus.

VERSES ON THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS

BY MR. JAMES STERLING, OF THE COUNTY OF MEATH