While the Dean with more wit than man ever wanted,
Or than Heaven to any man else ever granted,
Endeavours to prove, how the ancients in knowledge
Have excell’d our adepts of each modern college;
How by heroes of old our chiefs are surpass’d
In each useful science, true learning, and taste. 
While thus he behaves, with more courage than manners,
And fights for the foe, deserting our banners;
While Bentley and Wotton, our champions, he foils,
And wants neither Temple’s assistance, nor Boyle’s;
In spite of his learning, fine reasons, and style,
—­Would you think it?—­he favours our cause all the while: 
We raise by his conquest our glory the higher,
And from our defeat to a triumph aspire;
Our great brother-modern, the boast of our days,
Unconscious, has gain’d for our party the bays: 
St. James’s old authors, so famed on each shelf,
Are vanquish’d by what he has written himself.

ON DR. SWIFT’S LEAVING HIS ESTATE TO IDIOTS

Swift, wondrous genius, bright intelligence,
Pities the orphan’s, idiot’s want of sense;
And rich in supernumerary pelf,
Adopts posterity unlike himself. 
To one great individual wit’s confined! 
Such eunuchs never propagate their kind. 
Thus nature’s prodigies bestow the gifts
Of fortune, their descendants are no Swifts. 
When did prime statesman, for a sceptre fit
His ministerial successor beget? 
No age, no state, no world, can hope to see
Two SWIFTS or WALPOLES in one family.

ON SEVERAL PETTY PIECES

LATELY PUBLISHED AGAINST DEAN SWIFT, NOW DEAF AND INFIRM

Thy mortal part, ingenious Swift! must die,
Thy fame shall reach beyond mortality! 
How puny whirlings joy at thy decline,
Thou darling offspring of the tuneful nine! 
The noble lion thus, as vigour passes,
The fable tells us, is abused by asses.

ON FAULKNER’S EDITION OF SWIFT

Ornamented with an Engraving of the Dean, by Vertue.

In a little dark room at the back of his shop,
Where poets and scribes have dined on a chop,
Poor Faulkner sate musing alone thus of late,
“Two volumes are done—­it is time for the plate;
Yes, time to be sure;—­but on whom shall I call
To express the great Swift in a compass so small? 
Faith, Vertue shall do it, I’m pleased at the thought,
Be the cost what it will—­the copper is bought.” 
Apollo o’erheard, (who as some people guess,
Had a hand in the work, and corrected the press;)
And pleased, he replied, “Honest George, you are right,
The thought was my own, howsoe’er you came by’t. 
For though both the wit and the style is my gift,
’Tis VERTUE alone can design us a SWIFT.”

EPIGRAM ON LORD ORRERY’S REMARKS ON SWIFT’S LIFE AND WRITINGS