[Footnote 3:  In the Dutch accounts of the battle of Oudenarde, it is said that the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry, with the Chevalier de St. George, viewed the action at a distance from the top of a steeple, and fled, when the fate of the day turned against the French.  Vendosme commanded the French upon that occasion.—­Scott.]

[Footnote 4:  The Electoral Prince of Hanover, afterwards George II, behaved with great spirit in the engagement, and charged, at the head of Bulau’s dragoons, with great intrepidity.  His horse was shot under him, and he then fought as stated in the text.  Smollett’s “History of England,” ii, 125.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 5:  Louis XIV.]

[Footnote 6:  A cant word for false dice.—­Scott.]

THE GARDEN PLOT

1709

When Naboth’s vineyard[1] look’d so fine,
The king cried out, “Would this were mine!”
And yet no reason could prevail
To bring the owner to a sale. 
Jezebel saw, with haughty pride,
How Ahab grieved to be denied;
And thus accosted him with scorn: 
“Shall Naboth make a monarch mourn? 
A king, and weep!  The ground’s your own;
I’ll vest the garden in the crown.” 
With that she hatch’d a plot, and made
Poor Naboth answer with his head;
And when his harmless blood was spilt,
The ground became his forfeit guilt.

[Footnote 1:  This seems to allude to some oppressive procedure by the Earl of Wharton in relation to Swift’s garden, which he called “Naboth’s Vineyard,” meaning a possession coveted by another person able to possess himself of it (i Kings, chap, xxi, verses 1-10).  For some particulars of the garden, see “Prose Works,” xi, 415.—­W.  E. B.]

SID HAMET’S ROD

Poor Hall, renown’d for comely hair,
Whose hands, perhaps, were not so fair,
Yet had a Jezebel as near;
Hall, of small scripture conversation,
Yet, howe’er Hungerford’s[1] quotation,
By some strange accident had got
The story of this garden-plot;—­Wisely
foresaw he might have reason
To dread a modern bill of treason,
If Jezebel should please to want
His small addition to her grant: 
Therefore resolved, in humble sort,
To begin first, and make his court;
And, seeing nothing else would do,
Gave a third part, to save the other two.

[Footnote 1:  Probably John Hungerford, a member of the October Club.  “Prose Works,” v, 209.—­W.  E. B.]

THE VIRTUES OF SID HAMET[1] THE MAGICIAN’S ROD. 1710[2]