[Footnote 4:  Very happily turned from “Si vis, potes——.”—­Warton.]

[Footnote 5:  The rise and progress of Swift’s intimacy with Lord Oxford is minutely detailed in his Journal to Stella.  And the reasons why a man, that served the ministry so effectually, was so tardily, and so difficultly, and so poorly rewarded, are explained in Sheridan’s Life of Swift.  See also Coxe’s “Memoirs of Walpole.”  Both Gay and Swift conceived every thing was to be gained by the interest of Mrs. Howard, to whom they paid incessant court.—­Bowles.]

[Footnote 6:  Another of their amusements in these excursions consisted in Lord Oxford and Swift’s counting the poultry on the road, and whichever reckoned thirty-one first, or saw a cat, or an old woman, won the game.  Bolingbroke, overtaking them one day in their road to Windsor, got into Lord Oxford’s coach, and began some political conversation; Lord Oxford said, “Swift, I am up; there is a cat.”  Bolingbroke was disgusted with this levity, and went again into his own carriage.  This was
  “Nugari et discincti ludere,” [HORAT., Sat., ii, I, 73]
with a witness.—­Warton.]

[Footnote 7:  Stella’s transcript, “sweetest.”—­Forster.]

[Footnote 8:  Thus far was translated by Dr. Swift in 1714.  The remaining part of the satire was afterwards added by Pope, in whose works the whole is printed.  See Pope’s Works, edit.  Elwin and Courthope.—­W.  E. B.]

HORACE, BOOK II, ODE I, PARAPHRASED ADDRESSED TO RICHARD STEELE, ESQ. 1714

Dick, thou’rt resolved, as I am told,
Some strange arcana to unfold,
And with the help of Buckley’s[1] pen,
To vamp the good old cause again: 
Which thou (such Burnet’s shrewd advice is)
Must furbish up, and nickname Crisis. 
Thou pompously wilt let us know
What all the world knew long ago,
(E’er since Sir William Gore was mayor,
And Harley fill’d the commons’ chair,)
That we a German prince must own,
When Anne for Heaven resigns her throne. 
But, more than that, thou’lt keep a rout,
With—­who is in—­and who is out;
Thou’lt rail devoutly at the peace,
And all its secret causes trace,
The bucket-play ’twixt Whigs and Tories,
Their ups and downs, with fifty stories
Of tricks the Lord of Oxford knows,
And errors of our plenipoes. 
Thou’lt tell of leagues among the great,
Portending ruin to our state: 
And of that dreadful coup d’eclat,
Which has afforded thee much chat. 
The queen, forsooth! (despotic,) gave
Twelve coronets without thy leave! 
A breach of liberty, ’tis own’d,
For which no heads have yet atoned! 
Believe me, what thou’st undertaken
May bring in jeopardy thy bacon;
For madmen, children, wits, and fools,
Should never meddle with edged tools. 
But, since thou’st got into the fire,
And canst not easily retire,