“The Dean is dead:  (and what is trumps?)
Then, Lord have mercy on his soul! 
(Ladies, I’ll venture for the vole.)[16]
Six deans, they say, must bear the pall: 
(I wish I knew what king to call.)
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend. 
No, madam, ’tis a shocking sight: 
And he’s engaged to-morrow night: 
My Lady Club wou’d take it ill,
If he shou’d fail her at quadrille. 
He loved the Dean—­(I lead a heart,)
But dearest friends, they say, must part. 
His time was come:  he ran his race;
We hope he’s in a better place.” 
  Why do we grieve that friends should die? 
No loss more easy to supply. 
One year is past; a different scene! 
No further mention of the Dean;
Who now, alas! no more is miss’d,
Than if he never did exist. 
Where’s now this fav’rite of Apollo! 
Departed:—­and his works must follow;
Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date. 
  Some country squire to Lintot[17] goes,
Inquires for “Swift in Verse and Prose.” 
Says Lintot, “I have heard the name;
He died a year ago.”—­“The same.” 
He searches all the shop in vain. 
“Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane;[18]
I sent them with a load of books,
Last Monday to the pastry-cook’s. 
To fancy they could live a year! 
I find you’re but a stranger here. 
The Dean was famous in his time,
And had a kind of knack at rhyme. 
His way of writing now is past;
The town has got a better taste;
I keep no antiquated stuff,
But spick and span I have enough. 
Pray do but give me leave to show ’em;
Here’s Colley Cibber’s birth-day poem. 
This ode you never yet have seen,
By Stephen Duck,[19] upon the queen. 
Then here’s a letter finely penned
Against the Craftsman and his friend: 
It clearly shows that all reflection
On ministers is disaffection. 
Next, here’s Sir Robert’s vindication,[20]
And Mr. Henley’s last oration.[21]
The hawkers have not got them yet: 
Your honour please to buy a set? 
  “Here’s Woolston’s[22] tracts, the twelfth edition;
’Tis read by every politician: 
The country members, when in town,
To all their boroughs send them down;
You never met a thing so smart;
The courtiers have them all by heart: 
Those maids of honour (who can read),
Are taught to use them for their creed.[23]
The rev’rend author’s good intention
Has been rewarded with a pension. 
He does an honour to his gown,
By bravely running priestcraft down: 
He shows, as sure as God’s in Gloucester,
That Moses was a grand impostor;
That all his miracles were cheats,
Perform’d as jugglers do their feats: 
The church had never such a writer;
A shame he has not got a mitre!”
  Suppose me dead; and then suppose
A club assembled at the Rose;
Where, from discourse of this and that,
I grow the subject of their chat.