Nor topics brought to please the crown,
Nor witness hired, nor jury pick’d,
Prevail to bring him in convict. 
  “In exile,[35] with a steady heart,
He spent his life’s declining part;
Where folly, pride, and faction sway,
Remote from St. John, Pope, and Gay. 
Alas, poor Dean! his only scope
Was to be held a misanthrope. 
This into gen’ral odium drew him,
Which if he liked, much good may’t do him. 
His zeal was not to lash our crimes,
But discontent against the times: 
For had we made him timely offers
To raise his post, or fill his coffers,
Perhaps he might have truckled down,
Like other brethren of his gown. 
For party he would scarce have bled: 
I say no more—­because he’s dead. 
What writings has he left behind? 
I hear, they’re of a different kind;
A few in verse; but most in prose—­
Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose;—­
All scribbled in the worst of times,
To palliate his friend Oxford’s crimes,
To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her,
As never fav’ring the Pretender;
Or libels yet conceal’d from sight,
Against the court to show his spite;
Perhaps his travels, part the third;
A lie at every second word—­
Offensive to a loyal ear: 
But not one sermon, you may swear.” 
His friendships there, to few confined
Were always of the middling kind;[36]
No fools of rank, a mongrel breed,
Who fain would pass for lords indeed: 
Where titles give no right or power,[37]
And peerage is a wither’d flower;
He would have held it a disgrace,
If such a wretch had known his face. 
On rural squires, that kingdom’s bane,
He vented oft his wrath in vain;
[Biennial[38]] squires to market brought;
Who sell their souls and [votes] for nought;
The [nation stripped,] go joyful back,
To *** the church, their tenants rack,
Go snacks with [rogues and rapparees,][39]
And keep the peace to pick up fees;
In every job to have a share,
A gaol or barrack to repair;
And turn the tax for public roads,
Commodious to their own abodes.[40]
  “Perhaps I may allow the Dean,
Had too much satire in his vein;
And seem’d determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it. 
Yet malice never was his aim;
He lash’d the vice, but spared the name;
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant;
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr’d that senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe: 
He spared a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux. 
True genuine dulness moved his pity,
Unless it offer’d to be witty. 
Those who their ignorance confest,
He ne’er offended with a jest;
But laugh’d to hear an idiot quote
A verse from Horace learn’d by rote. 
  “Vice, if it e’er can be abash’d,
Must be or ridiculed or lash’d.