If you resent it, who’s to blame? 
He neither knew you nor your name. 
Should vice expect to ’scape rebuke,
Because its owner is a duke? 
  “He knew an hundred pleasant stories,
With all the turns of Whigs and Tories: 
Was cheerful to his dying day;
And friends would let him have his way. 
  “He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And show’d by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much. 
That kingdom he hath left his debtor,
I wish it soon may have a better.” 
And, since you dread no farther lashes
Methinks you may forgive his ashes.

[Footnote 1:  This poem was first written about 1731 but was not then intended to be published; and having been shown by Swift to all his “common acquaintance indifferently,” some “friend,” probably Pilkington, remembered enough of it to concoct the poem called “The Life and Character of Dr. Swift, written by himself,” which was published in London in 1733, and reprinted in Dublin.  In a letter to Pope, dated 1 May, that year, the Dean complained seriously about the imposture, saying, “it shall not provoke me to print the true one, which indeed is not proper to be seen till I can be seen no more.”  See Swift to Pope, in Pope’s Works, edit.  Elwin and Courthope, vii, 307.  The poem was subsequently published by Faulkner with the Dean’s permission.  It is now printed from a copy of the original edition, with corrections in Swift’s hand, which I found in the Forster collection.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Var.  “But would not have him stop my view.”]

[Footnote 3:  Var.  “I ask but for an inch at most.”]

[Footnote 4:  Var.  “Why must I be outdone by Gay.”]

[Footnote 5:  The author supposes that the scribblers of the prevailing party, which he always opposed, will libel him after his death; but that others will remember the service he had done to Ireland, under the name of M. B. Drapier, by utterly defeating the destructive project of Wood’s halfpence, in five letters to the people of Ireland, at that time read universally, and convincing every reader.]

[Footnote 6:  The Dean supposeth himself to die in Ireland.]

[Footnote 7:  Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, then of the bedchamber to the queen, professed much favour for the Dean.  The queen, then princess, sent a dozen times to the Dean (then in London), with her commands to attend her; which at last he did, by advice of all his friends.  She often sent for him afterwards, and always treated him very graciously.  He taxed her with a present worth L10, which she promised before he should return to Ireland; but on his taking leave the medals were not ready.

A letter from Swift to Lady Suffolk, 21st November, 1730, bears out this note.—­W.  E. B.]