That I’m a judge of this, you must allow: 
I had it once—­and I’m debarr’d it now. 
Ask your own heart, my lord; if this be true,
Then how unblest am I! how blest are you!”
  “’Tis true—­but, doctor, let us wave all that—­
Say, if you had your wish, what you’d be at?”
  “Excuse me, good my lord—­I won’t be sounded,
Nor shall your favour by my wants be bounded. 
My lord, I challenge nothing as my due,
Nor is it fit I should prescribe to you. 
Yet this might Symmachus himself avow,
(Whose rigid rules[5] are antiquated now)—­
My lord; I’d wish to pay the debts I owe—­
I’d wish besides—­to build and to bestow.”

[Footnote 1:  Delany, by the patronage of Carteret, and probably through the intercession of Swift, had obtained a small living in the north of Ireland, worth about one hundred pounds a-year, with the chancellorship of Christ-Church, and a prebend’s stall in St. Patrick’s, neither of which exceeded the same annual amount.  Yet a clamour was raised among the Whigs, on account of the multiplication of his preferments; and a charge was founded against the Lord-Lieutenant of extravagant favour to a Tory divine, which Swift judged worthy of an admirable ironical confutation in his “Vindication of Lord Carteret.”  It appears, from the following verses, that Delany was far from being of the same opinion with those who thought he was too amply provided for.—­Scott. See the “Vindication,” “Prose Works,” vii, p. 244.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Which, according to Swift’s calculation, in his “Vindication of Lord Carteret,” amounted only to L300 a year.  “Prose Works,” vol. vii, p. 245.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 3:  A free school at Inniskillen, founded by Erasmus Smith, Esq.—­Scott.]

[Footnote 4:  Sir Ralph Gore, who had a villa in the lake of Erin.—­F.]

[Footnote 5:  Symmachus, Bishop of Rome, 499, made a decree, that no man should solicit for ecclesiastical preferment before the death of the incumbent.—­H.]

AN EPISTLE UPON AN EPISTLE

FROM A CERTAIN DOCTOR TO A CERTAIN GREAT LORD. 
BEING A CHRISTMAS-BOX FOR DR. DELANY

As Jove will not attend on less,
When things of more importance press: 
You can’t, grave sir, believe it hard,
That you, a low Hibernian bard,
Should cool your heels a while, and wait
Unanswer’d at your patron’s gate;
And would my lord vouchsafe to grant
This one poor humble boon I want,
Free leave to play his secretary,
As Falstaff acted old king Harry;[1]
I’d tell of yours in rhyme and print,
Folks shrug, and cry, “There’s nothing in’t.” 
And, after several readings over,
It shines most in the marble cover. 
  How could so fine a taste dispense
With mean degrees of wit and sense? 
Nor will my lord so far beguile
The wise and learned of our isle;