[Footnote 1:  Widow of John Harding, the Drapier’s printer.—­F.]

CLEVER TOM CLINCH GOING TO BE HANGED. 1727

As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling,
Rode stately through Holborn to die in his calling,
He stopt at the George for a bottle of sack,
And promised to pay for it when he came back. 
His waistcoat, and stockings, and breeches, were white;
His cap had a new cherry ribbon to tie’t. 
The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,
And said, “Lack-a-day, he’s a proper young man!”
But, as from the windows the ladies he spied,
Like a beau in the box, he bow’d low on each side! 
And when his last speech the loud hawkers did cry,
He swore from his cart, “It was all a damn’d lie!”
The hangman for pardon fell down on his knee;
Tom gave him a kick in the guts for his fee: 
Then said, I must speak to the people a little;
But I’ll see you all damn’d before I will whittle.[1]
My honest friend Wild[2] (may he long hold his place)
He lengthen’d my life with a whole year of grace. 
Take courage, dear comrades, and be not afraid,
Nor slip this occasion to follow your trade;
My conscience is clear, and my spirits are calm,
And thus I go off, without prayer-book or psalm;
Then follow the practice of clever Tom Clinch,
Who hung like a hero, and never would flinch.

[Footnote 1:  A cant word for confessing at the gallows.—­F.]

[Footnote 2:  The noted thief-catcher, under-keeper of Newgate, who was the head of a gang of thieves, and was at last hanged as a receiver of stolen goods.  See Fielding’s “Life of Jonathan Wild.”—­W.  E. B.]

DR. SWIFT TO MR. POPE, WHILE HE WAS WRITING THE “DUNCIAD”

1727

POPE has the talent well to speak,
  But not to reach the ear;
His loudest voice is low and weak,
  The Dean too deaf to hear.

Awhile they on each other look,
  Then different studies choose;
The Dean sits plodding on a book;
  Pope walks, and courts the Muse.

Now backs of letters, though design’d
  For those who more will need ’em,
Are fill’d with hints, and interlined,
  Himself can hardly read ’em.

Each atom by some other struck,
  All turns and motions tries;
Till in a lump together stuck,
  Behold a poem rise: 

Yet to the Dean his share allot;
  He claims it by a canon;
That without which a thing is not,
  Is causa sine qua non.

Thus, Pope, in vain you boast your wit;
  For, had our deaf divine
Been for your conversation fit,
  You had not writ a line.

Of Sherlock,[1] thus, for preaching framed
  The sexton reason’d well;
And justly half the merit claim’d,
  Because he rang the bell.

A LOVE POEM FROM A PHYSICIAN TO HIS MISTRESS