110

115

Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks :
• This may be troublesome, is near the chair; 105
That makes three members; this can choose a

mayor.'
Instructed thus, you bow, embrace, protest;
Adopt him son, or cousin at the least;
Then turn about, and laugh at your own jest.

Or if your life be one continued treat;
If to live well means nothing but to eat ;
Up, up! cries Gluttony, 'tis break of day;
Go, drive the deer, and drag the finny prey ;
With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite.
So Russel did, but could not eat at night;
Call’d happy dog! the beggar at his door,
And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.

Or shall we every decency confound;
Through taverns, stews, and bagnios take our

round; Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo 120 K-l's lewd cargo, or Ty-y's crew; From Latian sirens, French Circean feasts, Return well travell’d, and transform'd to beasts; Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame, Renounce our country, and degrade our name.

If, after all, we must with Wilmot own, 126 The cordial drop of life is love alone; And Swift cry wisely, “Vive la bagatelle ! The man that loves and laughs, must sure do

130

Adieu ! If this advice

appear

the worst, Ev'n take the counsel which I gave you

first : Or better precepts if you can impart, Why do ; I'll follow them with all my heart.

virtue and wisdom depend on location, and that he was thrown away in Ireland, in his latter years affected to study waste of time. “I read,' says one of his letters to Pope, the most triling books I can find; and, whenever I write, it is on the most trifling subjects. *** I love la bagatelle. I am always writing bad prose or bad verses, either of rage or raillery. He was idly fond of repeating the sentiment. He writes to Gay-My rule is, Vive la bagatelle!'

Harris (Philological Inquiries) is solemnly angry with Swift for this carelessness; and, in his anger, even enrages himself into the absurdity of saying, that the story of the Houyhnhnms and Yaboos is a worse book to peruse than those which we forbid as the most profligate.' But this overstrained indignation defeats itself. The grossness of the story is palpable : but to assert, as Harris does, that it 'saps the very foundations of morality and religion,' is only to prove that the critic mistook both, and that he equally mistook bombast for fine writing.

POEP.

II.

Q

THE FIRST EPISTLE

OF THE

SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

Ne rubeam pingui donatus munere.-HORACE.