THE RULING PASSION.

In this one passion man can strength enjoy.
As fits give vigor just when they destroy.
Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand,
Yet tames not this; it sticks to our last sand.
Consistent in our follies and our sins,
Here honest nature ends as she begins.

Old politicians chew on wisdom past,
And totter on in business to the last;
As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out,
As sober Lanesb'row dancing in the gout.
Behold a reverend sire, whom want of grace
Has made the father of a nameless race,
Shov'd from the wall, perhaps, or rudely press'd
By his own son, that passes by unbless'd;
Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees,
And envies every sparrow that he sees.

A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate;
The doctor call'd, declares all help too late.
"Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul !
Is there no help?-alas!—then bring the jowl."
The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend,
Still strives to save the hallow'd taper's end,
Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires,
For one puff more, and in that puff expires.
"Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke"
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke),
"No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:
One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead-
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.""

9919

The courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd

An humble servant to all human kind,

Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir:
"If-where I'm going-I could serve you, sir?"

"I give and I devise" (old Euclio said,

And sigh'd)" my lands and tenements to Ned."
"Your money, sir?" My money, sir! what, all?

Why, if I must-(then wept)—I give it Paul.”

"The manor, sir?"

"The manor! hold!" he cried;

"Not that, I cannot part with that "—and died.

19 And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.-The "little red" is a

poetical addition; but it really appears, from the "Life" above mentioned, that Mrs. Oldfield was handsomely dressed in her coffin, by her own direction. The charmer of the stage could not bear to fanov herself in mortal attire.

SWIFT.

BORN, 1667-died, 1745.

For the qualities of sheer wit and humor, Swift had no superior, ancient or modern. He had not the poetry of Aristophanes, or the animal spirits of Rabelais; he was not so incessantly witty as Butler; nor did he possess the delicacy of Addison, or the good nature of Steele or Fielding, or the pathos and depth of Sterne ; but his wit was perfect, as such; a sheer meeting of the extremes of difference and likeness; and his knowledge of character was unbounded. He knew the humor of great and small, from the king down to the cook-maid. Unfortunately, he was not a healthy man; his entrance into the church put him into a false position; mysterious circumstances in his personal history conspired with worldly disappointment to aggravate it; and that hypochondriacal insight into things, which might have taught him a doubt of his conclusions and the wisdom of patience, ended in making him the victim of a diseased blood and angry passions. Probably there was something morbid even in his excessive coarseness. Most of his contemporaries were coarse, but not so outrageously as he. When Swift, however, was at his best, who was so lively, so entertaining, so original? He has been said to be indebted to this and that classic, and this and that Frenchman ;-to Lucian, to Rabelais, and to Cyrano de Bergerac; but though he was acquainted with all these writers, their thoughts had been evidently thought by himself; their quaint fancies of things had passed through his own mind; and they ended in results quite masterly, and his own. A great fanciful wit like his wanted no helps to

the discovery of Brobdignag and Laputa. The Big and Little Endians were close to him every day, at court and at church.

Swift took his principal measure from Butler, and he emulated his rhymes; yet his manner is his own. There is a mixture of care and precision in it, announcing at once power and fastidiousness, like Mr. Dean going with his verger before him, in flowing gown and five times washed face, with his nails pared to the quick. His long irregular prose verses with rhymes at the end, are an invention of his own; and a similar mixture is discernible even in those, not excepting a feeling of musical proportion. Swift had more music in him than he loved to let "fiddlers” suppose; and throughout all his writings there may be observed a jealous sense of power, modifying the most familiar of his impulses.

After all, however, Swift's verse, compared with Pope's or with Butler's, is but a kind of smart prose. It wants their pregnancy of expression. His greatest works are Gulliver's Travels, and the Tale of a Tub.

THE GRAND QUESTION DEBATED.,

WHETHER HAMILTON'S BAWN SHOULD BE TURNED INTO A BARRACK OR A MALT-HOUSE, 1729.

Thus spoke to my lady the knight full of care:
"Let me have your advice in a weighty affair
This Hamilton's bawn, whilst it sticks on my hand,
I lose by the house what I get by the land,
But how to dispose of it to the best bidder,
For a barrack or malt-house, we now must consider.
First, let me suppose I make it a malt-house:
Here I have computed the profit will fall t' us:
There's nine hundred pounds for labor and grain;
I increase it to twelve, so three hundred remain ;
A handsome addition to wine and good cheer,
Three dishes a day, and three hogsheads a year.
With a dozen large vessels my vaults shall be stor'd;
No little scrub joint shall come on my board;
And you and the Dean no more shall combine
To stint me at night to one bottle of wine;

Nor shall I, for his humor, permit you to purloin
A stone and a quarter of beef from my surloin.
If I make it a barrack, the crown is my tenant;
My dear, I have ponder'd again and again on 't:
In poundage and drawbacks I lose half my rent;
Whatever they give me, I must be content,
Or join with the court in every debate;

And rather than that, I would lose my estate."
Thus ended the knight: thus began his meek wife :
"It must, and it shall be a barrack, my life.
I'm grown a mere mopus; no company comes,
But a rabble of tenants, and rusty dull rums.*
With parsons what lady can keep herself clean;
I'm all over daub'd when I sit by the Dean..
But if you will give us a barrack, my dear,
The captain, I'm sure, will always come here:
I then shall not value his deanship a straw,
For the captain, I warrant, will keep him in awe;
Or should he pretend to be brisk and alert,
Will tell him that chaplains should not be so pert;
That men of his coat should be minding their prayers,
And not among ladies to give themselves airs."
Thus argued my lady, but argued in vain;
The knight his opinion resolv'd to maintain.
But Hannah, who listen'd to all that was past,
And could not endure so vulgar a taste,
As soon as her ladyship call'd to be drest,
Cry'd, “Madam, why surely my master's possest.
Sir Arthur the maltster! how fine it will sound!
I'd rather the bawn were sunk under the ground.
But, madam, I guess'd there would never come good,
When I saw him so often with Darby and Wood.†
And now my dream's out; for I was a-dream'd
That I saw a huge rat-O dear, how I scream'd!
And after, methought, I had lost my new shoes;
And Molly, she said I should hear some ill-news.

“Dear madam, had you but the spirit to tease,
You might have a barrack whenever you please :
And, madam, I always believed you so stout,
That for twenty denials you would not give out.
If I had a husband like him, I purtest,

Till he gave me my will, I would give him no rest;

A cant word in Ireland for poor country clergymen.
Two of Sir Arthur's managers.