The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D Volume Ii Part 38

Foulest brute that stinks below, Why in this brown dost thou appear?

For wouldst thou make a fouler show, Thou must go naked all the year.

Fresh from the mud, a wallowing sow Would then be not so brown as thou.

'Tis not the coat that looks so dun, His hide emits a foulness out; Not one jot better looks the sun Seen from behind a dirty clout.

So t--ds within a gla.s.s enclose, The gla.s.s will seem as brown as those.

Thou now one heap of foulness art, All outward and within is foul; Condensed filth in every part, Thy body's clothed like thy soul: Thy soul, which through thy hide of buff Scarce glimmers like a dying snuff.

Old carted bawds such garments wear, When pelted all with dirt they shine; Such their exalted bodies are, As shrivell'd and as black as thine.

If thou wert in a cart, I fear Thou wouldst be pelted worse than they're.

Yet, when we see thee thus array'd, The neighbours think it is but just, That thou shouldst take an honest trade, And weekly carry out the dust.

Of cleanly houses who will doubt, When d.i.c.k cries "Dust to carry out!"

[Footnote 1: This is a parody on the tenth poem of Cowley's "Mistress,"

ent.i.tled, "Clad all in White."--_Scott_.]

d.i.c.k'S VARIETY

Dull uniformity in fools I hate, who gape and sneer by rules; You, Mullinix, and s...o...b..ring C---- Who every day and hour the same are That vulgar talent I despise Of p.i.s.sing in the rabble's eyes.

And when I listen to the noise Of idiots roaring to the boys; To better judgment still submitting, I own I see but little wit in: Such pastimes, when our taste is nice, Can please at most but once or twice.

But then consider d.i.c.k, you'll find His genius of superior kind; He never muddles in the dirt, Nor scours the streets without a shirt; Though d.i.c.k, I dare presume to say, Could do such feats as well as they.

d.i.c.k I could venture everywhere, Let the boys pelt him if they dare, He'd have them tried at the a.s.sizes For priests and jesuits in disguises; Swear they were with the Swedes at Bender, And listing troops for the Pretender.

But d.i.c.k can f--t, and dance, and frisk, No other monkey half so brisk; Now has the speaker by his ears, Next moment in the House of Peers; Now scolding at my Lady Eustace, Or thrashing Baby in her new stays.[1]

Presto! begone; with t'other hop He's powdering in a barber's shop; Now at the antichamber thrusting His nose, to get the circle just in; And d.a.m.ns his blood that in the rear He sees a single Tory there: Then woe be to my lord-lieutenant, Again he'll tell him, and again on't[2]

[Footnote 1: "d.i.c.k Tighe and his wife lodged over against us; and he has been seen, out of our upper windows, beating her two or three times; ...

I am told she is the most urging, provoking devil that ever was born; and he a hot whiffling puppy, very apt to resent."--Journal to Stella, "Prose Works," ii, 229.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: Farquhar, who inscribed his play of the "Inconstant" to Richard Tighe, has painted him in very different colours from those of the Dean's satirical pencil. Yet there may be discerned, even in that dedication, the oulines of a light mercurial character, capable of being represented as a c.o.xcomb or fine gentleman, as should suit the purpose of the writer who was disposed to immortalize him.--_Scott_.]

TRAULUS. PART I

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TOM AND ROBIN[1]

1730

_Tom_.

Say, Robin, what can Traulus[2] mean By bellowing thus against the Dean?

Why does he call him paltry scribbler, Papist, and Jacobite, and libeller, Yet cannot prove a single fact?

_Robin_. Forgive him, Tom: his head is crackt.

_T_. What mischief can the Dean have done him, That Traulus calls for vengeance on him?

Why must he sputter, spawl, and slaver it In vain against the people's favourite?

Revile that nation-saving paper, Which gave the Dean the name of Drapier?

_R_. Why, Tom, I think the case is plain; Party and spleen have turn'd his brain.

_T_. Such friendship never man profess'd, The Dean was never so caress'd; For Traulus long his rancour nursed, Till, G.o.d knows why, at last it burst.

That clumsy outside of a porter, How could it thus conceal a courtier?

_R_. I own, appearances are bad; Yet still insist the man is mad.

_T_. Yet many a wretch in Bedlam knows How to distinguish friends from foes; And though perhaps among the rout He wildly flings his filth about, He still has grat.i.tude and sap'ence, To spare the folks that give him ha'pence; Nor in their eyes at random p.i.s.ses, But turns aside, like mad Ulysses; While Traulus all his ordure scatters To foul the man he chiefly flatters.

Whence comes these inconsistent fits?

_R_. Why, Tom, the man has lost his wits.

_T_, Agreed: and yet, when Towzer snaps At people's heels, with frothy chaps, Hangs down his head, and drops his tail, To say he's mad will not avail; The neighbours all cry, "Shoot him dead, Hang, drown, or knock him on the head."

So Traulus, when he first harangued, I wonder why he was not hang'd; For of the two, without dispute, Towzer's the less offensive brute.

_R_, Tom, you mistake the matter quite; Your barking curs will seldom bite And though you hear him stut-tut-tut-ter, He barks as fast as he can utter.

He prates in spite of all impediment, While none believes that what he said he meant; Puts in his finger and his thumb To grope for words, and out they come.

He calls you rogue; there's nothing in it, He fawns upon you in a minute: "Begs leave to rail, but, d--n his blood!

He only meant it for your good: His friendship was exactly timed, He shot before your foes were primed: By this contrivance, Mr. Dean, By G--! I'll bring you off as clean--"[3]

Then let him use you e'er so rough, "'Twas all for love," and that's enough.

But, though he sputter through a session, It never makes the least impression: Whate'er he speaks for madness goes, With no effect on friends or foes.

_T_. The scrubbiest cur in all the pack Can set the mastiff on your back.

I own, his madness is a jest, If that were all. But he's possest Incarnate with a thousand imps, To work whose ends his madness pimps; Who o'er each string and wire preside, Fill every pipe, each motion guide; Directing every vice we find In Scripture to the devil a.s.sign'd; Sent from the dark infernal region, In him they lodge, and make him legion.

Of brethren he's a false accuser; A slanderer, traitor, and seducer; A fawning, base, trepanning liar; The marks peculiar of his sire.

Or, grant him but a drone at best; A drone can raise a hornet's nest.

The Dean had felt their stings before; And must their malice ne'er give o'er?

Still swarm and buzz about his nose?

But Ireland's friends ne'er wanted foes.

A patriot is a dangerous post, When wanted by his country most; Perversely comes in evil times, Where virtues are imputed crimes.

His guilt is clear, the proofs are pregnant; A traitor to the vices regnant.

What spirit, since the world began, Could always bear to strive with man?

Which G.o.d p.r.o.nounced he never would, And soon convinced them by a flood.

Yet still the Dean on freedom raves; His spirit always strives with slaves.

'Tis time at last to spare his ink, And let them rot, or hang, or sink.

[Footnote 1: Son of Dr. Charles Leslie.--_Scott_.]

[Footnote 4: Joshua, Lord Allen. For particulars of the satire upon this individual, see "Advertis.e.m.e.nt by Swift in his defence against Joshua, Lord Allen," "Prose Works," vii, 168-175, and notes.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: This is the usual excuse of Traulus, when he abuses you to others without provocation.--_Swift_.]