Orabant hodie meminiffes, Quinte, reverti. "Put my Lord Bolingbroke in mind, 66 And, Mr. Dean, one word from you". 'Tis (let me fee) three years and more, (October next it will be four) Since HARLEY bid me firft attend, And chose me for an humble friend; 75 80 85 Would NOTES. VER. 82. And, Mr. Dean,] Very happily turned from Si vis potes VER. 85. Since Harley bid me] The rife and progrefs of Swift's intimacy with Lord Oxford is minutely detailed in his very interest. ing Journal to Stella. And the reasons why a man, that served a ministry so effectually, was fo tardily, and fo difficultly, and fo poorly rewarded, are well explained in Sheridan's Life of Swift, and arofe principally from the infuperable averfion the Queen had conceived to the Author of a Tale of a Tub as a profane book; which averfion was kept alive, and encreased by the Dutchess of Somerset, against whom Swift had written a fevere lampoon. It appears from this life that Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke always kept concealed from Swift their inability to ferve him. One of the most common artifices of minifters and great men is to retain in their fervice those whom they cannot reward, and "Spe pafcere inani ;"—for year after year. With whatever fecrets Swift might have been trufted, it does not appear he knew any thing of a defign to bring in the Pretender. Swift was a true Whig. His political principles are amply unfolded in an excellent letter written to Pope, Jan. 20, 1721, in the ninth volume of this edition and indeed they had been fufficiently difplayed, many years before, in The Sentiments of a Church of England Man; a treatise replete with ftrong fenfe, found principles, and clear reasoning. In numero: duntaxat ad hoc, quem tollere rheda par. Matutina parum cautos jam frigora mordent: Per totum hoc tempus, fubjectior in diem et horam Luferit in campo: Fortunae filius, omnes. Would take me in his Coach to chat, And question me of this and that; 90 As, "What's o'clock?" And, "How's the Wind?" "Who's Chariot's that we left behind?" Or gravely try to read the lines Writ underneath the Country Signs; Or," Have you nothing new to-day "From Pope, from Parnel, or from Gay?" Such tattle often entertains My Lord and me as far as Stains, "C great, My Lord and he are grown fo "Always together, tête à tête, with a witnefs. 95 "What, NOTES. VER. 91. Or gravely try to read the lines] Another of their amufements in these excurfions confifted in Lord Oxford and Swift's counting the poultry on the road, and which ever reckoned thirtyone first, or faw a cat, or an old woman, won the game. Bolingbroke overtaking them one day in their road to Windfor, got into Lord Oxford's coach, and begun fome political converfation; Lord Oxford faid, "Swift, I am up; there is a cat." Boling. broke was difgufted with this levity, and went again into his own carriage. This was Nugari et difcinéti ludere" 100 105 Frigidus a Roftris manat per compita rumor: Perditur haec inter mifero lux; non fine votis, |
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