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If I forsake thee

Juba.
Whilst I have life, may heaven abandon Juba!
Cato. Thy virtues, prince, if I foresee aright,
Will one day make thee great; at Rome, hereafter,
"Twill be no crime to have been Cato's friend.
Portius, draw near! My son, thou oft has seen
Thy sire engaged in a corrupted state,
Wrestling with vice and faction: now thou seest me
Spent, overpower'd, despairing of success:
Let me advise thee to retreat betimes
To thy paternal seat, the Sabine field,
Where the great Censor toiled with his own hands,
And all our frugal ancestors were blest
In humble virtues and a rural life.

There live retired; pray for the peace of Rome;
Content thyself to be obscurely good.

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.

Portius. I hope my father does not recommend
A life to Portius that he scorns himself.

Cato. Farewell, my friends! if there be any of you
Who dare not trust the victor's clemency,
Know, there are ships prepared by my command
(Their sails already opening to the winds)
That shall convey you to the wish'd-for port.
Is there aught else, my friends, I can do for you?
The conqueror draws near. Once more farewell!
If e'er we meet hereafter, we shall meet

In happier climes, and on a safer shore,
Where Cæsar never shall approach us more.

[Pointing to his dead son. There the brave youth, with love of virtue fired, Who greatly in his country's cause expired, Shall know he conquer'd. The firm patriot there (Who made the welfare of mankind his care), Though still, by faction, vice, and fortune crost, Shall find the generous labour was not lost.

Act V.-Scene I.

[CATO, alone, sitting in a thoughtful posture: in his hand PLATO's book on the Immortality of the Soul. A drawn sword on the table by him.]

It must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well!-
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
"Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass
The wide, th' unbounded prospect, lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a power above us,
(And that there is, all nature cries aloud
Through all her works), he must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in must be happy.
But when or where? This world was made for
Cæsar.

I'm weary of conjectures. This must end them.
[Laying his hand on his sword.
Thus am I doubly arm'd: my death and life,
My bane and antidote are both before me:
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

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which he was early familiar, seem to have sunk deep in his haughty soul. Born a posthumous child,' says Sir Walter Scott, and bred up an object of charity, he early adopted the custom of observing his birth-day as a term, not of joy, but of sorrow, and of reading, when it annually recurred, the striking passage of Scripture in which Job laments and execrates the day upon which it was said in his father's house "that a man-child was born." Swift was sent to Trinity college, Dublin, which he left in his twenty-first year, and was received into the house of Sir William Temple, a distant relation of his mother. Here Swift met King William, and indulged hopes of preferment, which were never realised. In 1692 he repaired to Oxford, for the purpose of taking his degree of M.A., and shortly after obtaining this distinction he resolved to quit the establishment of Temple and take orders in the Irish church. He procured the prebend of Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, but was soon disgusted with the life of an obscure country clergyman with an income of £100 a-year. He returned to Moorpark, the house of Sir William Temple, and threw up his living at Kilroot. Temple died in 1699, and the poet was glad to accompany Lord Berkeley to Ireland in the capacity of chaplain. From this nobleman he obtained the rectory of Aghar, and the vicarages of Laracor and Rathveggan; to which

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was afterwards added the prebend of Dunlavin, making his income only about £200 per annum. At Moorpark, Swift had contracted an intimacy with Miss Hester Johnson, daughter of Sir William Temple's steward, and, on his settlement in Ireland, this lady, accompanied by another female of middle age, went to reside in his neighbourhood. Her future life was intimately connected with that of Swift, and he has immortalised her under the name of Stella.

But books, and time, and state affairs, Had spoiled his fashionable airs; He now could praise, esteem, approve, But understood not what was love: His conduct might have made him styled A father, and the nymph his child. That innocent delight he took To see the virgin mind her book, Was but the master's secret joy In school to hear the finest boy. The tragedy continued to deepen as it approached the close. Eight years had Vanessa nursed in solitude the hopeless attachment. At length she wrote to Stella, to ascertain the nature of the connexion between her and Swift; the latter obtained the fatal sidence of the unhappy Vanessa. 'As he entered the apartment,' to adopt the picturesque language of Scott in recording the scene, the sternness of his countenance, which was peculiarly formed to express the stronger passions, struck the unfortunate Vanessa with such terror, that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table; and instantly leaving the house, mounted his horse, and returned to Dublin. When Vanessa opened the packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death-warrant. She sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed yet cherished hopes which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last interview is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks.'*

In 1701, Swift became a political writer on the side of the Whigs, and on his visits to England, he associated with Addison, Steele, and Arbuthnot. In 1710, conceiving that he was neglected by the ministry, he quarrelled with the Whigs, and united with Harley and the Tory administration. He was re-letter, and rode instantly to Marley abbey, the received with open arms. I stand with the new people,' he writes to Stella, ten times better than ever I did with the old, and forty times more caressed.' He carried with him shining weapons for party warfare - irresistible and unscrupulous satire, steady hate, and a dauntless spirit. From his new allies, he received, in 1713, the deanery of St Patrick's. During his residence in England, he had engaged the affections of another young lady, Esther Vanhomrigh, who, under the name of Vanessa, rivalled Stella in poetical celebrity, and in personal misfortune. After the death of her father, this young lady and her sister retired to Ireland, where their father had left a small property near Dublin. Human nature has, perhaps, never before or since presented the spectacle of a man of such transcendent powers as Swift involved in such a pitiable labyrinth of the affections. His pride or ambition led him to postpone indefinitely his marriage with Stella, to whom he was early attached. Though, he said, he loved her better than his life a thousand millions of times,' he kept her hanging on in a state of hope deferred, injurious alike to her peace and her reputation. Did he fear the scorn and laughter of the world, if he should marry the obscure daughter of Sir William Temple's steward? He dared not afterwards, with manly sincerity, declare his situation to Vanessa, when this second victim avowed her passion. He was flattered that a girl of eighteen, of beauty and accomplishments, sighed for a gown of forty-four,' and he did not stop to weigh the consequences. The removal of Vanessa to Ireland, as Stella had gone before, to be near the presence of Swift-her irrepressible passion, which no coldness or neglect could extinguish-her life of deep seclusion, only chequered by the occasional visits of Swift, each of which she commemorated by planting with her own hand a laurel in the garden where they met - - her agonizing remonstrances, when all her devotion and her offerings had failed, are touching beyond expression.

'The reason I write to you,' she says, is because I cannot tell it to you, should I see you. For when I begin to complain, then you are angry; and there is something in your looks so awful, that it strikes me dumb. O! that you may have but so much regard for me left, that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little as ever I can. Did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move you to forgive me, and believe that I cannot help telling you this, and live.'

To a being thus agitated and engrossed with the strongest passion, how poor, how cruel, must have seemed the return of Swift!

Cadenus, common forms apart,

In every scene had kept his heart;

Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ,
For pastime, or to show his wit;

Even Stella, though ultimately united to Swift, dropped into the grave without any public recognition of the tie; they were married in secrecy in the garden of the deanery, when on her part all but life had faded away. The fair sufferers were deeply avenged. But let us adopt the only charitableperhaps the just-interpretation of Swift's conduct; the malady which at length overwhelmed his reason might then have been lurking in his frame; the heart might have felt its ravages before the intellect. A comparison of dates proves that it was some years before Vanessa's death that the scene occurred which has been related by Young, the author of the Night Thoughts.' Swift was walking with some friends in the neighbourhood of Dublin. Perceiving he did not follow us,' says Young, ‘I

* The talents of Vanessa may be seen from her letters to
Swift. They are further evinced in the following Ode to
Spring, in which she alludes to her unhappy attachment:—
Hail, blushing goddess, beauteous Spring!
Who in thy jocund train dost bring
Loves and graces smiling hours-
Balmy breezes-fragrant flowers;
Come, with tints of roseate hue,
Nature's faded charms renew!

Yet why should I thy presence bail?
To me no more the breathing gale
Comes fraught with sweets, no more the rose
With such transcendent beauty blows,
As when Cadenus blest the scene,
And shared with me those joys serene.
When, unperceived, the lambent fire
Of friendship kindled new desire;
Still listening to his tuneful tongue,
The truths which angels might have sung,
Divine imprest their gentle sway,
And sweetly stole my soul away.
My guide, instructor, lover, friend,
Dear names, in one idea blend;
Oh! still conjoined, your incense rise,
And waft sweet odours to the skies!

went back, and found him fixed as a statue, and
earnestly gazing upward at a noble elm, which in
its uppermost branches was much decayed. Point-
ing at it, he said, "I shall be like that tree; I shall
die at the top." The same presentiment finds ex-
pression in his exquisite imitation of Horace (book
ii. satire 6.), made in conjunction with Pope:-

I've often wished that I had clear
For life six hundred pounds a-year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace-walk, and half a rood

Of land, set out to plant a wood.

Well, now I have all this and more,

I ask not to increase my store;

But here a grievance seems to lie,

All this is mine but till I die;

I can't but think 'twould sound more clever,
To me and to my heirs for ever.

If I ne'er got or lost a groat

By any trick or any fault;
And if I pray by reason's rules,
And not like forty other fools,

As thus, Vouchsafe, oh gracious Maker!
To grant me this and 'tother acre;
Or if it be thy will and pleasure,
Direct my plough to find a treasure!'
But only what my station fits,
And to be kept in my right wits;
Preserve, Almighty Providence!
Just what you gave me, competence,
And let me in these shades compose
Something in verse as true as prose.

Swift was at first disliked in Ireland, but the

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Tomb of Swift in Dublin cathedral.

pict its absurdities. In his too faithful representations, there is much to condemn and much to admire. Who has not felt the truth and humour of his City Shower, and his description of Morning? Or the liveliness of his Grand Question Debated, in which the knight, his lady, and the chambermaid, are so admirably drawn? His most ambitious flight is his Rhapsody on Poetry, and even this is pitched in a pretty low key. Its best lines are easily remembered:

Drapier's Letters and other works gave him un-content to lash the frivolities of the age, and to debounded popularity. His wish to serve Ireland was one of his ruling passions; yet it was something like the instinct of the inferior animals towards their offspring; waywardness, contempt, and abuse were strangely mingled with affectionate attachment and ardent zeal. Kisses and curses were alternately on his lips. Ireland, however, gave Swift her whole heart-he was more than king of the rabble. After various attacks of deafness and giddiness, his temper became ungovernable, and his reason gave way. Truly and beautifully has Scott said, the stage darkened ere the curtain fell.' Swift's almost total зilence during the last three years of his life (for the last year he spoke not a word) appals and overawes the imagination. He died on the 19th of October 1745, and was interred in St Patrick's cathedral, amidst the tears and prayers of his countrymen. His fortune, amounting to about £10,000, he left chiefly to found a lunatic asylum in Dublin, which he had long meditated.

He gave the little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad,
And showed, by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.

Gulliver's Travels and the Tale of a Tub must ever
be the chief corner-stones of Swift's fame. The
purity of his prose style renders it a model of Eng-
lish composition. He could wither with his irony
and invective; excite to mirth with his wit and in-
vention; transport as with wonder at his marvellous
powers of grotesque and ludicrous combination, his
knowledge of human nature (piercing quite through
the deeds of men), and his matchless power of feign-
ing reality, and assuming at pleasure different cha-
racters and situations in life. He is often disgust-
ingly coarse and gross in his style and subjects; but
his grossness is always repulsive, not seductive.

Swift's poetry is perfect, exactly as the old Dutch

Not empire to the rising sun,
By valour, conduct, fortune won;
Not highest wisdom in debates
For framing laws to govern states;
Not skill in sciences profound,
So large to grasp the circle round,
Such heavenly influence require,
As how to strike the Muses' lyre.
Not beggar's brat on bulk begot,
Not bastard of a pedler Scot,
Not boy brought up to cleaning shoes,
The spawn of Bridewell or the stews,
Not infants dropt, the spurious pledges
Of gipsies littering under hedges,
Are so disqualified by fate
To rise in church, or law, or state,
As he whom Phoebus in his ire

Hath blasted with poetic fire.

Swift's verses on his own death are the finest example of his peculiar poetical vein. He predicts what his friends will say of his illness, his death, and his reputation, varying the style and the topics to suit each of the parties. The versification is easy and flowing, with nothing but the most familiar and commonplace expressions. There are some little touches of homely pathos, which are felt like trickling tears, and the effect of the piece altogether is electrical: it carries with it the strongest conviction of its sincerity and truth; and we see and feel

(especially as years creep on) how faithful a depicter of human nature, in its frailty and weakness, was the misanthropic dean of St Patrick's.

[A Description of the Morning.]

Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach
Appearing showed the ruddy morn's approach.
The slipshod 'prentice from his master's door
Had pared the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirled her mop with dexterous airs,
Prepared to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel's edge, where wheels had worn the place.
The small-coal man was heard with cadence deep,
Till drown'd in shriller notes of chimney-sweep:
Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet;

Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprisoned hero quaked for fear.
Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filths of all hues and odours seem to tell
What street they sailed from by their sight and smell.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield or St 'Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluence joined at Snowhill ridge,
Fall from the conduit prone to Holborn Bridge.
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the
flood.

Baucis and Philemon.

And brick-dust Moll had screamed through half the [Imitated from the Eighth Book of Ovid.-Written about the

street.

The turnkey now his flock returning sees,

Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees;

The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands, And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.

[A Description of a City Shower.]

Careful observers may foretell the hour
(By sure prognostics) when to dread a shower.
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and pursues her tail no more.
Returning home at night, you'll find the sink
Strike your offended sense with double stink.
If you be wise, then go not far to dine;
You'll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage:
Sauntering in coffee-house is Dulman seen;
He damns the climate, and complains of spleen.
Meanwhile the south, rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swilled more liquor than it could contain,
And, like a drunkard, gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is borne aslope;
Such is that sprinkling, which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop-but not so clean:
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, stop
To rail; she, singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet the dust had shunned the unequal strife,
But, aided by the wind, fought still for life,
And wafted with its foe by violent gust,

'Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade?
Sole coat, where dust cemented by the rain
Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain !

Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's a-broach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tucked-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oiled umbrella's sides.
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant Tories and desponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Boxed in a chair the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
instead of paying chairmen, run them through),

year 1708.]

In ancient times, as story tells,

The saints would often leave their cells,
And stroll about, but hide their quality,
To try good people's hospitality.

It happened on a winter night
(As authors of the legend write),
Two brother hermits, saints by trade,
Taking their tour in masquerade,
Disguised in tattered habits, went
To a small village down in Kent;
Where, in the strollers' canting strain,
They begged from door to door in vain ;
Tried every tone might pity win,
But not a soul would let them in.

Our wandering saints in woful state,
Treated at this ungodly rate,
Having through all the village past,
To a small cottage came at last,
Where dwelt a good old honest yeoman,
Called in the neighbourhood Philemon,
Who kindly did the saints invite
In his poor hut to pass the night.
And then the hospitable sire

Bid Goody Baucis mend the fire,
While he from out the chimney took
A flitch of bacon off the hook,
And freely from the fattest side
Cut out large slices to be fried;
Then stepped aside to fetch them drink,
Filled a large jug up to the brink,
And saw it fairly twice go round;
Yet (what was wonderful) they found
'Twas still replenished to the top,
As if they ne'er had touched a drop.
The good old couple were amazed,
And often on each other gazed:
For both were frighted to the heart,
And just began to cry- What art?'
Then softly turned aside to view,
Whether the lights were burning blue.
The gentle pilgrims, soon aware on't,
Told them their calling and their errant:
Good folks, you need not be afraid,
We are but saints, the hermits said;
No hurt shall come to you or yours;
But, for that pack of churlish boors,
Not fit to live on Christian ground,
They and their houses shall be drowned:
While you shall see your cottage rise,
And grow a church before your eyes.

They scarce had spoke, when fair and soft,
The roof began to mount aloft;
Aloft rose every beam and rafter,
The heavy wall climbed slowly after.
The chimney widened, and grew higher,
Became a steeple with a spire.

The kettle to the top was hoist,
And there stood fastened to a joist;
But with the up-side down, to show
Its inclination for below:

In vain; for some superior force,
Applied at bottom, stops its course;
Doomed ever in suspense to dwell,
'Tis now no kettle, but a bell.

A wooden jack, which had almost
Lost by disuse the art to roast,
A sudden alteration feels,
Increased by new intestine wheels:
And, what exalts the wonder more,
The number made the motion slower;
The fiier, which, thought 't had leaden feet,
Turned round so quick, you scarce could see't.
Now, slackened by some secret power,
Can hardly move an inch an hour.
The jack and chimney, near allied,
Had never left each other's side:
The chimney to a steeple grown,
The jack would not be left alone;
But, up against the steeple reared,
Became a clock, and still adhered:
And still its love to household cares,
By a shrill voice at noon, declares;
Warning the cook-maid not to burn
That roast meat, which it cannot turn.
The groaning chair was seen to crawl,
Like a huge snail, half up the wall;
There stuck aloft in public view,
And, with small change, a pulpit grew.
The porringers, that in a row
Hung high, and made a glittering show,
To a less noble substance changed,
Were now but leathern buckets ranged.
The ballads pasted on the wall,
Of Joan of France, and English Moll,
Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood,
The Little Children in the Wood,
Now seemed to look abundance better,
Improved in picture, size, and letter;
And high in order placed, describe
The heraldry of every tribe.

A bedstead of the antique mode,
Compact of timber many a load;
Such as our grandsires wont to use,
Was metamorphosed into pews;
Which still their ancient nature keep,
By lodging folks disposed to sleep.

The cottage, by such feats as these,
Grown to a church by just degrees;
The hermits then desire their host
To ask for what he fancied most.
Philemon, having paused a while,
Returned them thanks in homely style;
Then said, my house is grown so fine,
Methinks I still would call it mine:
I'm old, and fain would live at ease;
Make me the parson, if you please.
He spoke, and presently he feels
His grazier's coat fall down his heels:
He sees, yet hardly can believe,
About each arm a pudding sleeve:
His waistcoat to a cassock grew,
And both assumed a sable hue;
But being old, continued just
As threadbare and as full of dust.
His talk was now of tithes and dues;
Could smoke his pipe, and read the news:
Knew how to preach old sermons next,
Vamped in the preface and the text:
At christenings well could act his part,
And had the service all by heart:
Wished women might have children fast,
And thought whose sow had farrowed last:

Against dissenters would repine,

And stood up firm for right divine :
Found his head filled with many a system,
But classic authors-he ne'er missed them.
Thus having furbished up a parson,

Dame Baucis next they played their farce on:
Instead of home-spun coifs, were seen
Good pinners, edged with Colberteen:
Her petticoat, transformed apace,
Became black satin flounced with lace.
Plain Goody would no longer down;
'Twas Madam, in her grogram gown.
Philemon was in great surprise,
And hardly could believe his eyes:
Amazed to see her look so prim;
And she admired as much at him.

Thus, happy in their change of life,
Were several years the man and wife:
When on a day, which proved their last,
Discoursing o'er old stories past,

They went by chance, amidst their talk,
To the churchyard to fetch a walk;
When Baucis hastily cried out,

My dear, I see your forehead sprout!
Sprout, quoth the man, what's this you tell us!

I hope you don't believe me jealous?
But yet, methinks, I feel it true;
And really yours is budding too-
Nay now I cannot stir my foot;
It feels as if 'twere taking root.

Description would but tire my Muse;
In short, they both were turned to yews.
Old Goodman Dobson, of the green,
Remembers he the trees hath seen;
He'll talk of them from noon to night,
And goes with folks to show the sight;
On Sundays, after evening prayer,
He gathers all the parish there;
Points out the place of either yew,
Here Baucis, there Philemon grew.
'Till once a parson of our town,
To mend his barn, cut Baucis down;
At which, 'tis hard to be believed,
How much the other tree was grieved;
Grew scrubby, died a-top, was stunted;
So the next parson stubbed and burnt it.

[Verses on his own Death.]

As Rochefoucault his maxims drew
From nature, I believe them true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.

This maxim more than all the rest
Is thought too base for human breast:
"In all distresses of our friends
We first consult our private ends;
While nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us.'
If this perhaps your patience move,
Let reason and experience prove.

We all behold with envious eyes
Our equal raised above our size.
I love my friend as well as you;
But why should he obstruct my view?
Then let me have the higher post;
Suppose it but an inch at most.
If in a battle you should find
One whom you love of all mankind,
Had some heroic action done,
A champion killed, or trophy won;
Rather than thus be overtopt,
Would you not wish his laurels cropt?
Dear honest Ned is in the gout,

Lies racked with pain, and you without:

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