I ’VE often wish’d 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 | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| I can’t but think ’t would 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, | 15 |
| And not like forty other fools, | |
| As thus: ‘Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker! | |
| To grant me this and t’ other acre; | |
| Or, if it be thy will and pleasure, | |
| Direct my plough to find a treasure; | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| Something in verse as true as prose, | |
| Remov’d from all th’ ambitious scene, | |
| Nor puff’d by Pride, nor sunk by Spleen.’ | |
| In short, I ’m perfectly content, | |
| Let me but live on this side Trent, | 30 |
| Nor cross the channel twice a year, | |
| To spend six months with statesmen here. | |
| I must by all means come to town, | |
| T is for the service of the Crown; | |
| ‘Lewis, the Dean will be of use; | 35 |
| Send for him up; take no excuse.’ | |
| The toil, the danger of the seas, | |
| Great ministers ne’er think of these; | |
| Or, let it cost five hundred pound, | |
| No matter where the money ’s found; | 40 |
| It is but so much more in debt, | |
| And that they ne’er consider’d yet. | |
| ‘Good Mr. Dean, go change your gown, | |
| Let my Lord know you ’re come to town.’ | |
| I hurry me in haste away, | 45 |
| Not thinking it is Levee day, | |
| And find His Honour in a pound, | |
| Hemm’d by a triple circle round, | |
| Chequer’d with ribbons blue and green: | |
| How should I thrust myself between? | 50 |
| Some wag observes me thus perplex’d, | |
| And smiling, whispers to the next, | |
| ‘I thought the Dean had been too proud | |
| To jostle here among a crowd.’ | |
| Another, in a surly fit, | 55 |
| Tells me I have more zeal than wit; | |
| ‘So eager to express your love, | |
| You ne’er consider whom you shove, | |
| But rudely press before a Duke.’ | |
| I own I ’m pleas’d with this rebuke, | 60 |
| And take it kindly meant, to show | |
| What I desire the world should know. | |
| I get a whisper, and withdraw; | |
| When twenty fools I never saw | |
| Come with petitions fairly penn’d, | 65 |
| Desiring I would stand their friend. | |
| This humbly offers me his Case— | |
| That begs my int’rest for a Place— | |
| A hundred other men’s affairs, | |
| Like bees, are humming in my ears; | 70 |
| ‘To-morrow my appeal comes on, | |
| Without your help the cause is gone.’ | |
| ‘The Duke expects my Lord and you | |
| About some great affair at two.’ | |
| ‘Put my Lord Bolingbroke in mind | 75 |
| To get my warrant quickly sign’d: | |
| Consider, ’t is my first request.’— | |
| ‘Be satisfied, I ’ll do my best:’— | |
| Then presently he falls to tease, | |
| ‘You may be certain, if you please; | 80 |
| I doubt not, if his Lordship knew— | |
| And, Mr. Dean, one word from you.’— | |
| ’T is (let me see) three years and more | |
| (October next it will be four) | |
| Since Harley bid me first attend, | 85 |
| And chose me for an humble friend: | |
| Would take me in his coach to chat, | |
| And question me of this and that; | |
| As, ‘What ’s o’clock?’ and, ‘How ’s the wind?’ | |
| ‘Whose chariot ’s that we left behind?’ | 90 |
| Or gravely try to read the lines | |
| Writ underneath the country signs; | |
| Or, ‘Have you nothing new to-day | |
| From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?’ | |
| Such tattle often entertains | 95 |
| My Lord and me as far as Staines, | |
| As once a week we travel down | |
| To Windsor, and again to town, | |
| Where all that passes inter nos | |
| Might be proclaim’d at Charing-cross. | 100 |
| Yet some I know with envy swell | |
| Because they see me used so well. | |
| ‘How think you of our friend the Dean? | |
| I wonder what some people mean; | |
| My lord and he are grown so great, | 105 |
| Always together tête-à-tête. | |
| What! they admire him for his jokes— | |
| See but the fortune of some folks!’ | |
| There flies about a strange report | |
| Of some express arrived at Court; | 110 |
| I ’m stopp’d by all the fools I meet, | |
| And catechised in every street. | |
| ‘You, Mr. Dean, frequent the Great: | |
| Inform us, will the Emp’ror treat? | |
| Or do the prints and papers lie?’ | 115 |
| ‘Faith, Sir, you know as much as I.’ | |
| ‘Ah, Doctor, how you love to jest! | |
| ’T is now no secret.’—‘I protest | |
| ’T is one to me.’—‘Then tell us, pray, | |
| When are the troops to have their pay?’ | 120 |
| And tho’ I solemnly declare | |
| I know no more than my Lord Mayor, | |
| They stand amazed, and think me grown | |
| The closest mortal ever known. | |
| Thus in a sea of folly tost, | 125 |
| My choicest hours of life are lost; | |
| Yet always wishing to retreat: | |
| O, could I see my country-seat! | |
| There leaning near a gentle brook, | |
| Sleep, or peruse some ancient book, | 130 |
| And there, in sweet oblivion drown | |
| Those cares that haunt the Court and town. | |
| O charming Noons! and Nights divine! | |
| Or when I sup, or when I dine, | |
| My friends above, my folks below, | 135 |
| Chatting and laughing all-a-row, | |
| The beans and bacon set before ’em, | |
| The grace-cup served with all decorum; | |
| Each willing to be pleas’d, and please, | |
| And ev’n the very dogs at ease! | 140 |
| Here no man prates of idle things, | |
| How this or that Italian sings, | |
| A Neighbour’s madness, or his Spouse’s, | |
| Or what ’s in either of the Houses; | |
| But something much more our concern, | 145 |
| And quite a scandal not to learn; | |
| Which is the happier or the wiser, | |
| A man of merit, or a miser? | |
| Whether we ought to choose our friends | |
| For their own worth or our own ends? | 150 |
| What good, or better, we may call, | |
| And what the very best of all? | |
| Our friend Dan Prior told (you know) | |
| A tale extremely à-propos: | |
| Name a town life, and in a trice | 155 |
| He had a story of two mice. | |
| Once on a time (so runs the Fable) | |
| A Country Mouse right hospitable, | |
| Received a Town Mouse at his board, | |
| Just as a farmer might a Lord. | 160 |
| A frugal mouse, upon the whole, | |
| Yet lov’d his friend, and had a soul; | |
| Knew what was handsome, and would do ’t, | |
| On just occasion, coûte qui coûte. | |
| He brought him bacon (nothing lean), | 165 |
| Pudding that might have pleas’d a Dean; | |
| Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make, | |
| But wish’d it Stilton for his sake; | |
| Yet, to his guest tho’ no way sparing, | |
| He ate himself the rind and paring. | 170 |
| Our Courtier scarce could touch a bit, | |
| But show’d his breeding and his wit; | |
| He did his best to seem to eat, | |
| And cried, ‘I vow you ’re mighty neat: | |
| But lord, my friend, this savage scene! | 175 |
| For God’s sake come and live with men; | |
| Consider, mice, like men, must die, | |
| Both small and great, both you and I; | |
| Then spend your life in joy and sport, | |
| (This doctrine, friend, I learn’d at court).’ | 180 |
| The veriest hermit in the nation | |
| May yield, God knows, to strong temptation. | |
| Away they came, thro’ thick and thin, | |
| To a tall house near Lincoln’s-Inn | |
| (’T was on the night of a debate, | 185 |
| When all their Lordships had sat late). | |
| Behold the place where if a poet | |
| Shined in description he might show it; | |
| Tell how the moonbeam trembling falls, | |
| And tips with silver all the walls; | 190 |
| Palladian walls, Venetian doors, | |
| Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors: | |
| But let it (in a word) be said, | |
| The moon was up, and men a-bed, | |
| The napkins white, the carpet red: | 195 |
| The guests withdrawn had left the treat, | |
| And down the Mice sat tête-à-tête. | |
| Our Courtier walks from dish to dish, | |
| Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish; | |
| Tells all their names, lays down the law, | 200 |
| ‘Que ça est bon! Ah, goutez ça! | |
| That Jelly ’s rich, this Malmsey healing, | |
| Pray, dip your whiskers and your tail in.’ | |
| Was ever such a happy swain! | |
| He stuffs and swills, and stuffs again. | 205 |
| ‘I ’m quite ashamed—’t is mighty rude | |
| To eat so much—but all ’s so good— | |
| I have a thousand thanks to give— | |
| My Lord alone knows how to live.’ | |
| No sooner said, but from the hall | 210 |
| Rush chaplain, butler, dogs, and all: | |
| ‘A rat, a rat! clap to the door’— | |
| The cat comes bouncing on the floor. | |
| O for the art of Homer’s mice, | |
| Or gods to save them in a trice! | 215 |
| (It was by Providence, they think, | |
| For your damn’d stucco has no chink!) | |
| ‘An ’t please Your Honour,’ quoth the peasant, | |
| ‘This same dessert is not so pleasant: | |
| Give me again my hollow tree, | 220 |
| A crust of bread and Liberty!’ | |
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