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Some great misfortune to portend,
No enemy can match a friend.
With all the kindness they profess,
The merit of a lucky guess-

When daily how-d'ye's come of course,
And servants answer: "Worse and worse!".
Would please them better than to tell,
That, God be praised! the dean is well.
Then he, who prophesied the best,
Approves his foresight to the rest:
"You know I always feared the worst,
And often told you so at first."
He'd rather choose that I should die,
Than his prediction prove a lie.
Not one foretells I shall recover,
But all agree to give me over.

Behold the fatal day arrive!
How is the dean? he's just alive.
Now the departing prayer is read;
He hardly breathes. The dean is dead.
Before the passing-bell begun,

The news through half the town has run ;
"Oh! may we all for death prepare!
What has he left? and who's his heir?”
I know no more than what the news is;
'Tis all bequeathed to public uses.
"To public uses! there's a whim!
What had the public done for him?
Mere envy, avarice, and pride:
He gave it all-but first he died.
And had the dean in all the nation
No worthy friend, no poor relation?
So ready to do strangers good,
Forgetting his own flesh and blood!"

Now Grub Street wits are all employed;
With elegies the town is cloyed:
Some paragraph in every paper
To curse the dean or bless the Drapier.
The doctors, tender of their fame,
Wisely on me lay all the blame:
"We must confess his case was nice;
But he would never take advice.

Had he been ruled, for aught appears,

He might have lived these twenty years;
From Dublin soon to London spread,
'Tis told at court the dean is dead.
And Lady Suffolk in the spleen
Runs laughing up to tell the queen;
The queen so gracious, mild, and good,
Cries: "Is he gone! 'tis time he should.
He's dead, you say; then let him rot!
I'm glad the medals were forgot.
I promised him, I own; but when?
I only was the princess then;
But now as consort of the king,
You know 'tis quite another thing."
Now Charteris, at Sir Robert's levee,
Tells with a sneer the tidings heavy;
Why, if he died without his shoes
(Cries Bob), I'm sorry for the news:
Oh, were the wretch but living still,
And in his place my good friend Will!
Or had a mitre on his head,
Provided Bolingbroke was dead!"

Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains:
Three genuine tomes of Swift's Remains!
And then to make them pass the glibber,
Revised by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber.
He'll treat me as he does my betters,
Publish my will, my life, my letters;
Revive the libels born to die,
Which Pope must bear, as well as I.

Here shift the scene, to represent

How those I love, my death lament.
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day.
St John himself will scarce forbear
To bite his pen, and drop a tear.
The rest will give a shrug, and cry:
"I'm sorry-but we all must die!"

Why do we grieve that friends should die?
No loss more easy to supply.
One year is past; a different scene!
No further mention of the dean,
Who now, alas! no more is missed,
Than if he never did exist.

Where's now the favourite of Apollo?
Departed: and his works must follow;
Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.

Some country squire to Lintot goes,
Inquires for Swift in verse and prose.
Says Lintot: "I have heard the name;
He died a year ago."
"The same."

He searches all the shop in vain.

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Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane.
I sent them, with a load of books,
Last Monday to the pastry-cook's.
To fancy they could live a year!
I find you're but a stranger here.
The dean was famous in his time,
And had a kind of knack at rhyme.
His way of writing now is past;
The town has got a better taste.
I keep no antiquated stuff."

Joseph Addison.

Born 1672.

Died 1719.

ADDISON, famous both as a prose and poetical writer, was the son of the Dean of Litchfield, and born at Milston, Wiltshire, on the 1st May 1672. He was entered at Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of fifteen, and soon distinguished himself by his classical knowledge. In 1695 a complimentary poem, written by him on one of King William's campaigns, obtained for him a pension of L.300 a-year to enable him to travel. He resided abroad for two years, where he wrote his "Poetical Letter from Italy" to Lord Halifax. In 1704 he was appointed under secretary of state, and accompanied the Marquis of Wharton, the lord lieutenant, to Ireland. While there he contributed largely to the "Tatler," which had just been started by Steele. His career as an essayist threw all his contemporaries into the shade, and his papers in the Spectator" were read wherever English literature existed. In 1713 appeared his "Tragedy of Cato." On this his chief fame as a poet rests; it met with immense popularity, and was translated into many foreign languages. Addison is also the author of some of our finest hymns. In 1716 he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick, by whom he had one daughter. The marriage was far from being a happy one. A year after he was appointed secretary of state, but not finding the situation suited to his talents, he retired into private life with a pension of L.1500 a year. In his retirement he was ever busy with the pen, and wrote many pieces of sacred poetry. Addison died at Holland House, on the 17th June 1719, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

LETTER FROM ITALY.

FOR wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise;
Poetic fields encompass me around,

And still I seem to tread on classic ground;
For here the muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung;
Renowned in verse each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.
See how the golden groves around me smile,
That shun the coast of Britain's stormy isle;
Or when transplanted and preserved with care,
Curse the cold clime, and starve in northern air.
Here kindly warmth their mounting juice ferments
To nobler tastes, and more exalted scents;
Even the rough rocks with tender myrtle bloom,
And trodden weeds send out a rich perfume.
Bear me, some god, to Baia's gentle seats,
Or cover me in Umbria's green retreats;
Where western gales eternally reside,
And all the seasons lavish all their pride;
Blossoms, and fruits, and flowers together rise,
And the whole year in gay confusion lies.
How has kind heaven adorned the happy land,
And scattered blessings with a wasteful hand!
But what avail her unexhausted stores,

Her blooming mountains, and her sunny shores,
With all the gifts that heaven and earth impart,
The smiles of nature, and the charms of art,
While proud oppression in her valleys reigns,
And tyranny usurps her happy plains?
The poor inhabitant beholds in vain

The redd'ning orange, and the swelling grain:
Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines,
And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines:
Starves in the midst of nature's bounty curst,
And in the loaded vineyard dies for thirst.

O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright,
Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight!
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign,
And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train;

Eased of her load, subjection grows more light,
And poverty looks cheerful in thy sight;
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day.
Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores;
How has she oft exhausted all her stores,
How oft in fields of death thy presence sought,
Nor thinks the mighty prize too dearly bought!
On foreign mountains may the sun refine
The grape's soft juice, and mellow it to wine;
With citron groves adorn a distant soil,
And the fat olive swell with floods of oil:
We envy not the warmer clime, that lies
In ten degrees of more indulgent skies;
Nor at the coarseness of our heaven repine,
Though o'er our heads the frozen Pleiads shine:

'Tis liberty that crowns Britannia's isle,

And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

BUT now the trumpet terrible from far
In shriller clangours animates the war;
Confed'rate drums in fuller concert beat,
And echoing hills the loud alarm repeat:
Gallia's proud standards to Bavaria's joined,
Unfurl their gilded lilies in the wind;
The daring prince his blasted hopes renews,
And while the thick embattled host he views
Stretched out in deep array, and dreadful length,
His heart dilates, and glories in his strength.
The fatal day its mighty course began,

That the grieved world had long desired in vain ;
States that their new captivity bemoaned,
Armies of martyrs that in exile groaned,
Sighs from the depth of gloomy dungeon heard,
And prayers in bitterness of soul preferred ;
Europe's loud cries, that Providence assailed,
And Anna's ardent vows, at length prevailed;
The day was come when Heav'n designed to show
His care and conduct of the world below.

Behold, in awful march and dread array
The long extended squadrons shape their way!

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