Epigram On The Busts In Richmond Hermitage

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Title:     Epigram On The Busts In Richmond Hermitage
Author: Jonathan Swift [More Titles by Swift]

Epigram On the Busts[1] in Richmond Hermitage. 1732

"Sic siti laetantur docti."

With honour thus by Carolina placed,
How are these venerable bustoes graced!
O queen, with more than regal title crown'd,
For love of arts and piety renown'd!
How do the friends of virtue joy to see
Her darling sons exalted thus by thee!
Nought to their fame can now be added more,
Revered by her whom all mankind adore.[2]

[Footnote 1: Newton, Locke, Clarke, and Woolaston.]

[Footnote 2: Queen Caroline's regard for learned men was chiefly directed to those who had signalized themselves by philosophical research. Horace Walpole alludes to this her peculiar taste, in his fable called the "Funeral of the Lioness," where the royal shade is made to say:

"... where Elysian waters glide,
With Clarke and Newton by my side,
Purrs o'er the metaphysic page,
Or ponders the prophetic rage
Of Merlin, who mysterious sings
Of men and lions, beasts and kings."
_Lord Orford's Works_, iv, 379.--_W. E. B._]

 

Another

Louis the living learned fed,
And raised the scientific head;
Our frugal queen, to save her meat,
Exalts the heads that cannot eat.

 

A Conclusion

DRAWN FROM THE ABOVE EPIGRAMS, AND SENT TO THE DRAPIER

Since Anna, whose bounty thy merits had fed,
Ere her own was laid low, had exalted thy head:
And since our good queen to the wise is so just,
To raise heads for such as are humbled in dust,
I wonder, good man, that you are not envaulted;
Prithee go, and be dead, and be doubly exalted.

 

Dr. Swift's Answer

Her majesty never shall be my exalter;
And yet she would raise me, I know, by a halter!

[The end]
Jonathan Swift's poem: Epigram On The Busts In Richmond Hermitage

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