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Title: On Reading Dr. Young's Satire, Called The Universal Passion
Author: Jonathan Swift [
More Titles by Swift]
1726
If there be truth in what you sing,
Such godlike virtues in the king;
A minister[1] so fill'd with zeal
And wisdom for the commonweal;
If he[2] who in the chair presides,
So steadily the senate guides;
If others, whom you make your theme,
Are seconds in the glorious scheme;
If every peer whom you commend,
To worth and learning be a friend;
If this be truth, as you attest,
What land was ever half so blest!
No falsehood now among the great,
And tradesmen now no longer cheat:
Now on the bench fair Justice shines;
Her scale to neither side inclines:
Now Pride and Cruelty are flown,
And Mercy here exalts her throne;
For such is good example's power,
It does its office every hour,
Where governors are good and wise;
Or else the truest maxim lies:
For so we find all ancient sages
Decree, that, _ad exemplum regis_,
Through all the realm his virtues run,
Ripening and kindling like the sun.
If this be true, then how much more
When you have named at least a score
Of courtiers, each in their degree,
If possible, as good as he?
Or take it in a different view.
I ask (if what you say be true)
If you affirm the present age
Deserves your satire's keenest rage;
If that same universal passion
With every vice has fill'd the nation:
If virtue dares not venture down
A single step beneath the crown:
If clergymen, to show their wit,
Praise classics more than holy writ:
If bankrupts, when they are undone,
Into the senate-house can run,
And sell their votes at such a rate,
As will retrieve a lost estate:
If law be such a partial whore,
To spare the rich, and plague the poor:
If these be of all crimes the worst,
What land was ever half so curst?
[Footnote 1: Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford. Young's seventh satire is inscribed to him.--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 2: Sir Spencer Compton, then Speaker, afterwards Earl of Wilmington, to whom the eighth satire is dedicated. See vol. i, 219.--_W. E. B._]
[The end]
Jonathan Swift's poem: On Reading Dr. Young's Satire, Called The Universal Passion
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