When Wharton reign'd a Whig he was;
When Pembroke--that's dispute, Sir;
In Oxford's time, what Oxford pleased,
Non-con, or Jack, or Neuter.
This place he got by wit and rhime,
And many ways most odd,
And might a Bishop be in time,
Did he believe in God.
Look down, St. Patrick, look, we pray,
On thine own church and steeple;
Convert thy Dean on this great day,
Or else God help the people.
And now, whene'er his Deanship dies,
Upon his stone be graven,
A man of God here buried lies,
Who never thought of heaven.
It was by these lines that Smedley earned for himself a niche in "The
Dunciad." For Swift's retaliation, see the poems relating to Smedley at
the end of the first volume, and in volume ii, at p. 124, note.
This bitterness of spirit reached its height in "Gulliver's Travels,"
surely the severest of all satires upon humanity, and writ, as he tells
us, not to divert, but to vex the world; and ultimately, in the fierce
attack upon the Irish Parliament in the poem entitled "The Legion Club,"
dictated by his hatred of tyranny and oppression, and his consequent
passion for exhibiting human nature in its most degraded aspect.
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