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SWIFT’S POEMS
When ev'n his own familiar friends,
Intent upon their private ends,
Like renegadoes now he feels,
Against him lifting up their heels.
"The dean did, by his pen, defeat
An infamous destructive cheat[1];
Taught fools their interest how to know,
And gave them arms to ward the blow.
Envy has own'd it was his doing,
To save that hapless land from ruin;
While they who at the steerage stood,
And reap'd the profit, sought his blood.
"To save them from their evil fate,
In him was held a crime of state.
A wicked monster on the bench[2],
Whose fury blood could never quench;
- ↑ Wood, a hardwareman from England, had a patent for coining copper halfpence for Ireland, to the sum of 108000l. which, in the consequence, must have left that kingdom without gold or silver.
- ↑ Whitshed was then chief justice. He had some years before prosecuted a printer for a pamphlet written by the dean, to persuade the people of Ireland to wear their own manufactures. Whitshed sent the jury down eleven times, and kept them nine hours, until they were forced to bring in a special verdict. He sat afterward on the trial of the printer of the Drapier's fourth letter; but the jury, against all he could say or swear, threw out the bill. All the kingdom took the Drapier's part, except the courtiers, or those who expected places. Whitshed died August 26, 1727, (having a few months before exchanged his place in the king's bench, which he had held ten or twelve years, for the same office in the common pleas): and archbishop Boulter says, his uneasiness upon some affronts he met with helped to shorten his days. These affronts were certainly the satires of the dean and his friends.
"As
