ON THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT.
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As vile and profligate a villain,
As modern Scroggs[1], or old Tresilian[2];
Who long all justice had discarded,
Nor fear'd he God, nor man regarded;
Vow'd on the dean his rage to vent,
And make him of his zeal repent:
But Heaven his innocence defends,
The grateful people stand his friends;
Not strains of law, nor judge's frown,
Nor topicks brought to please the crown,
Nor witness hir'd, nor jury pick'd,
Prevail to bring him in convict.
"In exile[3], with a steady heart,
He spent his life's declining part;
- ↑ Sir William Scroggs, chief justice of the king's bench in the reign of king Charles the Second, was a man of low birth, and raised himself as much by means of his debaucheries, as of his abilities in his profession. He was preferred for professing loyalty; but, Oates's plot coming forward, he exerted himself very much on the side of that informer, though he afterward changed again, and was equally violent against him. For some dirty jobs, which he did to oblige the court, he was impeached in parliament; but the matter never was proceeded upon. While at the bar, he was always necessitous; but, during his preferment, he took care to secure a good fortune for himself, having in that period purchased the manor of Brentwood, in Essex. He afterward died, in Essex street, of a polypus in his heart.
- ↑ Sir Robert Tresilian was chief justice of England in the time of Richard the Second. He was adviser of many illegal acts in that reign, for which he was impeached, with several other judges and some noblemen, in parliament. Being convicted of the offences he was charged with, he was executed, Feb. 19, 1388.
- ↑ In Ireland, which he had reason to call a place of exile: to which country nothing could have driven him but the queen's death, who had determined to fix him in England, in spite of the duchess of Somerset, &c.
"Where
