The thresher Duck could o’er the Queen prevail: The proverb says, “No fence against a flail,” From threshing corn he turns to thresh his brains For which her Majesty allows him grains, Though ’tis confessed that those who ever saw His poems, think them all not worth a straw. Thrice happy Duck! employed in threshing stubble Thy toils were lessen’d and thy profits doubled. Close by Merlin’s Cave the Queen raised another quaint conceit known as the “Hermitage,” in which she placed busts of Adam Clarke, Newton, Locke and other dead philosophers. These busts excited the ire of living worthies. Swift in his _Elegant Extracts_ wrote:-- Lewis, the living genius fed And rais’d the scientific head: Our Queen, more frugal of her meat, Raises those heads that cannot eat. This drew forth the following repartee, addressed to Swift:-- Since Anna, whom bounty thy merits had fed, Ere her own was laid low, had exalted your head, And since our good Queen to the wise is so just, To raise heads from such as are humbled in dust, I wonder, good man, that you are not envaulted; Pr’y thee, go and be dead, and be doubly exalted. Whereto the dean wittily replied:-- Her Majesty never shall be my exalter; And yet she would raise me I know, by--a halter. Stephen Duck’s poetry was popular in its day, but it owed its popularity to the favour of the Queen rather than to its intrinsic merit. His talent was not sufficient to overcome the defects of his early education. Duck realised this far more than his friends, and he was keenly sensitive to the satire which great writers like Swift and Pope thought it worth their while to pour upon him. The Queen remained his constant friend, and preferred him successively to a chaplaincy at Kew and the rectory of Byfleet in Surrey. But Duck was not a happy man; his education began too late in life, and he could never accommodate himself to his altered circumstances. He ended his career by committing suicide, a few years after the death of his royal patroness. FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER VII: [78] A living. [79] Dean Swift to Mrs. Howard, Dublin, 21st November, 1730. _Suffolk Correspondence._ [80] Dr. Arbuthnot to Swift, 19th March, 1729. [81] In his _Memoirs_ Lord Hervey makes no mention of his quarrel with Pope or his duel with Pulteney, and slips over the years 1730–1733 without a line of comment. This seems to show that he was not proud of either of these achievements. [82] Sir Richard Steele to Mrs. Clayton, May, 1724. [83] Dr. Alured Clarke to Mrs. Clayton, Winchester, 18th August, 1730. CHAPTER VIII. THE EXCISE SCHEME. 1732–3.