Yet, doctor, you've a philosophic spirit; Your wants are few, and, like your income, small, And you've enough to gratify them all: You've trees, and fruits, and roots, enough in store: And what would a philosopher have more? You cannot wish for coaches, kitchens, cooks--" "My lord, I've not enough to buy me books-- Or pray, suppose my wants were all supplied, Are there no wants I should regard beside? Whose breast is so unmann'd, as not to grieve, Compass'd with miseries he can't relieve? Who can be happy--who should wish to live, And want the godlike happiness to give? That I'm a judge of this, you must allow: I had it once--and I'm debarr'd it now. Ask your own heart, my lord; if this be true, Then how unblest am I! how blest are you!" "'Tis true--but, doctor, let us wave all that-- Say, if you had your wish, what you'd be at?" "Excuse me, good my lord--I won't be sounded, Nor shall your favour by my wants be bounded. My lord, I challenge nothing as my due, Nor is it fit I should prescribe to you. Yet this might Symmachus himself avow, (Whose rigid rules[5] are antiquated now)-- My lord; I'd wish to pay the debts I owe-- I'd wish besides--to build and to bestow." [Footnote 1: Delany, by the patronage of Carteret, and probably through the intercession of Swift, had obtained a small living in the north of Ireland, worth about one hundred pounds a-year, with the chancellorship of Christ-Church, and a prebend's stall in St. Patrick's, neither of which exceeded the same annual amount. Yet a clamour was raised among the Whigs, on account of the multiplication of his preferments; and a charge was founded against the Lord-Lieutenant of extravagant favour to a Tory divine, which Swift judged worthy of an admirable ironical confutation in his "Vindication of Lord Carteret." It appears, from the following verses, that Delany was far from being of the same opinion with those who thought he was too amply provided for.--_Scott._ See the "Vindication," "Prose Works," vii, p. 244.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 2: Which, according to Swift's calculation, in his "Vindication of Lord Carteret," amounted only to £300 a year. "Prose Works," vol. vii, p. 245.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 3: A free school at Inniskillen, founded by Erasmus Smith, Esq.--_Scott._] [Footnote 4: Sir Ralph Gore, who had a villa in the lake of Erin.--_F._] [Footnote 5: Symmachus, Bishop of Rome, 499, made a decree, that no man should solicit for ecclesiastical preferment before the death of the incumbent.--_H._] AN EPISTLE UPON AN EPISTLE FROM A CERTAIN DOCTOR TO A CERTAIN GREAT LORD. BEING A CHRISTMAS-BOX FOR DR. DELANY