And with his finger and his thumb, Explaining, strikes opposers dumb: But now there needs no more be said on't, Nor how his wife, that female pedant, Shews all her secrets of housekeeping: For candles how she trucks her dripping; Was forced to send three miles for yeast, To brew her ale, and raise her paste; Tells everything that you can think of, How she cured Charley of the chincough; What gave her brats and pigs the measles, And how her doves were killed by weasels; How Jowler howl'd, and what a fright She had with dreams the other night. But now, since I have gone so far on, A word or two of Lord Chief Baron; And tell how little weight he sets On all Whig papers and gazettes; But for the politics of Pue,[4] Thinks every syllable is true: And since he owns the King of Sweden [5] Is dead at last, without evading, Now all his hopes are in the czar; "Why, Muscovy is not so far; Down the Black Sea, and up the Straits, And in a month he's at your gates; Perhaps from what the packet brings, By Christmas we shall see strange things." Why should I tell of ponds and drains, What carps we met with for our pains; Of sparrows tamed, and nuts innumerable To choke the girls, and to consume a rabble? But you, who are a scholar, know How transient all things are below, How prone to change is human life! Last night arrived Clem[6] and his wife-- This grand event has broke our measures; Their reign began with cruel seizures; The Dean must with his quilt supply The bed in which those tyrants lie; Nim lost his wig-block, Dan his Jordan, (My lady says, she can't afford one,) George is half scared out of his wits, For Clem gets all the dainty bits. Henceforth expect a different survey, This house will soon turn topsyturvy; They talk of farther alterations, Which causes many speculations. [Footnote 1: Dr. Swift.--_F_.] [Footnote 2: For his philosophy and his exquisite verse, rather than for his irreligion, which never seems to have affected Swift.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 3: The butler.--_F_.] [Footnote 4: A Tory news-writer. See "Prose Works," vii, p. 347.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 5: Charles XII, killed by a musket ball, when besieging a "petty fortress" in Norway in the winter of 1718.--_W. E. B._] [Footnote 6: Mr. Clement Barry, called, in the notes appended to "Gulliveriana," p. 12, chief favourite and governor of Gaulstown.--_W. E. B._] DR. DELANY'S VILLA[1]