O! couldst thou, by some magick spell,
Hither convey St. Patrick's well!
Here may it reassume its stream,
And take a greater Patrick's name!
If your expenses rise so high;
What income can your wants supply?
Yet still you fancy you inherit
A fund of such superiour merit,
That you can't fail of more provision,
All by my lady's kind decision.
For, the more livings you can fish up,
You think you'll sooner be a bishop:
That could not be my lord's intent,
Nor can it answer the event.
Most think what has been heap'd on you
To other sort of folk was due:
Rewards too great for your flim-flams,
Epistles, riddles, epigrams.
Though now your depth must not be sounded,
The time was, when you'd have compounded
For less than Charley Grattan's school?
Five hundred pound a year's no fool!
Take this advice then from your friend,
To your ambition put an end.
Be frugal, Pat: pay what you owe,
Before you build and you bestow.
Be modest; nor address your betters
With begging, vain, familiar letters.
A passage may be found[1], I've heard,
In some old Greek or Latian bard,
Which says, "Would crows in silence eat
Their offals, or their better meat,
Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/447
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EPISTLE UPON AN EPISTLE.
435
" Their
