The former scales, wherein he used to poise
Love against love, and equal joys with joys,
Are now fill'd up with avarice and pride,
Where titles, power, and riches, still subside.
Then, gentle Venus, to thy father run,
And tell him, how thy children are undone:
Prepare his bolts to give one fatal blow,
And strike Discretion to the shades below.
[Footnote 1: Found in Miss Vanhomrigh's desk, after her death, in the
handwriting of Dr. Swift.--_H._]
A REBUS. BY VANESSA
Cut the name of the man [1] who his mistress denied,
And let the first of it be only applied
To join with the prophet[2] who David did chide;
Then say what a horse is that runs very fast;[3]
And that which deserves to be first put the last;
Spell all then, and put them together, to find
The name and the virtues of him I design'd.
Like the patriarch in Egypt, he's versed in the state;
Like the prophet in Jewry, he's free with the great;
Like a racer he flies, to succour with speed,
When his friends want his aid, or desert is in need.
[Footnote 1: Jo-seph.]
[Footnote 2: Nathan.]
[Footnote 3: Swift.]
THE DEAN'S ANSWER
The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,
I cannot but envy the pride of her wit,
Which thus she will venture profusely to throw
On so mean a design, and a subject so low.
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