Yet, spite of death and fate, I here maintain
We may place Boat in his old post again.
The way is thus: and well deserves your thanks:
Take the three strongest of his broken planks,
Fix them on high, conspicuous to be seen,
Form'd like the triple tree near Stephen's Green:[6]
And, when we view it thus with thief at end on't,
We'll cry; look, here's our Boat, and there's the pendant.
THE EPITAPH
Here lies Judge Boat within a coffin:
Pray, gentlefolks, forbear your scoffing.
A Boat a judge! yes; where's the blunder?
A wooden judge is no such wonder.
And in his robes you must agree,
No boat was better deckt than he.
'Tis needless to describe him fuller;
In short, he was an able sculler.[7]
[Footnote 1: A street in Dublin, leading to the harbour.]
[Footnote 2: A village near the sea.]
[Footnote 3: It was said he died of a dropsy.]
[Footnote 4: A cant word for a Jacobite.]
[Footnote 5: In condemning malefactors, as a judge.]
[Footnote 6: Where the Dublin gallows stands.]
[Footnote 7: Query, whether the author meant scholar, and wilfully
mistook?--_Dublin Edition._]
VERSES OCCASIONED BY WHITSHED'S [1] MOTTO ON HIS COACH. 1724
Libertas _et natale solum:_ [2]
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.
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