ised in every street.
"You, Mr. Dean, frequent the great:
Inform us, will the emperor treat?
Or do the prints and papers lie?"
Faith, sir, you know as much as I.
"Ah, Doctor, how you love to jest!
'Tis now no secret"--I protest
It's one to me--"Then tell us, pray,
When are the troops to have their pay?"
And, though I solemnly declare
I know no more than my lord mayor,
They stand amazed, and think me grown
The closest mortal ever known.
Thus in a sea of folly toss'd,
My choicest[7] hours of life are lost:
Yet always wishing to retreat,
O, could I see my country-seat!
There leaning near a gentle brook,
Sleep, or peruse some ancient book;
And there in sweet oblivion drown
Those cares that haunt the court and town.[8]

[Footnote 1: Collated with Stella's copy in the Duke of Bedford's
volume.--_Forster._]

[Footnote 2: Here followed twenty lines inserted by Pope when he
published the Miscellanies. The version is here printed as written by
Swift.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: Swift was perpetually expressing his deep discontent at his
Irish preferment, and forming schemes for exchanging it for a smaller in
England, and courted Queen Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole to effect such
a change. A negotiation had nearly taken place between the Dean and Mr.
Talbot for the living of Burfield, in Berkshire. Mr. Talbot himself
informed me of this negotiation. Burfield is in the neighbourhood of
Bucklebury, Lord Bolingbroke's seat.--_Warton._]

[Footnote 4: Very happily turned from "Si vis, potes----."--_Warton._]

[Footnote 5: The rise and progress of Swift's intimacy with Lord Oxford
is minutely detailed in his Journal to Stella. And the reasons why a man,
that served the ministry so effectually, was so tardily, and so
difficultly, and so poorly rewarded, are explained in Sheridan's Life of
Swift. See also Coxe's "Memoirs of Walpole." Both Gay and Swift conceived
every thing was to be gained by the interest of Mrs. Howard, to whom they
paid incessant court.--_Bowles._]

[Footnote 6: Another of their amusements in these excursions consisted in
Lord Oxford and Swift's counting the poultry on the road, and whichever
reckoned thirty-one first, or saw a cat, or an old woman, won the game.
Bolingbroke, overtaking them one day in their road to Windsor, got into
Lord Oxford's coach, and began some political conversation; Lord Oxford
said, "Swift, I am up; there is a cat." Bolingbroke was disgusted with
this levity, and went agai