One asks the watermen hard by, Where may the poet's palace lie? Another of the Thames enquires, If he has feen its gilded spires? At length they in the rubbish spy A thing resembling a goose-pye. Thither in hafte the poets throng, And in filent wonder long, "Till one in raptures thus began To praise the pile and builder Van. Thrice happy poet! who may'st trail Thy house about thee like a fnail; Or, harness'd to a nag, at ease Take journies in it like a chaise; Or in a boat, whene'er thou wilt, Can'ft make it ferve thee for a tilt. Capacious house! 'tis own'd by all, Thou'rt well contriv'd, though thou art fmall:
For ev'ry wit in Britain's ifle May lodge within thy fpacious pile. Like Bacchus thou, as poets feign, Thy mother burnt, art born again, Born like a Phoenix from the flame; But neither bulk nor fhape the fame : As animals of largest fize
Corrupt to maggots, worms, and flies;
A type of modern wit and style, The rubbish of an ancient pile: So chymifts boaft they have a pow'r From the dead afhes of a flow'r Some faint resemblance to produce, But not the virtue, tafte, or juice So modern rhymers wifely blast The poetry of ages past;
Which after they have overthrown, They from its ruins build their own.
THE HISTORY OF VANBRUGH's
WHEN mother Clud had rose from
And call'd to take the cards away, Van faw, but feem'd not to regard, How miss pick'd ev'ry painted card, And, bufy both with hand and eye, Soon rear'd a house two ftories high. Van's genius, without thought or lecture, Is hugely turn'd to architecture: He view'd the edifice, and fmil'd, Vow'd it was pretty for a child : It was fo perfect in its kind, He kept the model in his mind.
THE HISTORY OF
But, when he found the boys at play, And saw them dabling in their clay, He stood behind a ftall to lurk, And mark the progress of their work ; With true delight obferv'd them all Raking up mud to build a wall. The plan he much admir'd, and took The model in his table-book; Thought himself now exactly skill'd, And fo refolv'd a house to build; A real house, and rooms, and ftairs, Five times at least as big as theirs ; Taller than miss's by two yards; Not a fham thing of clay or cards: And fo he did; for in a while He built up fuch a monftrous pile, That no two chairmen could be found Able to lift it from the ground. Still at Whitehall it ftands in view, Juft in the place where firft it grew : There all the little fchool-boys run, Envying to fee themselves out done. From fuch deep rudiments as these, Van is become by due degrees For building fam'd, and juftly reckon'd At court Vitruvius the fecond: No wonder, fince wife authors fhow That beft foundations must be low :
And now the duke* has wifely ta’en him To be his architect at Blenheim. But, raillery for once a-part, If this rule holds in ev'ry art;
Or if his grace were no more skill'd in The art of batt'ring walls than building, We might expect to fee next year A mouse-trap man chief engineer.
'HE rod was but a harmless wand, While Mofes held it in his hand; But, foon as e'er he laid it down, 'Twas a devouring ferpent grown. Our great magician, Hamet Sid, Reverses what the prophet did: His rod was honeft English wood, That fenfeless in a corner stood,
The duke of Marlbo- The staff of lord treasurer
Godolphin, which, on the 29th of May 1711, was given to Robert Harley, earl of Oxford. G 3
Till, metamorphos'd by his grafp, It grew an all-devouring afp; Wou'd hifs, and fting, and roll, and twist, By the mere virtue of his fift; But, when he laid it down, as quick Refum'd the figure of a stick.
So to her midnight feast the hag Rides on a broomstick for a nag, That, rais'd by magick of her breech, O'er fea and land conveys the witch; But with the morning dawn refumes The peaceful ftate of common brooms. They tell us fomething strange and odd About a certain magick rod, That, bending down its top, divines Whene'er the foil has golden mines * Where there are none, it ftands erect, Scorning to fhew the leaft refpect: As ready was the wand of Sid To bend where golden mines were hid; In Scotifh hills found precious ore †, Where none e'er look'd for it before;
*The virgula divina, or divining-rod, is defcribed to be a forked branch of a hazel or willow, two feet and an half long it is to be held in the palms of the hands with the fingle end elevated about eighty degrees; and in this
pofition is faid to be attract ed by minerals and fprings, fo as by a forcible inclination to direct where they are to be found.
+ Supposed to allude to the union of the two kingdoms.
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