Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/261

Rh in glory, bleſſed with court-intereſt, the love and familiarity of the great, and filled with agreeable hopes; or melancholy with dejection, contemplative of the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the future. Whether returned a triumphant Whig, or a deſponding Tory, equally all hail! equally beloved and welcome to me! If happy, I am to ſhare in your elevation; if unhappy, you have ſtill a warm corner in my heart, and a retreat at Binfield in the worſt of times at your ſervice. If you are a Tory, or thought ſo by any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but your gratitude to a few people, who endeavoured to ſerve you, and whoſe politics were never your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think your principles and mine, as brother poets, had ever a bias to the ſide of liberty, I know you will be an honeſt man, and an inoffenſive one. Upon the whole, I know you are incapable of being ſo much on either ſide, as to be good for nothing. Therefore, once more, whatever you are, or in whatever ſtate you are, all hail!’

In 1724 his tragedy entitled the Captives, which he had the honour to read in MS. to Queen Caroline, then Princeſs of Wales, was acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane.

In 1726 he publiſhed his Fables, dedicated to the Duke of Cumberland, and the year following he was offered the place of gentleman uſher to one of the youngeſt Princeſſes, which, by reaſon of ſome ſlight ſhewn him at court, he thought proper to refuſe. He wrote ſeveral works of humour with great ſucceſs, particularly The Shepherd’s Week, Trivia, The What d’ye Call It, and The Beggars Opera, which was acted at the Theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields 1728. The