THit HORSEMEN 33 



Where rhymes like these might lure the nurses' eyes, 



While gaping infants squall for farthing pies. 



" Treat here, ye shepherds blithe, your damsels sweet, 



For pies and cheesecakes are for damsels meet." 



Then Maurus in his proper sphere might shine, 



And these proud numbers grace great William's sign ; — 



"This is the man, this the Nassovian, whom 



I named the brave deliverer to come." 



But now the driving gales suspend the rain. 



We mount our steeds, and Devon's city gain. 



Hail, happy native land ! — but I forbear 



What other counties must with envy hoar. 



Deau Swift, too, was a frequent traveller on 

 horseback, particularly on the Chester and Holy- 

 head road. He seems once to have tried the 

 Chester stage, and ever after to have taken to 

 the saddle. Eiding thus in 1710 from Chester 

 to London in five days, he describes himself as 

 " Aveary the first, almost dead the second, toler- 

 able the third, and Avell enough the rest," but 

 " glad enough of the fatigue, Avhicli has served 

 for exercise." After making the journey from 

 London to Holyhead and Dublin in 1726, he wrote 

 to Pope, describing " the quick change " he had 

 made in seven days from London to Dublin, 

 " through many nations and languages unknown 

 to the civilised Avorld." He had expected the 

 enterprise, " with moderate fortune," to take ten 

 or eleven days. " I have often reflected," he adds, 

 " in how few hours, with a sAvift horse or a strong 

 gale, a man may come among a people as unknown 

 to him as the Antipodes." Swift Avas l)y no means 

 indulging in playful banter Avlien he Avrote this. 

 VOL. I. 3 



