It would have been graceless not to give these lines a companion on the other side the water, like Dean Swift’s distich before and after he climbed Penmanmaur: these verses were therefore written, and I believe still remain, in an apartment of the Ship inn:
He whom fair winds have wafted over, First hails his native land at Dover, And doubts not but he shall discover Pleasure in ev’ry path round Dover; Envies the happy crows which hover About old Shakespeare’s cliff at Dover; Nor once reflects that each young rover Feels just the same, return’d to Dover. From this fond dream he’ll soon recover When debts shall drive him back to Dover, Hoping, though poor, to live in clover, Once safely past the straits of Dover. But he alone’s his country’s lover, Who, absent long, returns to Dover, And can by fair experience prove her The best he has found since last at Dover.
[1] Lord, Madam! why we came here on purpose sure to see the end of the world.
Freed from his keepers thus with broken reins The wanton courser prances o’er the plains.
[3] When the mountain was in _ill-humour_.
[4] More laborious than gathering up the Sibyl’s leaves.
[5] I have danced in my bed so often this year.
[8] Which was once Anxur, and now is Terracina.
[9] The temple sacred to the maiden Juno and un-razored Jove.
And the steep hills of Circe stretch around, Where fair Feronia boasts her stately grove, And Anxur glories in her guardian Jove.
[12] Why, Madam, you have hit on it sure enough.
[13] Surge, et ego ipse homo sum. VULGATE.
[14] This hiding-hole received Nero after his golden house.
Our Alexander sells keys, altars, heaven; When law and right are sold, he’ll buy:--that’s even.
[17] Here’s something at last that’s truly great however! why this Alexander looks fit to be king of France.
[18] _Paglia_ is a straw-coloured marble, wonderfully beautiful, and extremely rare; found only in some northern tracts of Africa, I am told here.
[19] What you are already, that desire to be for ever.
[20] Girt with the limus, and as to their temples, _they_ were crowned with vervain.
[22] There was an old religious temple hard by, where Clitumnus himself was venerated with suitable dress and ornaments.
[24] The colony of Ancona, founded by Sicilians.