The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 Papyras Classics

← The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2

Chapter 106

The Epitaph

Here lies Judge Boat within a coffin:
Pray, gentlefolks, forbear your scoffing.
A Boat a judge! yes; where's the blunder?
A wooden judge is no such wonder.
And in his robes you must agree,
No boat was better deckt than he.
'Tis needless to describe him fuller;
In short, he was an able sculler.

[Footnote 1: A street in Dublin, leading to the harbour.]

[Footnote 2: A village near the sea.]

[Footnote 3: It was said he died of a dropsy.]

[Footnote 4: A cant word for a Jacobite.]

[Footnote 5: In condemning malefactors, as a judge.]

[Footnote 6: Where the Dublin gallows stands.]

[Footnote 7: Query, whether the author meant scholar, and wilfully
mistook?—Dublin Edition.]