or the cause
Of British Midas' dirty paws;
Which, while the senate strove to scour,
They wash'd away the chemic power.[7]
While he his utmost strength applied,
To swim against this popular tide,
The golden spoils flew off apace,
Here fell a pension, there a place:
The torrent merciless imbibes
Commissions, perquisites, and bribes,
By their own weight sunk to the bottom;
Much good may't do 'em that have caught 'em!
And Midas now neglected stands,
With ass's ears, and dirty hands.

[Footnote 1: This cutting satire upon the Duke of Marlborough was written
about the time when he was deprived of his employments. See Journal to
Stella, Feb. 14, 1711-12, "Prose Works," ii, 337.]

[Footnote 2: Ovid, "Met.," lib. xi; Hyginus, "Fab." 191.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: Almonte and Mambrino, two Saracens of great valour, had each
a golden helmet. Orlando Furioso took Almonte's, and his friend Rinaldo
that of Mambrino. "Orlando Furioso," Canto I, St. 28. And readers of "Don
Quixote" may remember how the knight argued with Sancho Panza that the
barber's bason was the helmet of Mambrino.--"Don Quixote," pt. I, book 3,
ch. 7.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 4: Stella.]

[Footnote 5: The Duke of Marlborough was accused of having received large
sums, as perquisites, from the contractors, who furnished bread, forage,
etc., to the army.--_Scott_.]

[Footnote 6: Scott prints this word "plumes," substituting a false
meaning for the real point of the poem.--_Forster_.]

[Footnote 7: The result of the investigations of the House of Commons was
the removal of the Duke of Marlborough from his command, and all his
employments.--_Scott_.]

TOLAND'S INVITATION TO DISMAL[1] TO DINE WITH THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB

Written A.D. 1712.--_Stella._
Imitated from Horace, Lib. i, Epist. 5.

Toland, the Deist, distinguished himself as a party writer in behalf
of the Whigs. He wrote a pamphlet on the demolition of Dunkirk, and
another called "The Art of Reasoning," in which he directly charged
Oxford with the purpose of bringing in the Pretender. The Earl of
Nottingham, here, as elsewhere, called Dismal from his swarthy
complexion, was bred a rigid High-Churchman, and was only induced to
support the Whigs, in their resolutions against a peace, by their
consenting to the bill against occasional conformity. He was so
distinguished for regularity, as to be termed by Rowe
"The sober Earl of Nottingham,
Of sober sire descended."--HOR., _Odes_, ii,