3
it.
In the arrangement of the poems, I have adopted nearly the same order as in the Aldine edition, for the pieces seem to fall naturally into those divisions; but with this difference, that I have placed the pieces in their chronological order in each division. With regard to the notes in illustration of the text, many of them in the Dublin editions were evidently written by Swift, especially the notes to the "Verses on his own Death." And as to the notes of previous editors, I have retained them so far as they were useful and correct: but to many of them I have made additions or alterations wherever, on reference to the authorities cited, or to other works, correction became necessary. For my own notes, I can only say that I have sought to make them concise, appropriate to the text, and, above all, accurate.
Swift and the educated men of his time thought in the classics, and his poems, as well as those of his friends, abound with allusions to the Greek and Roman authors, especially to the latter. I have given all the references, and except in the imitations and paraphrases of so familiar a writer as Horace, I have appended the Latin text. Moreover, Swift was, like Sterne, very fond of curious and recondite reading, in which it is not always easy to track him without some research; but I believe that I have not failed to illustrate any matter that required elucidation.
W. E. B.
May 1910.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
Introduction xv
Ode to Doctor William Sancroft
Ode to Sir William Temple
Ode to King William
Ode to The Athenian Society
To Mr. Congreve
Occasioned by Sir William Temple's late illness and recovery Written in a Lady's Ivory Table Book
Mrs. Frances Harris's Petition
A Ballad on the game of Traffic
A Ballad to the tune of the Cutpurse
The Discovery
The Problem
The Description of a Salamander
To Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough
On the Union
On Mrs. Biddy Floyd
The Reverse
Apoll
The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1, page 2
by Jonathan Swift