A Quibbling Elegy on Judge Boat 1723

To mournful ditties, Clio, change thy note,Since cruel fate has sunk our Justice Boat;Why should he sink, where nothing seem'd to pressHis lading little, and his ballast less?Tost in the waves of this tempestuous world,At length, his anchor fix'd and canvass furl'd,To Lazy-hill retiring from his court,At his Ring's end he founders in the port.With water fill'd, he could no longer float,The common death of many a stronger boat.A post so fill'd on nature's laws entrenches:Benches on boats are placed, not boats on benches.And yet our Boat (how shall I reconcile it?)Was both a Boat, and in one sense a pilot.With every wind he sail'd, and well could tack:Had many pendants, but abhorr'd a Jack.He's gone, although his friends began to hope,That he might yet be lifted by a rope.Behold the awful bench, on which he sat!He was as hard and ponderous wood as that:Yet when his sand was out, we find at last,That death has overset him with a blast.Our Boat is now sail'd to the Stygian ferry,There to supply old Charon's leaky wherry;Charon in him will ferry souls to Hell;A trade our Boat has practised here so well:And Cerberus has ready in his pawsBoth pitch and brimstone, to fill up his flaws.Yet, spite of death and fate, I here maintainWe may place Boat in his old post again.The way is thus: and well deserves your thanks:Take the three strongest of his broken planks,Fix them on high, conspicuous to be seen,Form'd like the triple tree near Stephen's Green:And, when we view it thus with thief at end on't,We'll cry; look, here's our Boat, and there's the pendant.