short, they both were turn'd to yews. Old Goodman Dobson of the Green Remembers he the trees has seen; He'll talk of them from noon till night, And goes with folk to show the sight; On Sundays, after evening prayer, He gathers all the parish there; Points out the place of either yew, Here Baucis, there Philemon, grew:      Till once a parson of our town, To mend his barn, cut Baucis down; At which, 'tis hard to be believ'd How much the other tree was griev'd, Grew scrubby, dy'd a-top, was stunted, So the next parson stubb'd and burnt it. 

      [Footnote 1: I here give the original version of this poem, which Forster found in Swift's handwriting at Narford; and which has never been published. It is well known that, at Addison's suggestion, Swift made extensive changes in this, "one of the happiest of his poems," concerning which Forster says, in his "Life of Swift," at p. 165: "The poem, as printed, contains one hundred and seventy-eight lines; the poem, as I found it at Narford, has two hundred and thirty; and the changes in the latter bringing it into the condition of the former, by which only it has been thus far known, comprise the omission of ninety-six lines, the addition of forty-four, and the alteration of twenty-two. The question can now be discussed whether or not the changes were improvements, and, in my opinion, the decision must be adverse to Addison."—W. E. B.]       [Footnote 2: The "village hard by Rixham" of the original has as little connection with "Chilthorne" as the "village down in Kent" of the altered version, and Swift had probably no better reason than his rhyme for either.—Forster.]       [Footnote 3: See the next poem for note on this line. Chevy Chase seems more suitable to the characters than the Joan of Arc of the altered version.—W. E. B.]       [Footnote 4: A lace so called after the celebrated French Minister, M. Colbert Planché's "Costume," p. 395.—W. E. B.] 

  

  

       BAUCIS AND PHILEMON[1]     

       ON THE EVER-LAMENTED LOSS OF THE TWO YEW-TREES IN THE PARISH OF CHILTHORNE, SOMERSET. 1706. IMITATED FROM THE EIGHTH BOOK OF OVID     

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