DR. DELANY'S REPLY.

ASSIST me, my Mufe, whilft I labour to limn him:
Credite, Pifones, ifli tabulæ perfimilem.
You look and you write with fo different a grace,
That I envy your verse, tho' I did not your face.
And to him that thinks rightly, there's reason
enough,

'Cause one is as smooth as the other is rough.
But much I'm amaz'd you should think my`
defign
quin grin,
Was to rhyme down your nofe, or your harle-
Which you yourself wonder the de'el should
malign.

And if 'tis fo ftrange, that your monfterfhip's crany
Should be envy'd by him, much lefs by Delany.
Though I own to you, when I confider it ftricter,
I envy the painter, although not the picture.
And justly the's envy'd, fince a fiend of Hell
Was never drawn right but by her and Raphael.
Next, as to the charge, which you tell us is true
That we were infpir'd by the fubject we drew;
Infpir'd we were, and well, Sir, you knew it,
Yet not by your nofe, but the fair one that drew it:
Had your nose been the mufe, we had ne'er been
infpir'd,

Though perhaps it might justly 've been faid we

were fir'd.

As to the divifion of words in your ftaves, Like my countryman's horn-comb, into three halves,

I meddle not with't, but prefume to make merry. You call'd Dan one half, and t'other half Sherry: Now if Dan's a half, as you call 't o'er and o’er, Then it can't be deny'd that Sherry's two more: For pray give me leave to fay, Sir, for all you, That Sherry's at leaft of double the value. But perhaps, Sir you did it to fill up the verse : So crowds iu a concert (like actors in farce) Play two parts in one, when fcrapers are scarce. 'twill, you'll know more anon, Sir, When Sheridan fends to Merry Dan anfwer.

But be that as

SHERIDAN'S REPLY.

THREE merry lads you own we are ; 'Tis very true, and free from care; But envious we cannot bear,

For, were all forms of beauty thine, Were you like Nereus foft and fine, We should not in the least repine,

Those loads of paint upon your toilet, Will never mend your face, but spoil it; It looks as if you did par-boil it :

Drink claret.

Your cheeks, by fleeking, are so lean,
That they're like Cynthia in the wane.
Or breast of goose when 'tis pick'd clean,

See what by drinking you have done :
You've made your phiz a skeleton,
From the long distance of your crown

or pullet.

t' your gullet!

Then know from us, most beauteous Dan, or grieve, Sir. That roughness beft becomes a man; 'Tis women should be pale and wan,

And all your trifling beaux and fops,

and taper.

Who comb their brows, and fleek their chops, Are but the offspring of toy-shops,

meer vapour.

We know your morning-hours you pass To call and gather out a face;

Is this the way you take your glafs?

about me.

For every ftroke goes to my heart, And at each lafh I feel the smart Of lash laid on by you.

To the Rev. DANIEL JACKSON;

To be humbly prefented by Mr. SHERIDAN in Perfon, with Refpe&Care, and Speed.

DEAR DAN.

"Cedo jam, miferæ cognofcens præmia rixæ,
"Si rifca eft, ubi tu pulfas ego vapulo tantum."

POOR Sherry, inglorious,
To Dan the victorious,
Prefents as 'tis fitting,

Petition and greeting.

TO you victorious and brave,
Your now-fubdued and fuppliant fave
Moft humbly fues for pardon;
Who when I fought ftill cut me down,
And when I vanish'd fled the town,
Purfued and laid me hard on.
Now lowly crouch'd I cry peccavi,
And proftrate fupplicate pour ma vie :
Your mercy I rely on;

For you, my conqueror and my king,
In pardoning as in punishing,

Will fhew yourself a lion.

'Alas! Sir, I had no defign, But was unwarily drawn in;

For fpite I ne'er had any :

'Twas the damn'd fquire with the hard name; The de'el too that ow'd me a fhame,

The devil and Delany;

They tempted me t' attack your highness, And then, with wonted wile and flynefs,

They left me in the lurch :'
Unhappy wretch! for now, I ween,
I've nothing left to vent my fpleen
But ferula and birch:

And they, alas! yield fmall relief
Seem rather to renew my grief;
My wounds bleed all angw :

Not half the puns you make a week,
Should bribe his longer stay.

With me you left him out at nurse,

Yet are you not my debtor; For, as he hardly can be worfe,

I ne'er could make him better. He rhymes and puns, and puns and rhymes, Just as he did before;

And when he's lafh'd a hundred times,

He rhymes and puns the more.
When rods are laid on fchool-boys bums,
The more they frisk and skip :
The school-boy's top but louder hums,
The more they use the whip.

Thus, a lean beast beneath a load
(A beast of Irish breed)

Will, in a tedious, dirty road,
Outgo the prancing steed.

You knock him down and down in vain,
And lay him flat before ye;
For, foon as he gets up again,
He'll frut, and cry, Victoria!
At every stroke of mine he fell :
'Tis true he roar'd and cry'd;
But his impenetrable shell

Could feel no harm befide.
The tortoife thus, with motion flow,
Will clamber up a wall;

Yet, fenfeless to the hardest blow,
Gets nothing but a fall.

Dear Dan, then, why should you or I,

Attack his pericrany?

And, fince it is in vain to try,
We'll fend him to Delany.

For omitting the] (first where I make a compariion,

With a fort of allufion to Putland or Harrison) Yet, by my defcription, you'll find he in fhort is pack and a garran, a top and a tortoise. So I hope from henceforward you ne'er will afk, can I maul

This teazing, conceited, rude, infolent animal? And, if this rebuke might turn to his benefit, (For I pity the man) I should be glad then of it.

TO DR. SHERIDAN,

ON HIS 66 ART OF PUNNING."

HAD I ten thousand mouths and tongues, Had I ten thousand pair of lungs, Ten thousand feulls with brains to think, Ten thoufand fandifbes of ink, Ten thousand bands and pens, to write Thy praise I'd ftudy day and night. Oh may thy Work for ever live! (Dear Tom, a friendly zeal forgive) May no vile mifcreant faucy Cook Prefume to tear thy learned Book, To finge his fowl for nicer guest, Or pin it on the turkey's breaßt. Keep it from pafty bak'd or flying, From broiling flake, or fritters frying, From lighting pipe, or making fnuff, Or cafing up a feather muff; From all the feveral ways the Grocer (Who to the learned world's a foe, Sir) Has found in twisting, folding, packing, His brains and ours at once a racking. And may it never curl the head, Of either living block or dead! Thus, when all dangers they have paft, Your leaves, like leaves of brass, shall last. No blaft fhall from a critic's breath, By vile infection, caufse their death, Till they in flames at laft expire, And help to fet the world on fire.

STELLA TO DR. SWIFT,

ON HIS BIRTH-DAY, NOV. 30. 1721,

Sr. Patrick's Dean, your country's pride,
My early and my only guide,
Let me among the rest attend,
Your pupil and your humble friend,
To celebrate in female ftrains

The day that paid your mother's pains;
Defcend to take that tribute due
In gratitude alone to you.

When men began to call me fair,
You interpos'd your timely care;
You early taught me to despise
The ogling of a coxcomb's eyes;

Show'd where my judgment was misplac'd;.
Refin'd my fancy and my tafte.
Behold that beauty juft decay'd,

Invoking art to nature's aid:

| Short was her part upon the stage;
Went fmoothly on for half a page;
Her bloom was gone, fhe wanted art,
As the scene chang'd, to change her part:
She, whom no lover could refift,
Before the fecond act was hiss'd.
Such is the fate of female race
With no endowments but a face;
Before the thirtieth year of life,
A maid forlorn, or hated wife.

Stella to you, her tutor, owes
That he has ne'er refembled thofe;
i
Nor was a burden to mankind
With half her courfe of years behind,
You taught how I might youth prolong,
By knowing what was right and wrong;
How from my heart to bring fupplies
Of luftre to my fading eyes;
How foon a beauteous mind repairs
The lofs of chang'd or falling hairs;
How wit and virtue from within
Send out a fmoothness o'er the skin:
Your lectures could my fancy fix,
And I can please at thirty-fix.
The fight of Chloe at fifteen
Coquetting, gives me not the spleen;
The idol now of every fool,

Till time fhall make their paffions cool;
Then tumbling down time's steepy hill
While Stella holds her ftation ftill.
Oh! turn your precepts into laws,
Redeem the women's ruin'd caufe ;
Retrieve loft empire to our fex,
That men may bow their rebel necks.
Long be the day that gave you birth,
Sacred to friendship, wit, and mirth!
Late dying may you cast a shred
Of your rich mantle o'er my head;
To bear with dignity my forrow,
One day alone, then die to-morrow!

TO STELLA,

ON HER BIRTH-DAY. 1721-24 WHILE, Stella, to your lafting praise, The Mufe her annual tribute pays, While I aflign myself a task Which you expect, but scorn to ask; If I perform this talk with pain, Let me of partial fate complain; You every year the debt enlarge, I grow leis equal to the charge: In you each virtue brighter fhines, But my poetic vein declines; My harp will foon in vain be ftrung, And all your virtues left unfung: For none among the upstart race Of poets dare affume my place; Your worth will be to them unknown, They must have Stella's of their own; And thus, my stock of wit decay'd,{ I dying leave the debt unpaid, Unless Delany, as my heir, Will anfwer for the whole arrear.

ON THE GREAT BURIED BOTTLE.

BY DR. DELANY.

AMPHORA, quæ mæstum linquis, lætumque revifes Arentem dominum, fit tibi terra levis. [mor; Tu quoque depofitum ferves, neve opprime, marAmphora non meruit tam pretiofa mori.

EPITAPH, BY THE SAME.

Hoc tumulato jacet proles Lenæa fepulchro,
Immortale genus, nec peritura jacet;
Quin oritura iterum, matris concreditur alvo;
Bis natum referunt te quoque, Bacche Pater.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY:

A great Bottle of Wine, long buried, being that
Day dug up. 1722-3.

RESOLV'D my annual verfe to pay,
By beauty bound, on Stella's day,
Furnish'd with paper, pens, and ink,
I gravely fat me down to think :

I bit my nails, and scratch'd my head,
But found my wit and fancy fled :
Or, if with more than ufual pain,
A thought came flowly from my brain,
It cost me Lord knows how much time
To fhape it into fenfe and rhyme :
And, what was yet a greater curse.
Long thinking made my fancy worse.
Forfaken by th' inspiring Nine,
I waited at Apollo's fhrine:
I told him what the world would say,
If Stella were unfung to-day;

How I fhould hide my head for fhame,
When both the Jacks and Robin came;

How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer;
How Sheridan the rogue would fneer,
And fwear it does not always follow,
That femel 'n anno ridet Apollo.
I have affur'd them twenty times,
That Phoebus help'd me in my rhymes;
Phoebus infpir'd me from above,
And he and I were hand and glove.
But, finding me fo dull and dry fince,
They'll call it all poetic licence;
And, when a brag of aid divine,
Think Euíden's right as good as mine.
Nor do I ask for Stella's fake;
'Tis my own credit lies at stake:
And Stella will be fung, while I
Can only be a ftander-by.

Apollo, having thought a little,
Return'd this anfwer to a tittle.

Though you should live like old Methusalem, I furnish hints, and you fhall ufe all 'em, You yearly fing as the grows old, You'd leave her virtue's half untold. But, to fay truth, fuch dullness reigns Through the whole fet of Irish deans, I'm daily ftann'd with fuch a medley, Dean W-,Dean D, and Dean Smedley, That, let what Dean foever come, My orders are, I'm not at home; And, if your voice had not been loud, You must have pafs'd among the crowd,

But now, your danger to prevent,
You must apply to Mrs. Brent;
For fhe, as priestess, knows the rites
Wherein the god of earth delights,
First, nine ways looking, let her stand
With an old poker in her hand;
Let her defcribe a circle round
In Saunders' cellar, on the ground:
A fpade let prudent Archy hold,
And with difcretion dig the mould;
Let Stella look with watchful eye,
Rebecca, Ford, and Grattans by.

Behold the bottle, where it lies
With neck elated towards the fkies!
The god of winds and god of fire
Did to its wondrous birth conspire;
And Bacchus, for the poet's use,
Pour'd in a strong inspiring juice.
See! as you raife it from its tomb,
It drags behind a fpacious womb,
And in the fpacious womb contains
A fovereign medicine for the brains.

You'll find it foon, if fate confents; If not, a thou(and Mrs. Brents, Ten thousand Archys arm'd with spades, May dig in vain to Pluto's fhades.

From thence a plenteous draught infuse, And boldly then invoke the Mufe (But first let Robert, on his knees, With caution drain it from thee lees): The Mufe will at your call appear, With Stella's praise to crown the year.

A SATIRICAL ELEGY

ON THE DEATH OF A LATE FAMOUS GENERAL.
His Grace! impoffible! what dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall,
And fo inglorious, after all!

Well, fince he's gone, no matter how,
The laft loud trump muft wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed fo old
As by the news-papers we 're told?
Threefcore, I think is pretty high;
'Twas time in confcience he should die!
This world he cumber'd long enough;
He burnt his candle to the fnuff;
And that's the reafon fome folks think,
He left behind fo great a f―k.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's fighs, nor orphan's tears,
Wont at fuch times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progrefs of his herfe.
But what of that? his friends may say,
He had thofe honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he dy'd.

Come hither, all ye empty things!
Ye bubbles rais'd by breath of kings!
Who float upon the tide of state;
Come hither, and behold your fate;
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing 's a Duke;

From all his ill-got honour's flung,
Turn'd to that dirt from whence he sprung.

DEAN SMEDLEY'S PETITION TO THE

DUKE OF GRAFTON.

HOR.

44 Non domus aut fundus-"
It was, my lord, the dextrous shift
Of t'other Jonathan, viz. Swift;
But now St. Patrick's faucy dean,
With filver verge and surplice clean,
Of Oxford, or of Ormond's grace,
In locier rhyme to beg a place.
A place he got, yclept a ftall,
And eke a thousand pounds withal;
And, were he a lefs witty writer,
He might as well have got a mitre.
Thus I the Jonathan of Clogher,
In humble lays my thanks to offer,
Approach your grace with grateful heart,
My thanks and verse both void of art,
Content with what your bounty gave,
No larger income do I crave;
Rejoicing that, in better times,
Graiton requires my loyal lines.
Proud! while my patron is polite,
I likewife to the patriot write!
Proud! that at once I can commend
King George's and the Muses' friend!
Endear'd to Britain; and to thee
(Disjoin'd, Hibernia, by the fea)
Endear'd by twice three anxious years,
Employ'd in guardian toils and cares;
By love, by wifdom, and by skill;
For he has fav'd thee 'gainst thy will.
But where fhall Smedley make his neft,
And lay his wandering head to reft?
Where thall he find a decent house,
To treat his friends and cheer his spouse?
Oh! tack, my lord, fome pretty cure;
In wholefome foil, and æther pure;
The garden ftor'd with artless flowers,
In either angle fhady bowers.
No gay parterre, with coftly green,
Within the ambient hedge be feen:
Let Nature freely take her course,
Nor fear from me ungrateful force;
No heers fhall check her fprouting vigour,!
Nor fhape the yews to antic figure:
A limpid brook fhall trout fupply,
In May, to take the mimic fly;
Round a fmall orchard may it run,
Whofe apples redden to the fun.
Let all be fnug and warm, and neat;
For fifty turn'd a fafe retreat.
A little Eufton may it be,
Eufton I'll crave on every tree.
But then, to keep it in repair,

My lord-twice fifty pounds a year
Will barely do; but if your grace

Could make them bundreds-charming place!
Thou then would't show another face.

Clogher! far north, my lord, it lies,

Midft inowy hills, inclement skies;
One fhivers with the arctic wind;

Good John indeed, with beef and claret,
Makes the place warm that one may bear it,
He has a purse to keep a table,
And eke a foul as hofpitable.

My heart is good; but affets fail,
To fight with ftorms of snow and hail.
Befides the country's thin of people,
Who feldom meet but at the fteeple:
The strapping dean, that's gone to Down,
Ne'er nam'd the thing without a frown;
When, much fatigu'd with fermon-study,
He felt his brain grow dull and muddy;
No fit companion could be found,
To push the lazy bottle round;
Sure then, for want of better folks
To pledge, his clerk was orthodox.

Ah! how unlike to Gerard-street,
Where beaux and belles in parties meet;
Where gilded chairs and coaches throng,
And jostle as they trowl along:
Where tea and coffee hourly flow,
And gape-feed does in plenty grow;
And Griz (no clock more certain) cries,
Exact at seven, "Hot mutton-pies !"
There lady Luna in her sphere

Once fhone, when Paunceforth was not near;
But now she wanes, and, as 'tis said,
Keeps fober hours, and goes to bed.
There-but 'tis endless to write down
All the amusements of the town;
And spouse will think herself quite undone,
To trudge to Connor † from fiveet London;
And care we muft our wives to please,
Or elfe-we shall be ill at eafe.

You fee, my lord, what 'tis I lack;
'Tis only fome convenient tack,
Some parfonage-houfe, with garden sweet,
To be my late, my laft retreat;
A decent church close by its fide,
There preaching, praying, to refide;
And, as my time fecurely rolls,
To fave my own, and other fouls.

THE DUKE'S ANSWER.

BY DR. SWIFT.

DEAR Smed, I read thy brilliant lines,
Where wit in all its glory thines;
Where compliments, with all their pride,
Are by their numbers dignified:

I hope to make you yet as clean
As that fame Viz. St. Patrick's dean.

I'll give thee furplice, verge, and ftali,
And may be fomething elfe withal;
And, were you not fo good a writer,
I should prefent you with a mitre.
Write worse then, if you can---Be wife---
Believe me, 'tis the way to rife.
Talk not of making of thy neft:
Ab never lay thy head to reft!

That bead fo well with wisdom fraught,
That writes without the toil of thought!

*Bibop Sterne.