The silk worms (brittle beings!) prone to fate,
Demand their care, to make their webs complete:
These may they tend, their promises receive;
We cannot pay too much for what they give!

ON GAULSTOWN HOUSE.*

BY DR. DELANY.

"TIS so old, and so ugly, and yet so convenient, You're sometimes in pleasure, though often in pain

in't,

'Tis so large you may lodge a few friends with ease

in't.

You may turn and stretch at your length if you please in't;

'Tis so little, the family live in a press in't,

And

poor lady Betty † has scarce room to dress

in't;

'Tis so cold in the winter, you can't bear to lie in't, And so hot in the summer, you're ready to fry in't;

* In 1721, Dr. Swift, Dr. Delany, Dr. Sheridan, Dr. Stopford, the reverend Dan Jackson, and some other company, spent a great part of the summer at Gaulstown, in the county of Westmeath, the seat of George Rochfort, esq. father to the present earl of Belvidere. Many of the gentlemen assembled in this groupe had a genius for poetry, and a taste for the polite arts. In this retirement they passed their hours very agreeably, and frequently amused themselves with poetical jest and whimsies of the brain, of which some slight specimens are here preserved. N.

+ Daughter of the earl of Drogheda, and married to George. Rochfort, esq. F.

'Tis

'Tis so brittle 'twould scarce bear the weight of a

tun,'

Yet so staunch, that it keeps out a great deal of

sun;

'Tis so crazy, the weather with ease beats quite through it,

And you're forced every year in some part to renew it;

'Tis so ugly, so useful, so big, and so little,

'Tis so staunch, and so crazy, so strong and so

brittle,

'Tis at one time so hot, and another so cold,
It is part of the new, and part of the old;
It is just half a blessing, and just half a curse-
I wish then, dear George, it were better or worse,

THE COUNTRY LIFE.

PART OF A SUMMER SPENT AT GAULSTOWN HOUSE. THE SEAT OF GEORGE ROCHFORT, ESQ.

THALIA, tell in sober lays,

How George, Nim,† Dan, Dean, § pass their days;

And, should our Gaulstown's art grow fallow,

Yet Neget quis carmina Gallo?

Here (by the way) by Gallus mean I

Not Sheridan, but friend Delany.

* Mr. Rochfort. F.

+ His brother, Mr. John Rochfort; who was called Nimrod,

from his great attachment to the chase. F.

Rev. Daniel Jackson. F..

§ Dr. Swift. F.

!

Begin, my Múse. First from our bowers
We sally forth at different hours;

At seven the Dean, in night-gown drest,
Goes round the house to wake the rest;
At nine, grave Nim and George facetious
Go to the Dean, to read Lucretius;
At ten, my Lady comes and hectors,.
And kisses George, and ends our lectures;
And when she has him by the neck fast,
Hals him, and scolds us down to breakfast.
We squander there an hour or more,
And then all hands, boys, to the oar;
All, heteroclite Dan except,
Who neither time nor order kept,
But by peculiar whimsies 'drawn,
Peeps in the ponds to look for spawn;
O'ersees the work, or Dragon * rows,
Or mars a text, or mends his hose;
Or-but proceed we in our journal-
At two, or after, we return all:
From the four eleinents assembling,

Warn'd by the bell, all folks come trembling †
From airy garrets some descend,

Some from the lake's remotest end;
My lord and dean the fire forsake,
Dan leaves the earthy spade and rake:
The loiterers quake, no corner hides them,
And lady Betty soundly chides them.

* A small boat so called. F.

† The Dean has been censured, on an idle supposition of this passage being an allusion to the day of judgment. F.

Mr. Rochfort's father was lord chief baron of the exchequer in Ireland. F.

Now

Now water's brought, and dinner's done :
With Church and King" the ladies gone:

"

Not reckoning half an hour we pass

In talking o'er a moderate glass.
Dan, growing drowsy, like a thief
Steals off to dose away his beef;

And this must pass for reading Hamond-
While George and Dean go to backgammon.
George, Nim, and Dean, set out at four,
And then again, boys, to the oar.
But when the sun goes to the deep
(Not to disturb him in his sleep,
Or make a rumbling o'er his head,
His candle out, and he abed)

We watch his motions to a minute,
And leave the flood when he goes in it.
Now stinted in the shortening day,
We go to prayers, and then to play,
Till supper comes; and after that
We sit an hour to drink and chat.
'Tis late-the old and younger pairs,
By Adam lighted, walk up stairs.

*

The weary Dean goes to his chamber;
And Nim and Dan to garret clamber.
So when the circle we have run,
The curtain falls and all is done.

I might have mention'd several facts,
Like episodes between the acts;
And tell who loses and who wins,
Who gets a cold, who breaks his shins;
How Dan caught nothing in his net,
And how the boat was overset.

The butler. F.

For

For brevity I have retrench'd

How in the lake the Dean was drench'd:
It would be an exploit to brag on,

How valiant George rode o'er the Dragon;
How steady in the storm he sat,

And sav'd his oar, but lost his hat:

How Nim (no hunter e'er could match him)
Still brings us hares, when he can catch 'em ;
How skilfully Dan mends his nets;

How fortune fails him when he sets;
Or how the Dean delights to vex
The ladies, and lampoon their sex:

I might have told how oft dean Perceval
Displays his pedantry unmerciful,
How haughtily he cocks his nose,
To tell what every schoolboy knows:
And with his finger and his thumb,
Explaining, strikes opposers dumb:
But now there needs no more be said on't,
Nor how his wife, that female pedant,
Shows all her secrets of housekeeping;
For candles how she trucks her dripping;
Was forced to send three miles for yeast,
To brew her ale, and raise her paste;
Tells every thing that you can think of,
How she cur'd Charly of the chin-cough;
What gave her brats and pigs the measles,
And how her doves were killed by weasles;
How Jowler howl'd, and what a fright
She had with dreams the other night.
But now, since I have gone so far on,
A word or two of lord chief baron;

* See the Dean's letter to Mr. Cope, Oct. 9, 1722. N.

And