Conscius, expedias puero seu lætus Apollo
Nascenti arrisit; sive illum frigidus horror
Saturni premit, aut septem inflavere triones.
Quin tu altè penitusque latentia semina cernis,
Quæque diu obtundendo olim sub luminis auras
Erumpent, promis; quo ritu sæpè puella
Sub cinere hesterno sopitos suscitat ignes.
Te dominum agnoscit quocunque sub aëre natus:
Quos indulgentis nimium custodia matris
Pessundat : nam sæpè vides in stipite matrem.
Aureus et ramus, venerandæ dona Sibyllæ,
Æneæ sedes tantùm patefecit Avernas;
Sæpè puer, tua quem tetigit semel aurea virga,
Et cœlum, terrasque videt, noctemque profundam.
POETICAL EPISTLE TO DR SHERIDAN.
[From the original manuscript in possession of Leonard Macnally, Esq. Barrister at Law, Dublin.]
SOME ancient authors wisely write,
That he who drinks will wake at night,
Will never fail to lose his rest,
And feel a streightness in his chest;
A streightness in a double sense,
A streightness both of breath and pence:
Physicians say, it is but reasonable,
He that comes home at hour unseasonable,
(Besides a fall and broken shins,
Those smaller judgments for his sins ;)
If, when he goes to bed, he meets
A teazing wife between the sheets,
'Tis six to five he'll never sleep,
But rave and toss till morning-peep.
Yet harmless Betty must be blamed
Because you feel your lungs inflamed;
But if you would not get a fever,
You never must one moment leave her.
This comes of all your drunken tricks,
Your Parry's and your brace of Dicks;
Your hunting Helsham in his laboratory
Too, was the time you saw that Drab lae a Pery.*
But like the prelate who lives yonder-a
And always cries he is like Cassandra;
I always told you, Mr Sheridan,
If once this company you were rid on,
Frequented honest folk, and very few,
You'd live till all your friends were weary of you.
But if rack punch you still would swallow,
I then forewarned you what would follow.
Are the Deanery sober hours?
Be witness for me all ye powers.
The cloth is laid at eight, and then
We sit till half an hour past ten;
One bottle well might serve for three
If Mrs Robinson drank like me.
Ask how I fret when she has beckon'd
To Robert to bring up a second;
I hate to have it in my sight,
And drink my share in perfect spite.
If Robin brings the ladies word,
The coach is come, I 'scape a third;
If not, why then I fall a talking
How sweet a night it is for walking;
For in all conscience, were my treasure able,
I'd think a quart a piece unreasonable;
a
I strikes eleven, get out of doors.-
This is my constant farewell.
Oct. 18th 1724, nine in the morning.
You had best hap yourself up in a chair, and dine with me than with the provost.
LINES WRITTEN ON A WINDOW
IN THE EPISCOPAL PALACE AT KILMORE.
[Soon after Swift's acquaintance with Dr Sheridan, they passed some days together at the episcopal palace in the diocese of Kilmore. When Swift was gone, it was discovered that he had written the following lines on one of the windows, which looks into the church-yard. In the year 1780, the late Archdeacon Caulfield wrote some lines in answer to both. The pane was taken down by Dr Jones, bishop of Kilmore, but it has been since restored.]
RESOLVE me this, ye happy dead,
Who've lain some hundred years in bed ;
From every persecution free
That in this wretched life we see;
ye resume a second birth,
And choose once more to live on earth?
[Dr Sheridan wrote underneath the following lines.]
Thus spoke great* Bedel from his tomb;
"Mortal, I would not change my doom,
To live in such a restless state,
To be unfortunately great;
To flatter fools, and spurn at knavės,
To shine amidst a race of slaves;
To learn from wise men to complain,
And only rise to fall again :
No! let my dusty relics rest,
Until I rise among the blest."
The following lines occur in the Swiftiana, and are said by Mr Wilson the editor, on what authority does not appear, to have been composed by Swift, in order to humble the pride of a person of this odious disposition, who chanced to reside in his parish of Laracor.]
The rascal that's too mild a name;
Does he forget from whence he came ?
Has he forgot from whence he sprung?
A mushroom in a bed of dung.
* Bishop Bedel's tomb lies within view of the window.
A maggot in a cake of fat,
The offspring of a beggar's brat;
As eels delight to creep in mud,
To eels, we may compare his blood;
His blood delights in mud to run,
Witness his lazy, lousy son!
Puff'd up with pride and insolence,
Without a grain of common sense.
See with what consequence he stalks;
With what pomposity he talks;
See how the gaping crowd admire,
The stupid blockhead and the liar.
How long shall vice triumphant reign?
How long shall mortals bend to gain?
How long shall virtue hide her face,
And leave her votaries in disgrace?
-Let indignation fire my strains,
Another villain yet remains―
Let purse-proud C-n next approach;
With what an air he mounts his coach!
A cart would best become the knave,
A dirty parasite and slave;
His heart in poison deeply dipt,
His tongue with oily accehts tipt,
A smile still ready at command,
The pliant bow, the forehead bland-"
ON THE ARMS OF THE TOWN OF
WATERFORD.
[While viewing this town, the Dean observed a stone bearing the
city arms, with the motto URBS INTACTA MANET. The ap-
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