The tortoise thus, with motion slow,
Will clamber up a wall;

Yet, senseless to the hardest blow,

Gets nothing but a fall.

Dear Dan, then, why should you, or I,

Attack his pericrany?

And, since it is in vain to try,

We'll send him to Delany.

POSTSCRIPT.

LEAN TOM, when I saw him, last week, on his horse

awry,

Threaten'd loudly to turn me to stone with his sorcery. But, I think, little Dan, that, in spite of what our foe

says,

He will find I read Ovid and his Metamorphosis.
For omitting the first (where I make a comparison,
With a sort of allusion to Putland* or Harrison)
Yet, by my description, you'll find he in short is
A pack and a garran, a top and a tortoise.

So I hope from henceforward you ne'er will ask, can
I maul

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

* Alluding to the Prologue, mentioned above, p. 250. N.

HAD I ten thousand mouths and tongues, Had I ten thousand pair of lungs,

Ten thousand sculls with brains to think,
Ten thousand standishes of ink,

Ten thousand hands and pens to write
Thy praise, I'd study day and night.
O may thy work for ever live!
(Dear Tom, a friendly zeal forgive)
May no vile miscreant saucy cook
Presume to tear thy learned book,
To singe his fowl for nicer guest,
Or pin it on the turkey's breast.
Keep it from pastry bak d or flying,
From broiling stake, or fritters frying,
From lighting pipe, or making snuff,
Or casing up a feather muff,
From all the several ways the grocer
(Who to the learned world's a foe, sir)
Has found in twisting, folding, packing,
His brains and our's at once a racking.
And may it never curl the head
Of either living block or dead!
Thus, when all dangers they have past,
Your leaves, like leaves of brass, shall last.
No blast shall from a critic's breath,
By vile infection, cause their death,
Till they in flames at last expire,
And help to set the world on fire.

* Printed in the twenty-fourth volume. N.

THE ORIGINAL OF PUNNING,

FROM PLATO'S SYMPOSIACS.

BY DR. SHERIDAN.

*

ONCE on a time, in merry mood,
Jove made a PUN of flesh and blood;
A double, two-faced living creature,
Androgynos, of twofold nature,
For back to back with single skin
He bound the male and female in;
So much alike, so near the same,
They stuck as closely as their name.
Whatever words the male exprest,
The female turn'd them to a jest ;
Whatever words the female spoke,
The male converted to a joke:
So, in this form of man and wife,
They led a merry PUNNING life.

The Gods from Heaven descend to Earth,
Drawn down by their alluring mirth;

So well they seem'd to like the sport,
Jove could not get them back to court.
Th' infernal Gods ascend as well,
Drawn up by magic PUNS from Hell.
Judges and furies quit their post,
And not a soul to mind a ghost.

Heyday!" says Jove; says Pluto too,

"I think the Devil's here to do;

* This and the following poem were originally published with "The Art of Punning." N.

Here's Hell broke loose, and Heav'n's quite empty,
We scarce have left one God in twenty.
Pray, what has set them all a running ?”—
"Dear brother, nothing else but PUNNING.
Behold that double creature yonder
Delights them with a double entendre.”
"Ods-fish," says Pluto, "where's your thunder?
Let drive, and split this thing asunder."
"That's right;" quoth Jove: with that he threw
A bolt, and split it into two;

And when the thing was split in twain,
Why then it PUNN'D as much again.

""Tis thus the diamonds we refine,
The more we cut, the more they shine:
And ever since, your Men of Wit,
Until they're cut, can't PUN a bit.
So take a starling when 'tis young,
And down the middle slit the tongue,
With groat or sixpence, 'tis no matter,
You'll find the bird will doubly chatter.
"Upon the whole, dear Pluto, you know,
'Tis well I did not slit my Juno!

For, had I done 't, whene'er she'd scold me,
She'd make the Heavens too hot to hold me."

The Gods, upon this application,
Return'd each to his habitation,
Extremely pleas'd with this new joke;
The best, they swore, he ever spoke.

FROM MY MUCH HONOURED FRIEND AT HELDELVILLE, [DR. DELANY.]

HAIL to the sage, who, from his native store,
Produc'd a science never known before,
Science of words, once jargon of the schools,
The plague of wise men, and the boast of fools,
Made easy now and useful in your rules!
Where wit and humour equally combine,
Our mirth at once to raise and to refine,
Till now not half the worth of sounds we knew,
Their virtual value was reserv'd for you.
To trace their various mazes, and set forth
Their hidden force, and multiply their worth;
For if t' express one sense our words we choose,
A double meaning is of double use.

Hail, sacred Art! by what mysterious name
Shall I adore thee, various, and the same?
The Muses' Proteus, skill'd with grateful change,
Through all the pleasing forms of wit to range
In quick succession, yet retain through all
Some faint resemblance of th' original.

Hail, fairest offspring of prodigious birth,
At once the parent and the child of Mirth!
With Chloe's charms thy airy form can vie,
And with thy smiles as many thousands die;
The pleasing pain through all their vitals thrills,
With subtle force, and tickles as it kills.
Thee too, like her, the dying swains pursue,
As gay, as careless, as inconstant too;