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 Percivale
Difplays his pedantry unmerciful,
How haughtily he cocks his nofe,
To tell what every school-boy knows ;
And with his finger and his thumb,
Explaining, ftrikes oppofers dumb:
But now there needs no more be said on 't,
Nor how his wife, that female. pedant,
Shews all her fecrets of houfe-keeping;
For candles how fhe trucks her dripping;
Was forc'd to fend three miles for yeast,
To brew her ale, and raise her paste ;
Tells every thing that you can think of,
How the cur'd Charly of the chin-cough ;
What gave her brats and pigs the measles,
And how her doves were kill'd by weafels ;
How Jowler howl'd, and what a fright
She had with dreams the other night.
But now, fince I have gone fo far on,
A word or two of lord chief baron ;
And tell how little weight he fets
On all Whig papers and Gazettes ;
But for the politics of Pue,
Thinks every fyllable is true.
And fince he owns the king of Sweden
Is dead at laft, without evading,
"Down the Black Sea, and up The Streights,
"And in a month he's at your gates;
"Perhaps, from what the packet brings,
"By Christmas we shall see strange things."
Why should I tell of ponds and drains,
What carps we met with for our pains;
Of fparrows tam'd, and nuts innumerable
To choak the girls, and to confume a rabble ?
But you, who are a scholar, know
How tranfient all things are below,
How prone to change is human life!
Last night arriv'd Clem* and his wife-
This grand event hath broke our measures;
Their reign began with cruel feizures:
The Dean must with his quilt fupply
The bed in which thofe tyrants lie:
Nim loft his wig-block, Dan his jordan
(My lady fays, fhe can't afford one);
George is half-fcar'd out of his wits,
For Clem
gets all the dainty bits.
Henceforth expect a different furvey,
This houfe will foon turn topfy-turvey:
They talk of further alterations,
Which causes many fpeculations.
THOMAS SHERIDAN, CLERK, TO GEORGE-NIM-DAN-DEAN, ESQ.
I'D have you t' know, George*, Dan†, Dean‡, and
That I've learned how verfe t' compofe trim.
Much better b' half thʼn you, n'r you, n'r him,
And th❜t I'd rid'cule their 'nd your flam-flim,
Ay' b't then, p'rhaps, says you, t's a m'rry whim
With 'bundance of mark'd notes i' th' rim,
So th❜t I ought n't for t' be morofe 'nd t' look grim,
Think n't your 'p'file put m' in a meagrim;
Though 'n rep't't'on day, I 'ppear ver' slim,
Th' laft bowl 't Helfham's did m' head t' fwim,
So th❜t I h'd man' aches n' 'v'ry fcrubb'd limb,
Cause th' top of th' bowl I'h'd oft us'd t' skim;
And b'fides D'lan' fwears th't I'h'd fwall'w'd f'v'r'l brim-
mers, 'nd that my vis'ge's cov'r'd o'er with r'd pim-
ples m'r'o'er though m' fcull were (s' tis n't) 's
ftrong's tim-
ber, 't must have ak'd. Th' clans of th' c'lledge Sanh'drim,
Pres'nt the'r humbl' and 'fect'nate refpects; that's t'fay, D'lan', 'chlin, P. Ludl', Dic' St'wart, H'lsham, capt'n P'rr' Walınsl', 'nd Longsh’nks Timm ||.
† J. Rochfort. § Dr. Swift.
Dr. James Stopford, afterwards bishop of Cloyne.
GEORGE-NIM-DAN-DEAN'S ANSWER.
DEAR Sheridan! a gentle pair
Of Gaulftown lads (for fuch they are),
Befides a brace of grave divines,
Adore the fmoothnefs of thy lines;
Smooth as our bafon's filver flood,
Ere George had robb'd it of its mud;
Smoother than Pegasus' old shoe,
Ere Vulcan comes to make him new.
The board on which we fet our a-s
Is not so smooth as are thy verses,
Compar'd with which (and that's enough)
A smoothing-iron itself is rough.
Nor praise I lefs that circumcifion,
By modern poets call'd elifion,
With which, in proper station plac'd,
Thy polish'd lines are firmly brac’d.
Thus a wife taylor is not pinching,
But turns at every feam an inch in ;
Or elfe, be fure, your broad-cloth breeches
Will ne'er be smooth, nor hold their stitches.
Thy verfe, like bricks, defy the weather,
When fmooth'd by rubbing them together;
T'hy words fo closely wedg'd and short are
Like walls, more lafting without mortar;
By leaving out the needlefs vowels,
You fave the charge of lime and trowels.
VOL. I.
One letter ftill another locks,
Each groov'd and dove-tail'd like a box;
Thy Mufe is tuckt-up and fuccinct;
In chains thy fyllables are linkt;
Thy words together ty'd in small hanks,
Close as the Macedonian phalanx;
Or like the umbo of the Romans,
Which fierceft foes could break by no means.
The critick to his grief will find,
How firmly these indentures bind.
So, in the kindred painter's art,
The fhortening is the nicest part.
Philologers of future ages,
How will they pore upon thy pages
Nor will they dare to break the joints,
But help thee to be read with points :
Or elfe, to fhew their learned labour, you
May backward be perus'd like Hebrew,
Where they need not lofe a bit
Or of thy harmony or wit.
To make a work compleatly fine,
Number and weight and measure join ;
Then all muft grant your lines are weighty,
Where thirty weigh as much as eighty.
Where twenty lines exceed fourscore ;
Nor can we think your measure short,
Where lefs than forty fill a quart,
With Alexandrian in the close,
Long, long, long, long, like Dan's long nofe.
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