And all the day raves
Of cradles and caves;
And boasts of his feats,
His grottos and seats;
Shows all his gewgaws,
And gapes for applause;
A fine occupation

For one in his station!
A hole where a rabbit
Would scorn to inhabit,
Dug out in an hour;
He calls it a bower.

But, O! how we laugh,
To see a wild calf
Come, driven by heat,
And foul the green seat;
Or run helter-skelter
To his harbor for shelter,
Where all goes to ruin
The dean has been doing.
The girls of the village
Come flocking for pillage,
Pull down the fine briers
And thorns to make fires;
But yet are so kind

To leave something behind:

1

No more need be said on't,
I smell when I tread on't.
Dear friend doctor Jinny,
If I could but win ye,
Or Walmsley or Whaley,
To come hither daily,
Since fortune, my foe,
Will needs have it so,
That I'm, by her frowns,
Condemn'd to black gowns;
No squire to be found
The neighborhood round;
(For, under the rose,

I would rather choose those ;)
If your wives will permit ye,
Come here out of pity,
To ease a poor lady,
And beg her a play-day.
So may you be seen
No more in the spleen;
May Walmsley give wine
Like a hearty divine!
May Whaley disgrace
Dull Daniel's whey-face!
And may yet three spouses
Let you lie at friends' houses!

A LEFT-HANDED LETTER

TO DR. SHERIDAN,' 1718.

DELANY reports it, and he has a shrewd tongue,

That we both act the part of the clown and the cow-dung;
We lie cramming ourselves, and are ready to burst,
Yet still are no wiser than we were at first,

Pudet hæc opprobria, I freely must tell ye,

Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.

Though Delany advised you to plague me no longer,
You reply and rejoin like Hoadly of Bangor;
I must now, at one sitting, pay off my old score;
How many to answer? One, two, three, or four,
But, because the three former are long ago pass'd,
I shall, for method sake, begin with the last.
You treat me like a boy that knocks down his foe,
Who, ere t'other gets up, demands the rising blow.
Yet I know a young rogue, that, thrown flat on the field,
Would, as he lay under, cry out, Sirrah! yield.

So the French, when our generals soundly did pay them,
Went triumphant to church, and sang stoutly Te Deum.
So the famous Tom Leigh, when quite run a-ground,
Comes off by out-laughing the company round:

The humor of this poem is partly lost by the impossibility of printing it left

In every vile pamphlet you'll read the same fancies,
Having thus overthrown all our farther advances.
My offers of peace you ill understood;

Friend Sheridan, when will you know your own good?
'Twas to teach you in modester language your duty :
For, were you a dog, I could not be rude t'ye;
As a good quiet soul, who no mischief intends
To a quarrelsome fellow, cries, Let us be friends.
But we like Antæus and Hercules fight,
The oftener you fall, the oftener you write;
And I'll use you as he did that overgrown clown,
I'll first take you up, and then take you down;
And, 'tis your own case, for you never can wound

The worst dunce in your school till he's heaved from the ground. I beg your pardon for using my left hand, but I was in great haste, and the other hand was employed at the same time in writing some letters of business. I will send you the rest when I have leisure; but pray come to dinner with the company you met here last.

TO THOMAS SHERIDAN.

DEAR TOM, I'm surprised that your verse did not jingle;
But your rhyme was not double, 'cause your sight was but single.
For, as Helsham observes, there's nothing can chime

Or fit more exact than one eye and one rhyme.
If you had not took physic, I'd pay off your bacon,
But now I'll write short, for fear you're short-taken;
Besides, Dick' forbid me, and call'd me a fool;
For he says, short as 'tis, it will give you a stool.
In libris bellis, tu parum parcis ocellis;
Dum nimium scribis, vel talpâ cæcior ibis,
Aut ad vina redis, nam sic tua lumina lædis:
Sed tibi cœnanti sunt collyria tanti?

Nunquid eges visu, dum comples omnia risu?
Heu Sheridan cocus, heu eris nunc cercopithecus
Nunc benè nasutus mittet tibi carmina tutus:
Nunc ope Burgundi, malus Helsham ridet abundà,
Nec Phoebi fili versum quis mittere Ryly.

Quid tibi cum libris ? relavet tua lumina Tybris
Mixtus Saturno; penso sed parcè diurno
Observes hoc tu, nec scriptis utere noctu.
Nonnulli mingunt et palpebras sibi tingunt.
Quidam purgantes, libros in stercore nantes
Lingunt; sic vinces videndo, mî bone, lynces.

Culum oculum tergis, dum scripta hoc flumine mergis;
Tunc oculi et nates, ni falior, agent tibi grates.
Vim fuge Decani, nec sit tibi cura Delani:
Heu tibi si scribant, aut si tibi fercula libant,
Pone loco mortis, rapis fera pocula fortis.

'Dr. Richard Helsham.

And all the day raves
Of cradles and caves;
And boasts of his feats,
His grottos and seats;
Shows all his gewgaws,
And gapes for applause;
A fine occupation

For one in his station!
A hole where a rabbit
Would scorn to inhabit,
Dug out in an hour;
He calls it a bower.
But, O! how we laugh,
To see a wild calf
Come, driven by heat,
And foul the green seat;
Or run helter-skelter
To his harbor for shelter,
Where all goes to ruin
The dean has been doing.
The girls of the village
Come flocking for pillage,
Pull down the fine briers
And thorns to make fires;
But yet are so kind

To leave something behind:

No more need be said on't,
I smell when I tread on't.
Dear friend doctor Jinny,
If I could but win ye,
Or Walmsley or Whaley,
To come hither daily,
Since fortune, my foe,
Will needs have it so,
That I'm, by her frowns,
Condemn'd to black gowns;
No squire to be found
The neighborhood round;
(For, under the rose,

I would rather choose those ;)
If your wives will permit ye,
Come here out of pity,
To ease a poor lady,
And beg her a play-day.
So may you be seen
No more in the spleen;
May Walmsley give wine
Like a hearty divine!
May Whaley disgrace
Dull Daniel's whey-face!
And may yet three spouses
Let you lie at friends' houses!

A LEFT-HANDED LETTER

TO DR. SHERIDAN,' 1718.

DELANY reports it, and he has a shrewd tongue,

That we both act the part of the clown and the cow-dung;
We lie cramming ourselves, and are ready to burst,
Yet still are no wiser than we were at first,

Pudet hæc opprobria, I freely must tell ye,

Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.

Though Delany advised you to plague me no longer,
You reply and rejoin like Hoadly of Bangor;
I must now, at one sitting, pay off my old score;
How many to answer? One, two, three, or four,
But, because the three former are long ago pass'd,
I shall, for method sake, begin with the last.
You treat me like a boy that knocks down his foe,
Who, ere t'other gets up, demands the rising blow.
Yet I know a young rogue, that, thrown flat on the field,
Would, as he lay under, cry out, Sirrah! yield.

So the French, when our generals soundly did pay them,
Went triumphant to church, and sang stoutly Te Deum.
So the famous Tom Leigh, when quite run a-ground,
Comes off by out-laughing the company round:

'The humor of this poem is partly lost by the impossibility of printing it left

In every vile pamphlet you'll read the same fancies,
Having thus overthrown all our farther advances.
My offers of peace you ill understood;

Friend Sheridan, when will you know your own good?
'Twas to teach you in modester language your duty:
For, were you a dog, I could not be rude t'ye;
As a good quiet soul, who no mischief intends
To a quarrelsome fellow, cries, Let us be friends.
But we like Antæus and Hercules fight,
The oftener you fall, the oftener you write;
And I'll use you as he did that overgrown clown,
I'll first take you up, and then take you down ;
And, 'tis your own case, for you never can wound

The worst dunce in your school till he's heaved from the ground.

I beg your pardon for using my left hand, but I was in great haste, and the other hand was employed at the same time in writing some letters of business. I will send you the rest when I have leisure; but pray come to dinner with the company you met here last.

TO THOMAS SHERIDAN.

DEAR TOM, I'm surprised that your verse did not jingle;
But your rhyme was not double, 'cause your sight was but single.
For, as Helsham observes, there's nothing can chime

Or fit more exact than one eye and one rhyme.
If you had not took physic, I'd pay off your bacon,
But now I'll write short, for fear you're short-taken;
Besides, Dick' forbid me, and call'd me a fool;
For he says, short as 'tis, it will give you a stool.
In libris bellis, tu parum parcis ocellis;
Dum nimium scribis, vel talpâ cæcior ibis,
Aut ad vina redis, nam sic tua lumina lædis:
Sed tibi cœnanti sunt collyria tanti?

Nunquid eges visu, dum comples omnia risu?
Heu Sheridan cocus, heu eris nunc cercopithecus
Nunc benè nasutus mittet tibi carmina tutus:
Nunc ope Burgundi, malus Helsham ridet abundà,
Nec Phoebi fili versum quis mittere Ryly.

Quid tibi cum libris? relavet tua lumina Tybris
Mixtus Saturno; penso sed parcè diurno
Observes hoc tu, nec scriptis utere noctu.
Nonnulli mingunt et palpebras sibi tingunt.
Quidam purgantes, libros in stercore nantes
Lingunt; sic vinces videndo, mî bone, lynces.

Culum oculum tergis, dum scripta hoc flumine mergis;
Tunc oculi et nates, ni falior, agent tibi grates.
Vim fuge Decani, nec sit tibi cura Delani:
Heu tibi si scribant, aut si tibi fercula libant,
Pone loco mortis, rapis fera pocula fortis.

Dr. Richard Helsham.

Hæc tibi pauca dedi, sed consule Betty my lady,
Huic te des solæ, nec egebis pharmacopolæ.

Hæc somnians cecini.

Oct. 23, 1718.

1

WHATE'ER your predecessors taught us,

I have a great esteem for Plautus;

And think your boys may gather there-hence
More wit and humor than from Terence;

But as to comic Aristophanes,

The rogue too vicious and profane is.

I went in vain to look for Eupolis

Down in the Strand,' just where the New Pole is ;

For I can tell you one thing, that I can,

You will not find it in the Vatican.

He and Cratinus used, as Horace says,

To take his greatest grandees for asses.
Poets, in those days, used to venture high;
But these are lost full many a century.
Thus you may see, dear friend, ex pede hence,
My judgment of the old comedians.

Proceed to tragics: first Euripides

(An author where I sometimes nip a-days)
Is rightly censured by the Stagirite,
Who says his numbers do not fadge aright.
A friend of mine that author despises
So much he swears the very best piece is,
For aught he knows, as bad as Thespis's;
And that a woman in these tragedies,
Commonly speaking, but a sad jade is.
At least I'm well assured that no folk lays
The weight on him they do on Sophocles.
But, above all, I prefer Eschylus,

Whose moving touches, when they please, kill us.
And now I find my muse but ill able
To hold out longer in trissyllable.

I close those rhymes out for their difficulty;
Will you return as hard ones if I call t'ye?

TO DR. SHERIDAN.

IN reading your letter alone in my hackney,
Your damnable riddle my poor brains did rack nigh.
And when with much labor the matter I crack'd,

I found you mistaken in matter of fact.

A woman's no sieve, (for with that you begin,)
Because she lets out more than e'er she takes in.

N. B. The Strand in London. The fact may not be true, but the rhyme cost