And that she's a riddle can never be right,
For a riddle is dark, but a woman is light.

But grant her a sieve, I can say something archer;
Pray what is a man? he's a fine linen searcher.
Now tell me a thing that wants interpretation,

What name for a maid,' was the first man's damnation ;
If your worship will please to explain me this rebus,
I swear from henceforward you shall be my Phoebus.
From my hackney-coach, Sept. 11, 1716,
past 12 at noon.

THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S TO THOMAS SHERIDAN.

I CANNOT but think that we live in a bad age,
O tempora, O mores! as 'tis in the adage.

My foot was but just set out from my cathedral,
When into my hands comes a letter from the droll.
I can't pray in quiet for you and your verses;

But now let us hear what the Muse from your car says.
Hum excellent good your anger was stirr'd;
Well, punners and rhymers must have the last word.
But let me advise you, when next I hear from you,
To leave off this passion which does not become you;
For we who debate on a subject important,

Must argue with calmness, or else will come short on't.
For myself, I protest, I care not a fiddle,

For a riddle and sieve, or a sieve and a riddle;
And think of the sex as you please, I'd as lieve
You call them a riddle as call them a sieve.

Yet still you are out, (though to vex you I'm loth,)
For I'll prove it impossible they can be both;
A schoolboy knows this, for it plainly appears
That a sieve dissolves riddles by help of the shears;
For you can't but have heard of a trick among wizards,
To break open riddles with shears or with scissors.
Think again of the sieve, and I'll hold you a wager,
You'll dare not to question my minor or major.
A sieve keeps half in, and therefore, no doubt,
Like a woman, keeps in less than it lets out.
Why sure, Mr. Poet, your head got a-jar

By riding this morning too long in your car:

And I wish your few friends, when they next see your cargo, For the sake of your senses would lay an embargo.

You threaten the stocks; I say you are scurrilous,

And you durst not talk thus if I saw you at our alehouse. But as for your threats, you may do what you can;

I despise any poet that truckled to Dan.

But keep a good tongue, or you'll find to your smart,
From rhyming in cars, you may swing in a cart.

You found out my rebus with very much modesty;
But thanks to the lady; I'm sure she's too good to ye:
Till she lent you her help, you were in a fine twitter;
You hit it, you say; you're a delicate hitter.
How could you forget so ungratefully a lass,

And if you be my Phoebus, pray who was your Pallas,
As for your new rebus, or riddle, or crux,

I will either explain, or repay it by trucks;

Though your lords, and your dogs, and your catches, methinks,
Are harder than ever were put by the sphinx.

And thus I am fully revenged for your late tricks,
Which is all at present from the

From my closet, Sept. 12, 1718, just 12 at noon.

SIR,

DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S.

THE DEAN TO THOMAS SHERIDAN.

When I saw you to-day, as I went with lord Anglesey, Lord, said I, who's that parson, how awkwardly dangles he! When whip you trot up, without minding your betters, To the very coach side, and threaten your letters.

Is the poison [and dagger] you boast in your jaws, trow? Are you still in your cart with convitia ex plaustro?

But to scold is your trade, which I soon should be foil'd in, For scolding is just quasi diceres - school-din:

And I think I may say you could many good shillings get,
Were you dress'd like a bawd, and sold oysters at Billingsgate;
But coach it or cart it, I'd have you know, sirrah,

I'll write, though I'm forced to write in a wheelbarrow;
Nay, hector and swagger, you'll still find me stanch,
And you and your cart shall give me carte blanche.
Since you write in a cart, keep it tecta et sarta.
'Tis all you have for it; 'tis your best Magna Carta;
And I love you so well, as I told you long ago,
That I'll ne'er give my vote for Delenda Cart-ago.
Now you write from your cellar, I find out your art,
You rhyme as folks fence, in tierce and in cart:
Your ink is your poison,' your pen is what not;
Your ink is your drink," your pen is your pot.
To my goddess Melpomene, pride of her sex,
I gave, as you beg, your must humble respects:
The rest of your compliment I dare not tell her,
For she never descends so low as the cellar;

But before you can put yourself under her banners,

She declares from her throne you must learn better manners. If once in your cellar my Phoebus should shine,

I tell you I'd not give a fig for your wine;

So I'll leave him behind, for I certainly know it,
What he ripens above ground he sours below it.
But why should we fight thus, my partner so dear,
With three hundred and sixty-five poems a-year?

Let's quarrel no longer, since Dan and George Rochfort.
Will laugh in their sleeves: I can tell you they watch for 't.
Then George will rejoice, and Dan will sing high-day :
Hoc Ithacus velit, et magni mercentur Atridæ.

Written, signed, and sealed, five minutes and eleven seconds after the receipt of yours, allowing seven seconds for sealing and superscribing, from my bed-side, just eleven minutes after eleven, Sept. 15, 1718.

JON. SWIFT.

Erratum in your last, 1. antepenult, pro "fear a Dun," lege "fear a Dan;" ita omnes MSS. quos ego legi, et ita magis congruum tam sensui quam veritati.

TO DR. SHERIDAN.'

Dec. 14, 1719, nine at night.

SIR,It is impossible to know by your letter whether the wine is to be bottled to-morrow or no.

If it be, or be not, why did not you in plain English tell us so?

For my part it was by mere chance I came to sit with the ladies 2 this night;

And if they had not told me there was a letter from you, and your man Alexander had not gone and come back from the deanery, and the boy here had not been sent to let Alexander know I was here, I should have missed the letter outright.

Truly I don't know who's bound to be sending for corks to stop your bottles, with a vengeance.

Make a page of your own age, and send your man Alexander to buy corks; for Saunders already has gone about ten jaunts.

Mrs. Dingley and Mrs. Johnston say, truly they don't care for your wife's company, though they like your wine; but they had rather have it at their own house to drink in quiet.

However, they own it is very civil in Mrs. Sheridan to make the offer; and they cannot deny it.

I wish Alexander safe at St. Catherine's to-night, with all my heart and soul; upon my word and honor:

But I think it base in you to send a poor fellow out so late at this time of year, when one would not turn out a dog that one valued; I appeal to your friend Mr. Connor.

I would present my humble service to my lady Mountcashel; but truly I thought she would have made advances to have been acquainted with me, as she pretended.

But now I can write no more, for you see plainly my paper is ended.

1st P.S.

I wish, when you prated, your letter you'd dated:

Much plague it created. I scolded and rated;

My soul is much grated; for your man I long waited.

I think you are fated like a bear to be baited:

In this letter, though written in prose, the reader, upon examining, will find

each second sentence rhymes to the former.

2 Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley.

Your man is belated: the case I have stated;
And me you have cheated. My stable's unslated.
Come back t' us well freighted.

I remember my late head; and wish you translated,
For teazing me.

Mrs. Dingley desires me singly

2d P. S.

Her service to present you; hopes that will content you;
But Johnson madam is grown a sad dame,

For want of your converse, and cannot send one verse.

3d P. S.

You keep such a twattling with you and your bottling:
But I see the sum total, we shall ne'er have a bottle;
The long and the short, we shall not have a quart:
I wish you would sign't, that we have a pint.

For all your colloguing,' I'd be glad of a knoggin:2

But I doubt 'tis a sham; you won't give us a dram.

'Tis of shine a mouth moon-ful, you won't part with a spoonful; And I must be nimble, if I can fill my thimble.

You see I won't stop, till I come to a drop.

But I doubt the oraculum is a poor supernaculum;

Though perhaps you may tell it, for a grace if we smell it.

STELLA.

DR. SWIFT'S REPLY TO SHERIDAN.

THE verses you sent on your bottling your wine
Were, in every one's judgment, exceedingly fine;
And I must confess, as a dean and divine,

I think you inspired by the Muses all nine.

I nicely examined them every line,

And the worst of them all like a barn-door did shine;
O, that Jove would give me such a talent as thine!

With Delany or Dan I would scorn to combine.

I know they have many a wicked design;

And, give Satan his due, Dan begins to refine.
However, I wish, honest comrade of mine,

You would really on Thursday leave St. Catharine,3

Where I hear you are cramm'd every day like a swine;
With me you'll no more. have a stomach to dine,
Nor after your victuals lie sleeping supine;

So I wish you were toothless, like lord Masserine.
But were you as wicked as lewd Aretine,

I wish you would tell me which way you incline.

If when you return your road you don't line,

On Thursday I'll pay my respects at your shrine,

A phrase used in Ireland for a specious appearance of kindness without sin、 cerity.

"A name used in Ireland for the English quartern.

Wherever you bend, wherever you twine,

In square, or in opposite, circle, or trine.

Your beef will on Thursday be salter than brine:
I hope you have swill'd with new milk from the king,
As much as the Liffee's outdone by the Rhine;
And Dan shall be with us with nose aquiline.

If you do not come back we shall weep out our eyne;
Or may your gown never be good Lutherine.
The beef you have got I hear is a chine;
But if too many come, your madam will whine;
And then you may kiss the low end of her spine.
But enough of this poetry Alexandrine;

I hope you will not think this a pasquine.

GEORGE-NIM-DAN-DEAN TO SHERIDAN.
DEAR Sheridan! a gentle pair

Of Gaulstown lads (for such they are),
Besides a brace of grave divines,
Adore the smoothness of thy lines:
Smooth as our basin's silver 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 set our

Is not so smooth as are thy verses;
Compared with which (and that's enough)
A smoothing-iron itself is rough.

Nor praise I less that circumcision,
By modern poets call'd elision,
With which, in proper station placed,
Thy polish'd lines are firmly braced.
Thus a wise tailor is not pinching,
But turns at every seam an inch in:
Or else, be sure, your broad-cloth breeches
Will ne'er be smooth nor hold their stitches.
Thy verses, like bricks, defy the weather,
When smooth'd by rubbing them together;
Thy words so closely wedged and short are,
Like walls, more lasting without mortar;
By leaving out the needless vowels,
You save the charge of lime and trowels.
One letter still another locks,

Each grooved and dovetail'd like a box;
Thy muse is tuck'd up and succinct;
In chains thy syllables are link'd:
Thy words together tied in small hanks,
Close as the Macedonian phalanx;

Or like the umbo of the Romans,

Which fiercest foes could break by no means.
The critic, to his grief will find