How your superior learning shines
Above our neighb’ring dull divines !
At Beggar's Opera not fo full pit
Is seen, as when you mount.our pulpit.

Consider now your conversation:
Regardful of your age and station,
You ne'er was known, by passion stir’d,
To give the least offenfive word :
But still, whene'er you silence break,
Watch ev'ry syllable you speak :
Your stile so clear, and so concise,
We never ask to hear you twice.
But then, a parson so genteel,
So nicely clad from head to heel ;
So fine a gown, a band so clean,
As well become St. Patrick's dean,
Such reverential awe express,
That cow-boys know you by your dress!
Then, if our neigb’ring friends come here,
How proud are we when you

appear, With such address and graceful port, As clearly shews you bred at court!

Now raise your sprits, Mr. Dean, I lead

When to the vault you walk in state,
In quality of * butler's mate;
You next to † Dennis bear the sway:
To you we often trust the key :
Nor can he judge with all his art
So well, what bottle holds a quart :
What pints may best for bottles pass,
Just to give every man his glass:
When proper to produce the best;
And what may serve a common guest.
With Dennis you did ne'er combine,
Not
you,
to steal

your master's wine;
Except a bottle now and then,
To welcome brother serving men ;
But that is with a good design,
To drink Sir Arthur's health and mine;
Your mafter's honour to maintain ;
And get the like returns again.

Your Iusher's poft must next be handled: How bless’d am I by such a man led ! Under whose wise and careful guardship I now despise fatigue and hardship: Familiar grown to dirt and wet, Though daggled round, I scorn to fret :

From you my chamber-damsels learn
My broken hose to patch and darn.

Now as a jester I accost you;
Which never yet one friend has lost you.
You judge so nicely to a hair,
How far to go, and when to spare.
By long experience grown so wise,
Of every taste to know the size,
There's none so ignorant or weak
+ To take offence at what you speak.
Whene'er you joke, 'tis all a case
Whether with Dermot, or his grace ;
With Teague O'Murphey, or an earl,
A dutchess or a kitchen girl.
With such dexterity you fit

:
Their several talents with your wit,
That Moll the chamber-maid can smoke,
And Gaghagan I take ev'ry joke.

I now become your humble suitor
To let me praise you as my $ tutor.
Poor I, a savage bred and born,
By you instructed ev'ry morn,

* The neighbouring la- Hill. See the poem. dies were no great under- | In bad weather the austanders of raillery.

thor used to direct my lady in + The clown thatcut down her reading. the old thorn at Market

Already

Already have have improv'd fo well,
That I have almost learnt to spell :
The neighbours, who come here to dine,
Admire to hear me speak fo fine.
How enviously the ladies look,
When they surprise me at my

book !
And sure as they're alive at night
As soon as gone will show their spight:
Good lord I what can my lady mean,
Conversing with that rusty dean!
She's grown so nice, and so * penurious,
With Socrates and Epicurius.
How could she sit the live-long day,
Yet never ask us once to play?

But I admire your patience most; That when I'm duller than a post, Nor can the plainest word pronounce, You neither fume, nor fret, nor flounce; Are so indulgent, and so mild, As if I were a darling child. So gentle is your whole proceeding, That I could spend my life in reading.

You merit new employments daily : Our thatcher, ditcher, gard'ner, baily.

Ignorant ladies often mistake the word penurious for nice and dainty:

And to a genius so extensive
No work is grievous or offensive;
Whether your fruitful fancy lies
To make for pigs convenient styes ;
Or ponder long with anxious thought
To banish rats that haunt our vault :
Nor have you grumbled, rev’rend dean,
To keep our poultry sweet and clean;
Tofweep the mansion-house they dwell in;
And cure the rank unsav'ry smelling.

Now enter as the dairy hand-maid : Such charming * butter never man made. Let others with fanatic face Talk of their milk for babes of grace ; From tubs their snufiling nonsense utter : Thy milk shall make us tubs of butter. The bishop with his foot may burn it t, But with his hand the dean can churn it. How are the servants overjoy’d. To see thy deanship thus employ'd !