To t'other ear I felt it coming on:
And thus I solve this hard phenomenon.

'Tis true, a glass will bring supplies To weak, or old, or clouded eyes : Your arms, though both your eyes were lost, Would guard your nose against a poft: Without your legs two legs of wood Are stronger and almost as good : And as for hands, there have been those, Who wanting both have us’d their toes * ; But no contrivance yet appears To furnish artificial ears.

A quiet LIFE and a good NAME:

To a friend who married a fhrew.

Written in the Year 1724.

NEL

ELL scolded in so loud a din,

That Will durst hardly venture in: He markt the conjugal dispute; Nell roar'd inceffant, Dick fat mute; But, when he saw his friend appear, Cry'd bravely, Patience, good my dear.

At sight of Will, she bawld no more,
But hurry’d out and clapt the door.

Why Dick ! the devil's in thy Nell, (Quoth Will) thy house is worse than hell : Why what a peal the jade has rung! D

-n her, why don't you slit her tongue? For nothing else will make it cease. Dear Will, I suffer this for peace : I never quarrel with my wife; I bear it for a quiet life. Scripture you know exhorts us to it; Bids us to seek peace, and ensue it.

Will went again to visit Dick; And ent’ring in the very nick, He saw virago Nell belabour, With Dick's own staff, his peaceful neigh

bour: Poor Will, who needs must interpose, Receiv'd a brace or two of blows.

But now, to make my story short Will drew out Dick to take a quart. Why, Dick, thy wife has dev'lish whims; Ods-buds, why don't you break her limbs ? If fle were mine, and had such tricks, I'd teach her how to handle sticks :

z-ds, I would ship her to Jamaica,
Or truck the carrion for tobacco:
I'd send her far enough away,
Dear Will; but what would people say?
Lord! I should get so ill a name,
The neighbours roundwould cry out shame.

Dick suffer'd for his peace and credit ;
But who believ'd him, when he said it?
Can he, who makes himself a slave,
Consult his peace, or credit fave?
Dick found it by his ill success,
His quiet small, his credit less.
She serv'd him at the usual rate;
She stunn'd and then she broke, his pate.
And, what he thought the hardest case,
The parish jeer'd him to his face;
Those men, who wore the breeches least,
Call’d him a cuckold, fool and beast.
At home he was pursu'd with noise ;
Abroad was pefter'd by the boys :
Within, his wife would break his bones;
Without, they pelted him with stones:
The 'prentices procur’d a riding *,
To act his patience, and her chiding.

* A riding, a humorous ca- the horse, and with a ladic valcade still practised in some challites a man, who lits on a parts of England to ridicule a pillion behind her with his scolding wife and henpecked face to the horse's tail. husband: a woman bestrides

Falle

F 3

False patience and mistaken pride ! There are ten thousand Dicks beside; Slaves to their quiet and good name, Are us'd like Dick, and bear the blame. Some ingenious gentlemen, friends to the author,

used to entertain themselves with writing riddles, and sending them to him and their other acquaintance; copies of which ran about, and some of them were printed both in England and Ireland. The author at his leisure hours fell into the same amusement; although it be faid, that he thought them of no great merit, entertainment, or use. However, by the advice of some persons, for whom the author had a great esteem, and who were pleased to send the copies, the few followlowing have been published (which are allowed to be genuine

) : because we are informed that several good judges have a taste for such kind of compositions.

A

R I D DL

L E.

Written in the Year 1724.

IN

I.
N youth exalted high in air,
Or bathing in the waters fair,

Nature

Nature to form me took delight, And clad my body all in white, My person tall, and slender waste, On either side with fringes grac’d; 'Till me that tyrant man espy’d, And dragg’d me from my mother's fide: No wonder now I look so thin; The tyrant stript me to the skin : My skin he fay’d, my hair he cropt; At head and foot my body lopt: And then, with heart more hard than stone, He pick'd my marrow from the bone. To vex me more, he took a freak To slit my tongue and make me speak : But that which wonderful appears, I speak to eyes, and not to ears. He oft employs me in disguise, And makes me tell a thousand lies: To me he chiefly gives in trust To please his malice or his lust. From me no secret he can hide ; I see his vanity and pride : And my delight is to expose His follies to his greatest foes.

All languages I can command, Yet not a word I understand.

Without

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