A REPLY, BY SHERIDAN, TO DELANY.
I LIKE your collyrium,
Take my eyes, sir, and clear ye 'um, "Twill gain you a great reputation; By this you may rise,
Like the doctor so wise,1
Who open'd the eyes of the nation.
And these, I must tell ye,
Are bigger than its belly ;
You know, there's in Livy a story Of the hands and the feet
Denying of meat,
Don't I write in the dark like a Tory?
Your water so far goes,
"Twould serve for an Argus,
Were all his whole hundred sore;
So many we read
He had in his head,
Or Ovid's a son of a whore.
For your recipe, sir,
May my lids never stir,
If ever I think once to fee you;
For I'd have you to know,
When abroad I can go,
That it's honour enough, if I see you.
ANOTHER REPLY, BY SHERIDAN.
My pedagogue dear, I read with surprise
Your long sorry rhymes, which you made on my eyes;
As the Dean of St. Patrick's says, earth, seas, and
skies!
I cannot lie down, but immediately rise,
To answer your stuff and the Doctor's likewise.
Like a horse with a gall, I'm pester'd with flies,
But his head and his tail new succour supplies,
To beat off the vermin from back, rump, and thighs.
The wing of a goose before me now lies,
Which is both shield and sword for such weak ene-
Whoever opposes me, certainly dies,
[mies. Though he were as valiant as Condé or Guise. The women disturb me a-crying of pies, With a voice twice as loud as a horse when he neighs. By this, Sir, you find, should we rhyme for a prize, That I'd gain cloth of gold, when you'd scarce merit frize.
DEAR TOM, I'm surprised that your verse did not
jingle;
[was but single.
But your rhyme was not double, 'cause your sight
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, Dick1 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 Phœbi fili versum quîs mittere Ryly.
Quid tibi cum libris? relavet tua lumina Tybris 3
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 fallor, 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.
Hæc tibi pauca dedi, sed consule Betty my Lady,
Huic te des solæ, nec egebis pharmacopolæ.
Dr. Richard Helsham. 3 Pro quovis fluvio.---Virg.
Hæc somnians cecini,
JON. SWIFT.
2 Pro potes.---Horat. 4 Saccharo Saturni.
PERLEGI versus versos, Jonathan bone, tersos;
Perlepidos quidèm; scribendo semper es idem..
Laudibus extollo te, tu mihi magnus Apollo;
Tu frater Phoebus, oculis collyria præbes,
Ne minus insanæ reparas quoque damna Dianæ,
Quæ me percussit radiis (nec dixeris ussit)
Frigore collecto; medicus moderamine tecto
Lodicum binum permit, et negatis mihi vinum.
O terra et cœlum ! quàm redit pectus anhelum.
Os mihi jam siccum, liceat mihi bibere dic cum?
Ex vestro grato poculo, tam sæpe prolato,
Vina crepant: sales ostendet quis mihi tales?
Lumina, vos sperno, dum cuppa gaudia cerno:
Perdere etenim pellem nostram, quoque crura ma-
vellem.
Amphora, quàm dulces risus queis pectora mulces, Pangitur a Flacco, cum pectus turget Iaccho: Clarius evohe ingeminans geminatur et ohe; Nempe jocosa propago, hæsit sic vocis imago.
WHATE'ER your predecessors taught us,
I have a great esteem for Plautus;
And think your boys may gather there-hence
More wit and humour than from Terence;
But as to comic Aristophanes,
The rogue too vicious1 and too 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 dip 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 chose those rhymes out for their difficulty;
Will you return as hard ones if I call t'ye?
2 N. B. The Strand in London. The fact may not be true; but the rhyme cost me some trouble.---Swift.
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