literally come to pass; for it was my misfortune to engage with that Pindar of the times, Tom Sheridan, who did so confound me by sousing on my crown, and did so batter my pinions, that I was forced to make use of borrowed wings, though my false accusers have deposed that I stole my feathers from Hopkins, Sternhold, Silvester, Ogilby, Durfey, &c., for which I now forgive them and all the world. I die a poet; and this ladder shall be my Gradus ad Parnassum; and I hope the critics will have mercy on my works.

Then lo, I mount as slowly as I sung,

And then I'll make a line for every rung;1

1

There's nine, I see, the Muses, too, are nine.

-

Who would refuse to die a death like mine! 1. Thou first rung, Clio, celebrate my name; 2. Euterp, in tragic numbers do the same. 3. This rung, I see, Terpsichore's thy flute; 4. Erato, sing me to the Gods; ah, do't: 5. Thalia, don't make me a comedy; 6. Urania, raise me tow'rds the starry sky: 7. Calliope, to ballad-strains descend,

8. And Polyhymnia, tune them for your friend; 9. So shall Melpomene mourn my fatal end.

POOR DAN JACKSON.

The Yorkshire term for the rounds or steps of a ladder;

still used in every part of Ireland.---Scott.

TO THE REV. DANIEL JACKSON.

TO BE HUMBLY PRESENTED BY MR. SHERIDAN IN
PERSON, WITH RESPECT, CARE, AND SPEED.
TO BE DELIVERED BY AND WITH

MR. SHERIDAN.

DEAR DAN,

HERE I return my trust, nor ask
One penny for remittance;
If I have well perform'd my task,
Pray send me an acquittance.

Too long I bore this weighty pack,
As Hercules the sky;

Now take him you, Dan Atlas, back,

Let me be stander-by.

Not all the witty things you speak

In compass of a day,

Not half the puns you make a-week,
Should bribe his longer stay.

With me you left him out at nurse,
Yet are you not my debtor;
For, as he hardly can be worse,

I ne'er could make him better.

He rhymes and puns, and puns and rhymes,

Just as he did before;

And, when he's lash'd a hundred times,

He rhymes and puns the more.

When rods are laid on school-boys' bums,
The more they frisk and skip:
The school-boys' top but louder hums
The more they use the whip.

Thus, a lean beast beneath a load

(A beast of Irish breed) Will, in a tedious dirty road,

Outgo the prancing steed.

You knock him down and down in vain,
And lay him flat before ye,
For soon as he gets up again,
He'll strut, and cry, Victoria!

At every stroke of mine, he fell,
'Tis true he roar'd and cried;
But his impenetrable shell,

Could feel no harm beside.

The tortoise thus, with motion slow,
Will clamber up a wall;

Yet, senseless to the hardest blow,

Gets nothing but a fall.

Dear Dan, then, why should you, or I,

Attack his pericrany?

And, since it is in vain to try,

We'll send him to Delany.

POSTSCRIPT.

LEAN TOM, when I saw him last week on his horse

awry,

[cery,

Threaten'd loudly to turn me to stone with his sor

But, I think, little Dan, that in spite of what our

foe says,

He will find I read Ovid and his Metamorphoses, For omitting the first (where I make a comparison, With a sort of allusion to Putland or Harrison) Yet, by my description, you'll find he in short is A pack and a garran, a top and a tortoise.

So I hope from henceforward you ne'er will ask,

I maul

can

This teasing, conceited, rude, insolent animal? And, if this rebuke might turn to his benefit, (For I pity the man) I should be glad then of it.

SHERIDAN TO SWIFT.

A HIGHLANDER once fought a Frenchman at Margate,

The weapons a rapier, a backsword, and target;
Brisk Monsieur advanced as fast as he could,
But all his fine pushes were caught in the wood;
While Sawney with backsword did slash him and
nick him,

While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him,

Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore, Me'll fight you,begar, if you'll come from your door!"

Our case is the same; if you'll fight like a man, Don't fly from my weapon, and skulk behind Dan;

VOL. III,

U

For he's not to be pierced; his leather's so tough, The devil himself can't get through his buff. Besides, I cannot but say that it is hard,

Not only to make him your shield, but your vizard; And like a tragedian, you rant and you roar, Through the horrible grin of your larva's wide bore. Nay, farther, which makes me complain much, and frump it,

You make his long nose your loud speaking-trumpet; With the din of which tube my head you so bother, That I scarce can distinguish my right ear from t'other.

You made me in your last a goose;
I lay my life on't you are wrong,
To raise me by such foul abuse;

My quill you'll find's a woman's tongue;
And slit, just like a bird will chatter,
And like a bird do something more;
When I let fly, 'twill so bespatter,

I'll change you to a black-a-moor.

I'll write while I have half an eye in my head ;
I'll write while I live, and I'll write when you're dead.
Though you call me a goose, you pitiful slave,
I'll feed on the grass that grows on your grave.