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 compas 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

Just as he did before;

and rhymes,

And, when he's lash'd an 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,

Threaten'd loudly to turn me to stone with his

sorcery.

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, can
I maul

This teazing, 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 advanc'd 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,

Cry'd "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 sculk behind Dan; For he's not to be pierc'd; 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,

Thro' the horrible grin of your larva's wide bore. Nay, further, 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.
Tho' you call me a goose, you pitiful slave,
I'll feed on the grass that grows on your grave.

SWIFT TO SHERIDAN, IN REPLY.

Toм, for a goose you keep but base quills,
They're fit for nothing else but pasquills.
I've often heard it from the wise,
That inflammations in the eyes
Will quickly fall upon the tongue,
And thence, as fam'd John Bunyan sung,
From out the pen will presently

On paper dribble daintily.

Suppose I call'd you goose, it is hard
One word should stick thus in your gizzard.
You're my goose, and no other man's;
And you know, all my geese are swans:
Only one scurvy thing I find,

Swans sing when dying, geese when blind.
But now I smoke where lies the slander,-
I call'd you goose, instead of gander;
For that, dear Tom, ne'er fret and vex,
I'm sure you cackle like the sex.
I know the gander always goes
With a quill stuck across his nose;
So
your eternal pen is still

Or in your claw, or in your bill.
But whether you can tread or hatch,
I've something else to do than watch.
As for you're writing I am dead,
I leave it for the second head.

Deanry-House, Oct. 27, 1718.

SHERIDAN TO SWIFT.

I CAN'T but wonder, Mr Dean,
To see you live, so often slain.
My arrows fly and fly in vain,
But still I try and try again.
I'm now, Sir, in a writing vein;
Don't think, like you, I squeeze and strain.
Perhaps you'll ask me what I mean;
I will not tell, because it's plain.
Your Muse, I am told, is in the wane;
If so, from pen and ink refrain.
Indeed, believe me, I'm in pain
For her and you; your life's a scene
Of verse, and rhymes, and hurricane,
Enough to crack the strongest brain.
Now to conclude, I do remain,
Your honest friend,

TOM SHERIDAN,

SWIFT TO SHERIDAN.

POOR Tom, wilt thou never accept a defiance, Tho' I dare you to more than quadruple alliance. You're so retrograde, sure you were born under Cancer;

Must I make myself hoarse with demanding an an

swer?

If this be your practice, mean scrub, I assure ye, And swear by each Fate, and your new friends, each Fury,

I'll drive you to Cavan, from Cavan to Dundalk; I'll tear all your rules, and demolish your pun-talk: Nay, further, the moment you're free from your scalding,

I'll chew you to bullets, and puff you at Baldwin,