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A long-eared beast, and what seasons your beef,
On such an occasion the law gives relief.22

A long-eared beast, a thing that force must drive in,
Bears up his house, that's of his own contriving. 23,

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TRIFLES,

PASSING BETWEEN

SWIFT AND SHERIDAN.

TRIFLES.

A LEFT-HANDED LETTER

TO DR SHERIDAN,

* 1718.

DELANY reports it, and he has a shrewd tongue, That we both act the part of the clown and the cow

dung;

We lie cramming ourselves, and are ready to burst,
Yet still are no wiser than we were at first.
Pudet hæc opprobria, I freely must tell ye,
Et dici potuisse, et non potuissé refelli.

Though Delany advis'd you to plague me no longer,

You reply and rejoin like Hoadly of Bangor;
I must now, at one sitting, pay off my old score;
How many to answer? One, two, three or four,
But, because the three former are long ago past,
I shall, for method sake, begin with the last.

You treat me like a boy that knocks down his foe,
Who, ere t'other gets up, demands the rising blow.
Yet I know a young rogue, that, thrown flat on the
field,

Would, as he lay under, cry out Sirrah! yield.

*The humour of this poem is partly lost, by the impossibility of printing it left-handed as it was written.-H.

So the French when our generals soundly did pay

them,

Went triumphant to church, and sang stoutly Te Deum.

So the famous Tom Leigh, when quite run a ground,

Comes off by out-laughing the company round:
In every vile pamphlet you'll read the same fancies,
Having thus overthrown all our farther advances.
My offers of peace you ill understood:

Friend Sheridan, when will you know your own good?

'Twas to teach you in modester language your

duty;

For, were you a dog, I could not be rude t'ye;
As a good quiet soul, who no mischief intends
To a quarrelsome fellow, cries, Let us be friends.
But we like Anteus and Hercules fight,
The oftener you fall, the oftener you write;
And I'll use you as he did that overgrown clown,
I'll first take you up, and then take you
down:
And, 'tis your own case, for you never can wound
The worst dunce in your school, till he's heav'd
from the ground.

I beg your pardon for using my left-hand, but I was in great haste, and the other hand was employed at the same time in writing some letters of business. September 20, 1718.—I will send you the rest when I have leisure: but pray come to dinner with the company you met here last.

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