Volume Ii Part 49 (1/2)

EPIGRAM

Great folks are of a finer mould; Lord! how politely they can scold!

While a coa.r.s.e English tongue will itch, For wh.o.r.e and rogue, and dog and b.i.t.c.h.

EPIGRAM ON JOSIAH HORT[1]

ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM, WHO, ON ONE OCCASION, LEFT HIS CHURCH DURING SERVICE IN ORDER TO WAIT ON THE DUKE OF DORSET[2]

Lord Pam[3] in the church (you'd you think it) kneel'd down; When told that the Duke was just come to Town-- His station despising, unawed by the place, He flies from his G.o.d to attend to his Grace.

To the Court it was better to pay his devotion, Since G.o.d had no hand in his Lords.h.i.+p's promotion.

[Footnote 1: See vol. i, ”The Storm,” at p. 242.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: Lionel Cranfield, first Duke of Dorset, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1730 to 1735.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: Pam, the cant name for the knave of clubs, from the French _Pamphile_. The person here intended was a famous B. known through the whole kingdom by the name of Lord Pam. He was a great enemy to all men of wit and learning, being himself the most ignorant as well as the most vicious P. of all who had ever been honoured with that t.i.tle from the days of the Apostles to the present year of the Christian Aera. He was promoted _non tam providentia divina quam temporum iniquitate E-scopus_.

From a note in ”The Toast,” by Frederick Scheffer, written in Latin verse, done into English by Peregrine O Donald, Dublin and London, 1736.--_W. E. B._]

EPIGRAM[1]

Behold! a proof of _Irish_ sense; Here _Irish_ wit is seen!

When nothing's left that's worth defence, We build a magazine.

[Footnote 1: Swift, in his latter days, driving out with his physician, Dr. Kingsbury, observed a new building, and asked what it was designed for. On being told that it was a magazine for arms and powder, ”Oh! Oh!”

said the Dean, ”This is worth remarking; my tablets, as Hamlet says, my tablets”--and taking out his pocket-book, he wrote the above epigram.--_W. E. B._]

TRIFLES

GEORGE ROCHFORT'S VERSES FOR THE REV. DR. SWIFT, DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S, AT LARACOR, NEAR TRIM

MUSA CLONSHOGHIANA

That Downpatrick's Dean, or Patrick's down went, Like two arrand Deans, two Deans errant I meant; So that Christmas appears at Bellcampe like a Lent, Gives the gamesters of both houses great discontent.

Our parsons agree here, as those did at Trent, Dan's forehead has got a most d.a.m.nable dent, Besides a large hole in his Michaelmas rent.

But your fancy on rhyming so cursedly bent, With your b.l.o.o.d.y ouns in one stanza pent; Does Jack's utter ruin at picket prevent, For an answer in specie to yours must be sent; So this moment at crambo (not shuffling) is spent, And I lose by this crotchet quaterze, point, and quint, Which you know to a gamester is great bitterment; But whisk shall revenge me on you, Batt, and Brent.

Bellcampe, January 1, 1717.

A LEFT-HANDED LETTER[1]

TO DR. SHERIDAN, 1718

Delany reports it, and he has a shrewd tongue, That we both act the part of the clown and cow-dung; We lie cramming ourselves, and are ready to burst, Yet still are no wiser than we were at first.

_Pudet haec opprobria_, I freely must tell ye, _Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli._ Though Delany advised you to plague me no longer, You reply and rejoin like Hoadly of Bangor[2]; 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.