Volume Ii Part 51 (2/2)

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 Haec tibi pauca dedi, sed consule Betty my Lady, Huic te des solae, nec egebis pharmacopolae.

Haec somnians cecini, JON. SWIFT.

Oct. 23, 1718.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Richard Helsham.]

[Footnote 2: Pro potes.--_Horat._]

[Footnote 3: Pro quovis fluvio.--_Virg._]

[Footnote 4: Saccharo Saturni.]

SWIFT TO SHERIDAN, IN REPLY

Tom, for a goose you keep but base quills, They're fit for nothing else but pasquils.

I've often heard it from the wise, That inflammations in the eyes Will quickly fall upon the tongue, And thence, as famed 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 s.e.x.

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 your writing I am dead, I leave it for the second head.

Deanery-House, Oct. 27, 1718.

AN ANSWER BY SHERIDAN

Perlegi versus versos, Jonathan bone, tersos; Perlepidos quidem; scribendo semper es idem.

Laudibus extollo te, tu mihi magnus Apollo; Tu frater Phoebus, oculis collyria praebes, Ne minus insanae reparas quoque d.a.m.na Dianae, Quae me percussit radiis (nec dixeris ussit) Frigore collecto; medicus moderamine tecto Lodicem binum premit, atque negat mihi vinum.

O terra et coelum! quam redit pectus anhelum.

Os mihi jam sicc.u.m, liceat mihi bibere dic c.u.m?

Ex vestro grato poculo, tam saepe prolato, Vina crepant: sales ostendet quis mihi tales?

Lumina, vos sperno, dum cuppae gaudia cerno: Perdere etenim pellem nostram, quoque crura mavellem.

Amphora, quam dulces risus queis pectora mulces, Pangitur a Flacco, c.u.m pectus turget Iaccho: Clarius evohe ingeminans geminatur et ohe; Nempe jocosa propago, haesit sic vocis imago.

TO DR. SHERIDAN. 1718

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 vicious and too profane is.

I went in vain to look for Eupolis Down in the Strand,[1] just where the New Pole[2] 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 a.s.ses.

<script>