Volume Ii Part 61 (2/2)

TO QUILCA A COUNTRY-HOUSE OF DR. SHERIDAN, IN NO VERY GOOD REPAIR. 1725

Let me thy properties explain: A rotten cabin, dropping rain: Chimneys, with scorn rejecting smoke; Stools, tables, chairs, and bedsteads broke.

Here elements have lost their uses, Air ripens not, nor earth produces: In vain we make poor Sheelah[1] toil, Fire will not roast, nor water boil.

Through all the valleys, hills, and plains, The G.o.ddess Want, in triumph reigns; And her chief officers of state, Sloth, Dirt, and Theft, around her wait.

THE BLESSINGS OF A COUNTRY LIFE 1725

Far from our debtors; no Dublin letters; Not seen by our betters.

THE PLAGUES OF A COUNTRY LIFE

A companion with news; a great want of shoes; Eat lean meat or choose; a church without pews; Our horses away; no straw, oats, or hay; December in May; our boys run away; all servants at play.

A FAITHFUL INVENTORY OF THE FURNITURE BELONGING TO ---- ROOM IN T. C. D.

IN IMITATION OF DR. SWIFT'S MANNER.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1725

----quaeque ipse miserrima vidi.[1]

This description of a scholar's room in Trinity College, Dublin, was found among Mr. Smith's papers. It is not in the Dean's hand, but seems to have been the production of Sheridan.

Imprimis, there's a table blotted, A tatter'd hanging all bespotted.

A bed of flocks, as I may rank it, Reduced to rug and half a blanket.

A tinder box without a flint, An oaken desk with nothing in't; A pair of tongs bought from a broker, A fender and a rusty poker; A penny pot and basin, this Design'd for water, that for p.i.s.s; A broken-winded pair of bellows, Two knives and forks, but neither fellows.

Item, a surplice, not unmeeting, Either for table-cloth, or sheeting; There is likewise a pair of breeches, But patch'd, and fallen in the st.i.tches, Hung up in study very little, Plaster'd with cobweb and spittle, An airy prospect all so pleasing, From my light window without glazing, A trencher and a College bottle, Piled up on Locke and Aristotle.

A prayer-book, which he seldom handles A save-all and two farthing candles.

A s.m.u.tty ballad, musty libel, A Burgersdicius[2] and a Bible.

The C****[3] Seasons and the Senses By Overton, to save expenses.

Item, (if I am not much mistaken,) A mouse-trap with a bit of bacon.

A candlestick without a snuffer, Whereby his fingers often suffer.

Two odd old shoes I should not skip here, Each strapless serves instead of slippers, And chairs a couple, I forgot 'em, But each of them without a bottom.

Thus I in rhyme have comprehended His goods, and so my schedule's ended.

[Footnote 1: Virg., ”Aen.,” ii, 5.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: Francis Burgersdicius, author of ”An Argument to prove that the 39th section of the Lth chapter of the Statutes given by Queen Elizabeth to the University of Cambridge includes the whole Statutes of that University, with an answer to the Argument and the Author's reply.”

London, 1727. He was one of those logicians that Swift so disliked.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: Illegible. John Overton, 1640-1708, a dealer in mezzotints.--_W. E. B._]

PALINODIA[1]

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