Volume Ii Part 64 (1/2)

[Footnote 2: Ross.--_Dublin Edition._]

ANSWER.[1] BY DR. SWIFT

Dare you dispute, you saucy brute, And think there's no refelling Your scurvy lays, and senseless praise You give to Ballyspellin?

Howe'er you flounce, I here p.r.o.nounce, Your medicine is repelling; Your water's mud, and sours the blood When drunk at Ballyspellin.

Those pocky drabs, to cure their scabs, You thither are compelling, Will back be sent worse than they went, From nasty Ballyspellin.

Llewellyn why? As well may I Name honest Doctor Pellin; So hard sometimes you tug for rhymes, To bring in Ballyspellin.

No subject fit to try your wit, When you went colonelling: But dull intrigues 'twixt jades and teagues, You met at Ballyspellin.

Our la.s.ses fair, say what you dare, Who sowins[2] make with sh.e.l.ling, At Market-hill more beaux can kill, Than yours at Ballyspellin.

Would I was whipt, when Sheelah stript, To wash herself our well in, A b.u.m so white ne'er came in sight At paltry Ballyspellin.

Your mawkins there smocks hempen wear; Of Holland not an ell in, No, not a rag, whate'er your brag, Is found at Ballyspellin.

But Tom will prate at any rate, All other nymphs expelling: Because he gets a few grisettes At lousy Ballyspellin.

There's bonny Jane, in yonder lane, Just o'er against the Bell inn; Where can you meet a la.s.s so sweet, Round all your Ballyspellin?

We have a girl deserves an earl; She came from Enniskellin; So fair, so young, no such among The belles of Ballyspellin.

How would you stare, to see her there, The foggy mists dispelling, That cloud the brows of every blowse Who lives at Ballyspellin!

Now, as I live, I would not give A stiver or a skellin, To towse and kiss the fairest miss That leaks at Ballyspellin.

Whoe'er will raise such lies as these Deserves a good cudgelling: Who falsely boasts of belles and toasts At dirty Ballyspellin.

My rhymes are gone to all but one, Which is, our trees are felling; As proper quite as those you write, To force in Ballyspellin.

[Footnote 1: This answer, which seems to have been made while Swift was on a visit at Sir Arthur Acheson's, ”in a mere jest and innocent merriment,” was resented by Sheridan as an affront on the lady and himself, ”against all the rules of reason, taste, good nature, judgment, grat.i.tude, or common manners.” See ”The History of the Second Solomon,”

”Prose Works,” xi, 157. The mutual irritation soon pa.s.sed, and the Dean and Sheridan resumed their intimate friends.h.i.+p.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 2: A food much used in Scotland, the north of Ireland, and other parts. It is made of oatmeal, and sometimes of the sh.e.l.lings of oats; and known by the names of sowins or flummery.--_F._]

AN EPISTLE TO TWO FRIENDS[1]

TO DR. HELSHAM [2]

Nov. 23, at night, 1731.

SIR,

When I left you, I found myself of the grape's juice sick; I'm so full of pity I never abuse sick; And the patientest patient ever you knew sick; Both when I am purge-sick, and when I am spew-sick.

I pitied my cat, whom I knew by her mew sick: She mended at first, but now she's anew sick.

Captain Butler made some in the church black and blue sick.