Works

WRITTEN A.D. 1720-21. - Stella.


All travellers at first incline
Where'er they see the fairest sign
And if they find the chambers neat,
And like the liquor and the meat,...

As when a beauteous nymph decays,
We say she's past her dancing days;
So poets lose their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bard had rather chose...

Stella this day is thirty-four,
(We shan't dispute a year or more:)
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,...

This day, whate'er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,...

St. Patrick's Dean, your country's pride,
My early and my only guide,
Let me among the rest attend,
Your pupil and your humble friend,
To celebrate in female strains...

Sir,

I thank you for your comedies.
I'll stay and read 'em now at home a-days,
Because Parcus wrote but sorrily
Thy notes, I'll read Lambinus thoroughly;
And then I shall be stoutly set a-gog...

Lindsay mistakes the matter quite,
And honest Paulus judges right.
Then, why these quarrels to the sun,
Without whose aid you're all undone?
Did Paulus e'er complain of sweat?...

The wise pretend to make it clear,
'Tis no great loss to lose an ear.
Why are we then so fond of two,
When by experience one would do?
'Tis true, say they, cut off the head,...

PREFACE
...

Inscribed To Lord Carteret[1] (Verses Written During Lord Carteret's Administration Of Ireland)
1724

Gratior et pulcro veniens in corpore virtus. - VIRG., Aen., v, 344.
...

The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,
I cannot but envy the pride of her wit,
Which thus she will venture profusely to throw
On so mean a design, and a subject so low....

I will not build on yonder mount;
And, should you call me to account,
Consulting with myself, I find
It was no levity of mind.
Whate'er I promised or intended,
No fault of mine, the scheme is ended;...

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1715, ON AN ATTEMPT TO REPEAL THE TEST ACT


A bitch, that was full pregnant grown
By all the dogs and curs in town,
Finding her ripen'd time was come,...

1730

- quis iniquae
Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se? - -Juv. i, 30.

In ancient times, as bards indite,
(If clerks have conn'd the records right.)...

Did ever problem thus perplex,
Or more employ the female sex?
So sweet a passion who would think,
Jove ever form'd to make a stink?
The ladies vow and swear, they'll try,
Whether it be a truth or lie....

When first Diana leaves her bed,
Vapours and steams her looks disgrace,
A frowzy dirty-colour'd red
Sits on her cloudy wrinkled face:

But by degrees, when mounted high,
Her artificial face appears...

Venus one day, as story goes,
But for what reason no man knows,
In sullen mood and grave deport,
Trudged it away to Jove's high court;
And there his Godship did entreat
To look out for his best receipt:...

The bold encroachers on the deep
Gain by degrees huge tracts of land,
Till Neptune, with one general sweep,
Turns all again to barren strand.

The multitude's capricious pranks...

To the Tune of "Derry Down."

Jolly boys of St. Kevan's,[2] St. Patrick's, Donore
And Smithfield, I'll tell you, if not told before,
How Bettesworth, that booby, and scoundrel in grain,...

The greatest monarch may be stabb'd by night
And fortune help the murderer in his flight;
The vilest ruffian may commit a rape,
Yet safe from injured innocence escape;
And calumny, by working under ground,...