Was taken with his person outward,
So prettily he pick'd a cow-t-d:
Then in a net the Pheasant caught him,
And in his palace fed and taught him.
The moral of the tale is pleasant,
Himself the lark, my lord the pheasant:
A lark he is, and such a lark
As never came from Noah's ark:
And though he had no other notion,
But building, planning, and devotion;
Though 'tis a maxim you must know,
"Who does no ill can have no foe;"
Yet how can I express in words
The strange stupidity of birds?
This lark was hated in the wood,
Because he did his brethren good.
At last the Nightingale comes in,
To hold the Doctor by the chin :
We all can find out what he means,
The worst of disaffected deans:
Whose wit at best was next to none,
And now that little next is gone,
Against the court is always blabbing,
And calls the senate-house a cabin;
So dull, that but for spleen and spite,
We ne'er should know that he could write;
Who thinks the nation always err'd,
Because himself is not preferr'd;
His heart is through his libel seen,
Nor could his malice spare the queen;
Who, had she known his vile behaviour,
Would ne'er have shown him so much favour.
A noble lord has told his pranks,
And well deserves the nation's thanks.
* Lord Allen, the same who is meant by Traulus.-F.
O! would the senate deign to show
Resentment on this public foe;
Our Nightingale might fit a cage,
There let him starve, and vent his rage:
Or would they but in fetters bind,
This enemy of human kind!
Harmonious Coffee,* show thy zeal,
Thou champion for the commonweal:
Nor on a theme like this repine,
For once to wet thy pen divine:
Bestow that libeller a lash,
Who daily vends seditious trash :
Who dares revile the nation's wisdom,
But in the praise of virtue is dumb :
That scribbler lash, who neither knows
The turn of verse, nor style of prose ;
Whose malice, for the worst of ends,
Would have us love our English friends; †
Who never had one public thought,
Nor ever gave the poor a groat.
One clincher more, and I have done,
I end my labours with a pun.
Jove send this Nightingale may fall,
Who spends his day and night in gall!
So Nightingale and Lark adieu;
I see the greatest owls in
That ever screech'd, or ever flew.
* A Dublin garretteer.-F.
+ See A New Song on a seditious pamphlet.-F.
[This piece is repeatedly and always satirically alluded to in the preceding poems.]
It was, my lord, the dexterous shift
Of t'other Jonathan, viz. Swift,
But now St Patrick's saucy dean,
With silver verge, and surplice clean,
Of Oxford, or of Ormond's grace,
In looser rhyme to beg a place.
A place he got, yclept a stall,
And eke a thousand pound withal;
And were he less a witty writer,
He might as well have got a mitre.
Thus I, the Jonathan of Clogher,
In humble grace my thanks to offer,
Approach your grace with grateful heart,
My thanks and verse both void of art,
Content with what your bounty gave,
No larger income do I crave:
Rejoicing that, in better times,
Grafton requires my loyal lines.
Proud! while my patron is polite,
I likewise to the patron write!
Proud! that at once I can commend
King George's and the Muses' friend!
Endear'd to Britain; and to thee
(Disjoin'd, Hibernia, by the sea)
Endear'd by twice three anxious years,
Employ'd in guardian toils and cares;
By love, by wisdom, and by skill;
For he has sav'd thee 'gainst thy will.
But where shall Smedley make his nest,
And lay his wandering head to rest?
Where shall he find a decent house,
To treat his friends, and cheer his spouse?
O! tack, my lord, some pretty cure;
In wholesome soil, and ether pure;
The garden stor'd with artless flowers,
In either angle shady bowers.
No gay parterre, with costly green,
Within the ambient hedge be seen:
Let Nature freely take her course,
Nor fear from me ungrateful force;
No shears shall check her sprouting vigour,
Nor shape the yews to antic figure:
A limpid brook shall trout supply,
In May, to take the mimic fly;
Round a small orchard may it run,
Whose apples redden to the sun.
Let all be snug, and warm, and neat;
For fifty turn'd a safe retreat,
A little Euston may it be,
Euston I'll carve on every tree.
But then, to keep it in repair,
My lord-twice fifty pounds a-year
* The name of the duke's seat in Suffolk.-N.
Will barely do; but if your grace
Could make them hundreds-charming place!
Thou then wouldst show another face.
Clogher! far north, my lord, it lies,
'Midst snowy hills, inclement skies:
One shivers with the arctic wind,
One hears the polar axis grind.
Good John indeed, with beef and claret,
Makes the place warm, that one may bear it.
He has a purse to keep a table,
And eke a soul as hospitable.
My heart is good; but assets fail,
To fight with storms of snow and hail.
Besides, the country's thin of people,
Who seldom meet but at the steeple:
The strapping dean, that's gone to Down,
Ne'er nam'd the thing without a frown,
When, much fatigu'd with sermon study,
He felt his brain grow dull and muddy;
No fit companion could be found,
To push the lazy bottle round:
Sure then, for want of better folks
To pledge, his clerk was orthodox.
Ah! how unlike to Gerard Street,
Where beaux and belles in parties meet;
Where gilded chairs and coaches throng,
And jostle as they troll along;
Where tea and coffee hourly flow,
And gapeseed does in plenty grow;
And Griz (no clock more certain) cries,
Exact at seven, "Hot mutton-pies!"
There lady Luna in her sphere
Once shone, when Paunceforth was not near;
|