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 pronounce,
Your medicine is repelling;
Your water's mud, and sours the blood
When drunk at Bally spellin.
Those pocky drabs, to cure their scabs,
You thither are compelling,
Will back be sent worse than they went,
From nasty Ballyspellin.
Llewllyn 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;
By dull intrigues 'twixt jades and teagues You met at Ballyspellin.
Our lasses fair, say what you dare,
Who sowins make with shelling,
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 bum 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 you brag,
Is found at Ballyspellin.
But Tom will prate at any rate,
All other nymphis 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 lass 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.
ON A CHARACTER OF DEAN SMEDLEY.
WRITTEN IN LATIN BY HIMSELF.*
THE very reverend dean Smedley, Of dullness, pride, conceit, a medley,
Reverendus Decanus, JONATHAN SMEDLEY,
Theologia instructus, in Poesi exercitatus,
Politioribus excultus literis ;
Parce pius, impius minime;
Veritatis Indagator, Libertatis Assertor;
Subsannatus multis, fastiditus quibusdam,
Exoptatus plurimis, omnibus amicus,
Auctor hujus sententiæ, PATRES SUNT VETULÆ.
Per laudem et vituperium, per famam atquæ infamiam
Utramque fortunam, variosque expertus casus,
Mente sana, sano corpore, volens, lætusque,
Lustris plus quam xi numeratis,
Ad rem familiarem restaurandam augendamque,
Was equally allow'd to shine
As poet, scholar, and divine;
With godliness could well dispense,
Would be a rake, but wanted sense;
Would strictly after Truth inquire,
Because he dreaded to come nigh her.
For Liberty no champion bolder,
He hated bailiffs at his shoulder.
To half the world a standing jest,
A perfect nuisance to the rest;
From many (and we may believe him)
Had the best wishes they could give him.
To all mankind a constant friend,
Provided they had cash to lend.
One thing he did before he went hence,
He left us a laconic sentence,
By cutting of his phrase, and trimming,
Το
prove that bishops were old women.
Poor Envy durst not show her phiz,
She was so terrified at his.
He waded, without any shame,
Through thick and thin to get a name,
Tried every sharping trick for bread,
And after all he seldom sped.
When Fortune favour'd, he was nice;
He never once would cog the dice:
But, if she turn'd against his play,
He knew to stop à quatre trois.
Et ad Evangelium Indos inter Orientales prædicandum,
Greva, idibus Februarii, navem ascendens,
Arcemque Sancti petens Georgii, vernale per æquinoxium,
Anno Æræ Christianæ MDCCXXVIII,
Fata vocant-revocentque precamur.
Now sound in mind, and sound in corpus,
(Says he) though swell'd like any porpoise,
He hies from hence at forty-four,
(But by his leave he sinks a score)
To the East Indies, there to cheat,
Till he can purchase an estate :
Where, after he has fill'd his chest,
He'll mount his tub, and preach his best,
And plainly prove, by dint of text,
This world is his, and theirs the next,
Lest that the reader should not know
The bank where last he set his toe,
"Twas Greenwich. There he took a ship,
And gave his creditors the slip,
But lest chronology should vary,
Upon the ides of February,
In seventeen hundred eight and twenty,
To Fort St. George a peddlar went he.
Ye Fates, when all he gets is spent,
RETURN HIM Beggar as HE WENT !
"A SLAVE to crowds, scorch'd with the summer's heats, In courts the wretched lawyer toils and sweats;
A polite and elegant scholar; at that time an eminent pleader t the bar in Dublin, and afterward advanced to be one of the justi ces of the common pleas. H.
|