"And can I then be faulty found 165 I * A NEW SIMILE for the LADIES. With ufeful ANNOTATIONS. By Dr. SHERIDAN. To make a writer mifs his end, Written in the year 1731. Often try'd in vain to find A fimile I mean to fit 'em, In ev'ry circumftance to hit ‡ 'em. And after peeping thro' all nature * Clouds turn with ev'ry wind about, They keep us in fufpenfe and doubt; Yet oft perverfe, like woman-kind,. Are feen to feud against the wind: Moft ladies in reading call this word a fmile; but they are fo sote, it confifis of three fyllables, fi-mi-le. In English, a likencfs, Nt to hurt them. Not like a gun or piftol. And And are not women juft the fame ? Clouds keep the ftouteft mortals under, Of Xanti's everlafting tongue, The hufband dreads its loudness more, Clouds weep as they do, without pain, This is not meant as to fhooting, but refolving. 15 20 The word bellowing is not here to be understood of a bull; but a cloud, which makes a noife like a bull when it thunders. Xanti, a nickname for Xantippe, that fcold of glorious memory, who never let poor Socrates have one moment's peace of mind; yet with unexampled patience he bore her peftilential tongue. I fhall beg the ladies pardon, if I infert a few paffages concerning her; and at the fame time I affure them, it is not to lefien thofe of the prefent age, who are poffeffed of the like laudable talents: for I will confefs, that I know three in the city of Dublin, no way inferior to Xantippe, bu: that they have not as great men to work upon. When a friend afked Socrates, how he could bear the fcolding of his wife Xantippe? he retorted, and asked him, how he could bear the gaggling of his gerfe? Ay, but my geefe lay eggs for me, replied his friend. So doth my wife bear children, faid Socrates. Lig. Laert. Being asked another time by a friend, how he could bear her tongue? he faid, fhe was of this ufe to him, that fe taught him to bear the impertinences of others with more eafe when he went abroad. Plut. de capiend. cx boft. uti.it. Socrates invited his friend Euthydemus to fupper; Xantippe in great rage went in to them, and overfet the table: Euthydemus rifing in a paffion to go off, my dear friend, fay, faid Socrates; did not a hen do the fame thing at your houfe the other day, and did I fhew any refentment? Plut, de ira cekibenda. I could give many more inftances of her termagancy, and his philofophy, if fuch a proceeding might not look as if I were glad of an opportunity to expofe the fair fex; but to fhew I have no fuch defign, I declare folemnly, that I had much worfe ftories to tell of her teha. viour to her husband; which I rather paffed over, on account of the great efteem which I bear the ladies, especially thofe in the honourable station of matrimony. The The clouds about the welkin roam And ladies never stay at home. The clouds build caftles in the air, For all the fchemes of their forecasting t A cloud is light, by turns, and dark; Tho' in the darkest dumps †† you view 'em, 25 30 35 The clouds are apt to make reflection ‡‡, 40 The clouds delight in gaudy fhow, For they, like ladies, have their beau; 45 The graveft matron * will confefs, Ramble. + Not vomiting. Thrusting out the lip. This is to be underfood, not in the fenfe of wort, when brewers put yeaft or barm in it; but its true meaning is, deceived or cheated. **Hit your fancy. tt Sullen fits. We have a merry jigg called Dumptey Deary, invented to roufe ladies from the dumps. 1 Reflection of the fun. Motherly women. Obferve the clouds in pomp array'd, The clouds delight to change their fashion : Nor let this whim to you feem ftrange, Dear ladies, be not in a paffion, Who ev'ry hour delight in change. 50 55 60 In them and you alike are seen Their words fall thick, and fwift, and flow; 70 While brifk coquettes, like rattling hail, Clouds, when they intercept our fight, Deprive us of celestial light: + Not grace before and after meat, nor their graces the ducheffes; but the graces which attended on Venus. Not Flanders lace, but gold and filver lace. By borrowed, is m.ant fuch as run in honeft tradefmens deb:s for what they were n t able to pay, as many of them did for French filver lace against the laft birthday. Girls who love to hear themselves prate, and put on a numb.r of monkey-airs to catch men. So when my Chloe I purfue, Thus, on comparison *, you see, So like, fo very much the fame, 75 80 An ANSWER to a fcandalous POEM, wherein the author most audaciously prefumes to cast an indignity upon their Highnesses the CLOUDS, by comparing them to a Wo MAN. Written by DERMOT O-NEPHELEY, Chief Cap of Howth I. Written in the Year 1733. PRefumptuous bard! how could you dare *I hope none will be funcomplaifant to the ladies, as to think thefe comparif ns odious. Tell it to the whole world, not to proclaim them as robbers and rapparees. The highest point of Howth is called the Cape of Howth. We |