POEMS

THAT PASSED BETWEEN

DEAN SWIFT AND DR. SHERIDAN.

TAKEN FROM "THE WHIMSICAL MEDLEY ;”◄

AND NEVER BEFORE PRINTED.

Communicated by DR. BARRETT,

Vice Provost of TRINITY COLLege, Dublin.

1

That passed between DEAN SWIFT, SHERIDAN, &c.

TAKEN FROM

THE WHIMSICAL MEDLEY *

A Couplet, by Thomas Sheridan; in continuation of a Poem, printed in Vol. XVI. p. 267.

IF

you say this was made for friend Dan, you belie it: I'll swear he's so like it, that he was made by it. THOMAS SHERIDAN sculpsit.

THE PARDON ☀.

THE suit which humbly you have made,
Is fully and maturely weigh'd;

And as 'tis your petition,

I do forgive, for well I know,

Since you're so bruis'd, another blow

Would break the head of Priscian,

Tis not my purpose or intent

That

you should suffer banishment
I pardon, now you've courted;
yet I fear this clemency
Will come too late to profit thee,

And

However, this I do command,
That you your birch do take in hand,
Read concord and syntax on;

The bays, you own, are only mine,
Do you then still your nouns decline,
Since you've declin'd Dan Jackson.

The last Speech and dying Words of Daniel Jackson.

MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN,

-Mediocribus esse poetis

Non funes, non gryps, non concessere columnæ. To give you a short translation of these two lines from Horace's Art of Poetry, which I have chosen for my neck-verse, before I proceed to my speech, you will find they fall naturally into this sense:

For poets who can't tell [high] rocks from stones, The rope, the hangman, and the gallows groans. I was born in a fen near the foot of Mount Parnassus, commonly called the Logwood Bog. My mother, whose name was Stanza, conceived me in a dream, and was delivered of me in her sleep. Her dream was, that Apollo, in the shape of a gander with a prodigious long bill, had embraced her; upon which she consulted the Oracle of Delphos, and the following answer was made:

You'll have a gosling, call it Dan,

And do not make your goose, a swan.
Tis true, because the God of Wit
To get him in that shape thought fit,
He'll have some glowworm sparks of it.
Venture you may to turn him loose,
But let it be to another goose.

}

The