Poetry Part 13

ON HEARING MR. **** BOAST THAT HE COULD TRANSLATE VIRGIL.

Thou able, boaster! Virgil to translate!

Can'st thou, then, be so vain, so shallow-pated?

To a far higher intellectual state, c.o.xcomb! thou must, thyself, be first translated.

A lady had a sickly son; A skeleton but for his skin:-- Her pretty maid he woo'd, and won;-- The mother chid him for his sin.-- 'Her charms were not to be withstood, Too tempting for frail flesh and blood!

As you, dear Ma'am, must fairly own.'

"That's no excuse for skin and bone."

ON DR. ****, A MERE PRETENDER TO MEDICAL SCIENCE, OFFICIOUSLY OFFERING ME HIS SERVICES.

'Should you e'er be unwell, send directly for me; To cure you I'll haste with all possible speed, Prescribe and find medicine without any fee.'-- Oh! Doctor! your offer's most generous indeed; I'd accept--but for something--the vast obligation.

'But for what, pray?'--The instinct of self-preservation.

If, as Swift says, in the most delicate mind Nastiest ideas we are sure to find, Then--equal to his humour and his wit Swift's delicacy we must all admit.

ON HEARING A PARSON READ VERY BADLY A SERMON HE HAD BOUGHT.

That sermon, reverend Sir, which you have bought, To save your idle brain the toil of thought, You read in such a dull, lethargic tone, It seems almost as stupid as your own.

Pursefull's a stickler for the law's abuse:-- To him, 'tis clear, it was of sterling use.

Pursefull still advocates the law's abuse.-- What moralist can grat.i.tude condemn?

They, formerly, have done so much for him; Ought he not, now, to do his best for them?

TO MR. BURY, AN EMINENT SURGEON IN COVENTRY,

ON HIS HAVING PERFORMED A SUCCESSFUL OPERATION, IN A CASE OF DEEPLY-SEATED INFLAMMATION IN THE NECK, WHEN THE PATIENT WAS IN EXTREME DANGER OF IMMEDIATE SUFFOCATION.

Bury, for practice bold and skill Deserves to be of note; He cures by means that well might kill,-- He cuts his patient's throat!

When Satan tempts a priest to rise, 'It is the call of heaven!' he cries, And mount's ambition's ladder:-- To heaven's own call that bids him be, Like Christ, full of humility, He's deafer than an adder.

AFTER HAVING SEEN SEVERAL BAD PAINTINGS OF THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

Cease, daubers! profane not the theme, I implore ye!

But leave him, O leave him alone with his glory!

Man's owl-eyed reason--Popish Priests a.s.sert-- Can't safely bear the gospel's heavenly light; Therefore, with kindest zeal, they do their best To keep their flocks in unillumined night.

'The brokers of the Stock-Exchange Are nicknamed bears and bulls;--how strange!

What reason, Sir, to call them so?'

Ma'am, see their manners, you will know.

ON HEARING A LADY TALK VERY FAST AND UNINTELLIGIBLY.

Words upon words impetuous rush along, And tread each other's brains out as they throng.

'Admire my wife! did ever mortal eyes'-- Cornuto, in a rapture, boasting cries-- 'Such a fine set of teeth of ivory view?

And such a fine complexion's ivory hue?

Fool! hide thy head! both her and thee we scorn: Oft the wife's ivory makes the husband's horn.

I'm told Sir Pigmy mimics me;--what then?

Don't we all know that monkies mimic men?

'I cannot say your poem I admire; It wants originality and fire; Besides, I find it, by no means, correct; You've written it in haste, I should suspect,'

"What! do you think me then a jacka.s.s, pray?"

'I shall think so if you so loudly bray.'

A worthy man of rags Intreats for charity A rogue of money-bags.

'Pshaw! it at home begins.'

Then serve thyself and me; For it will be no less A cover to thy sins, Than to my nakedness.

The Fair-one, at her toilet, thus exprest The ambitious aims that swell'd her panting breast: 'Pull, f.a.n.n.y, pull again, with all your might; I must, to-day, be laced up very tight; For, to a glorious conquest I aspire:-- Know, that two n.o.blemen my charms admire!

Pull, then, good girl! I'll be so tightly laced, That half-a-yard will measure round my waist.'