The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D Volume Ii Part 55

Nor will they dare to break the joints, But help thee to be read with points: Or else, to show their learned labour, you May backward be perused like Hebrew, In which they need not lose a bit Or of thy harmony or wit.

To make a work completely fine, Number and weight and measure join; Then all must grant your lines are weighty Where thirty weigh as much as eighty; All must allow your numbers more, Where twenty lines exceed fourscore; Nor can we think your measure short, Where less than forty fill a quart, With Alexandrian in the close, Long, long, long, long, like Dan's long nose.[4]

[Footnote 1: In the Dublin edition: "Makes thy verse smooth, and makes them last."]

[Footnote 2: For a clear description of the phalanx, see Smith's "Greek and Roman Antiquities," p. 488.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: The projection in the centre of the s.h.i.+eld, which caused the missiles of the enemy to glance off. See Smith, as above, p. 298.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 4: See _post_, the poems on Dan Jackson's Picture.--_W. E. B._]

GEORGE-NIM-DAN-DEAN'S INVITATION TO THOMAS SHERIDAN

Gaulstown, Aug. 2, 1721.

Dear Tom, this verse, which however the beginning may appear, yet in the end's good metre, Is sent to desire that, when your August vacation comes, your friends you'd meet here.

For why should you stay in that filthy hole, I mean the city so smoky, When you have not one friend left in town, or at least not one that's witty, to joke w' ye?

For as for honest John,[1] though I'm not sure on't, yet I'll be hang'd, lest he Be gone down to the county of Wexford with that great peer the Lord Anglesey.[2]

O! but I forgot; perhaps, by this time, you may have one come to town, but I don't know whether he be friend or foe, Delany: But, however, if he be come, bring him down, and you shall go back in a fortnight, for I know there's no delaying ye.

O! I forgot too: I believe there may be one more, I mean that great fat joker, friend Helsham, he That wrote the prologue,[3] and if you stay with him, depend on't, in the end, he'll sham ye.

Bring down Longshanks Jim[4] too; but, now I think on't, he's not yet come from Courtown,[5] I fancy; For I heard, a month ago, that he was down there a-courting sly Nancy.

However, bring down yourself, and you bring down all; for, to say it we may venture, In thee Delany's spleen, John's mirth, Helsham's jokes, and the soft soul of amorous Jemmy, centre.

POSTSCRIPT

I had forgot to desire you to bring down what I say you have, and you'll believe me as sure as a gun, and own it; I mean, what no other mortal in the universe can boast of, your own spirit of pun, and own wit.

And now I hope you'll excuse this rhyming, which I must say is (though written somewhat at large) trim and clean; And so I conclude, with humble respects as usual Your most dutiful and obedient GEORGE-NIM-DAN-DEAN.

[Footnote 1: Supposed to mean Dr. Walmsley.--_F._]

[Footnote 2: Arthur, Earl of Anglesey.--_Scott._]

[Footnote 3: It was customary with Dr. Sheridan to have a Greek play acted by his head cla.s.s, just before they entered the university; and, accordingly, in the year 1720, the Doctor having fixed on Hippolytus, writ a prologue in English, to be spoken by Master Thom. Putland, one of the youngest children he had in his school. The prologue was very neat and elegant, but extremely puerile, and quite adapted to the childhood of the speaker, who as regularly was taught and rehea.r.s.ed his part as any of the upper lads did theirs. However, it unfortunately happened that Dr.

King, Archbishop of Dublin, had promised Sheridan that he would go and see his lads perform the tragedy. Upon which Dr. Helsham writ another prologue, wherein he laughed egregiously at Sheridan's; and privately instructed Master Putland how to act his part; and at the same time exacted a promise from the child, that no consideration should make him repeat that prologue which he had been taught by Sheridan. When the play was to be acted, the archbishop attended according to his promise; and Master Putland began Helsham's prologue, and went through it to the amazement of Sheridan; which fired him to such a degree (although he was one of the best-natured men in the world) that he would have entirely put off the play, had it not been in respect to the archbishop, who was indeed highly complimented in Helsham's performance. When the play was over, the archbishop was very desirous to hear Sheridan's prologue; but all the entreaties of the archbishop, the child's father, and Sheridan, could not prevail with Master Putland to repeat it, having, he said, promised faithfully that he would not, upon any account whatever; and therefore insisted that he would keep his word.--_F._]

[Footnote 4: Dr. James Stopford, Bishop of Cloyne.--_F._]

[Footnote 5: The seat of ---- Hussay, Esq., in the county of Kildare.--_F._]

TO GEORGE-NIM-DAN-DEAN, ESQ.

UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE VERSES. BY DR. DELANY IN SHERIDAN'S NAME[1]

Hail, human compound quadrifarious, Invincible as wight Briareus![2]

Hail! doubly-doubled mighty merry one, Stronger than triple-bodied Geryon![3]

O may your vastness deign t' excuse The praises of a puny Muse, Unable, in her utmost flight, To reach thy huge colossian height!

T' attempt to write like thee were frantic, Whose lines are, like thyself, gigantic.

Yet let me bless, in humbler strain, Thy vast, thy bold Cambysian[4] vein, Pour'd out t' enrich thy native isle, As Egypt wont to be with Nile.

O, how I joy to see thee wander, In many a winding loose meander, In circling mazes, smooth and supple, And ending in a clink quadruple; Loud, yet agreeable withal, Like rivers rattling in their fall!

Thine, sure, is poetry divine, Where wit and majesty combine; Where every line, as huge as seven, If stretch'd in length, would reach to Heaven: Here all comparing would be slandering, The least is more than Alexandrine.

Against thy verse Time sees with pain, He whets his envious scythe in vain; For though from thee he much may pare, Yet much thou still wilt have to spare.

Thou hast alone the skill to feast With Roman elegance of taste, Who hast of rhymes as vast resources As Pompey's caterer of courses.

O thou, of all the Nine inspired!

My languid soul, with teaching tired, How is it raptured, when it thinks Of thy harmonious set of c.h.i.n.ks; Each answering each in various rhymes, Like echo to St. Patrick's chimes!

Thy Muse, majestic in her rage, Moves like Statira[5] on the stage; And scarcely can one page sustain The length of such a flowing train: Her train of variegated dye Shows like Thaumantia's[6] in the sky; Alike they glow, alike they please, Alike imprest by Phoebus' rays.

Thy verse--(Ye G.o.ds! I cannot bear it) To what, to what shall I compare it?

'Tis like, what I have oft heard spoke on, The famous statue of Laoc.o.o.n.

'Tis like,--O yes, 'tis very like it, The long, long string, with which you fly kite.

'Tis like what you, and one or two more, Roar to your Echo[7] in good humour; And every couplet thou hast writ Concludes with Rhattah-whittah-whit.[8]

[Footnote 1: These were written all in circles, one within another, as appears from the observations in the following poem by Dr. Swift.--_F._]

[Footnote 2: The hundred-armed giant, "centumgeminus Briareus," Virg., "Aen.," vi, 287; also called Aegaeon, "centum cui brachia dic.u.n.t," Virg., "Aen.," x, 565; see Heyne's notes.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 3: A mythic king, having three bodies, whose arms were carried off by Hercules.--Lucr., v, 28, and Munro's note; Virg. "Aen.," vii, 662, and viii, 202:

"maxumus ultor Tergemini nece Geryonae spoliisque superbus Alcides aderat taurosque hac victor agebat Ingentis, vallemque boves amnemque tenebant."--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 4: Cambyses, the warrior king of Persia, whose name is the emblem of bravado.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 5: Represented as the perfection of female beauty in "Ca.s.sandra," a romance by La Calprenede, romancier et auteur dramatique, 1610-1663,--_Larousse.--W. E. B._]

[Footnote 6: Iris, daughter of Thaumas, and the messenger of Juno, descending and returning on the rainbow.--_W. E. B._]

[Footnote 7: At Gaulstown there is so famous an echo, that if you repeat two lines of Virgil out of a speaking-trumpet, you may hear the nymph return them to your ear with great propriety and clearness.--_F._]

[Footnote 8: These words allude to their amus.e.m.e.nts with the echo, having no other signification but to express the sound of stones when beaten one against the other, returned by the echo.--_F._]

TO MR. THOMAS SHERIDAN UPON HIS VERSES WRITTEN IN CIRCLES BY DR. SWIFT

It never was known that circular letters, By humble companions were sent to their betters, And, as to the subject, our judgment, _meherc'le_, Is this, that you argue like fools in a circle.

But now for your verses; we tell you, _imprimis_, The segment so large 'twixt your reason and rhyme is, That we walk all about, like a horse in a pound, And, before we find either, our noddles turn round.

Sufficient it were, one would think, in your mad rant, To give us your measures of line by a quadrant.

But we took our dividers, and found your d--n'd metre, In each single verse, took up a diameter.

But how, Mr. Sheridan, came you to venture George, Dan, Dean, and Nim, to place in the centre?[1]