The Dean to Thomas Sheridan

SIR,When I saw you to-day, as I went with Lord Anglesey,Lord, said I, who's that parson, how awkwardly dangles he!When whip you trot up, without minding your betters,To the very coach side, and threaten your letters.Is the poison [and dagger] you boast in your jaws, trow?Are you still in your cart with convitia ex plaustro?But to scold is your trade, which I soon should be foil'd in,For scolding is just quasi diceres--school-din:And I think I may say, you could many good shillings get,Were you drest like a bawd, and sold oysters at Billingsgate;But coach it or cart it, I'd have you know, sirrah,I'll write, though I'm forced to write in a wheelbarrow;Nay, hector and swagger, you'll still find me stanch,And you and your cart shall give me carte blanche.Since you write in a cart, keep it tecta et sarta,'Tis all you have for it; 'tis your best Magna Carta;And I love you so well, as I told you long ago,That I'll ne'er give my vote for Delenda Cart-ago.Now you write from your cellar, I find out your art,You rhyme as folks fence, in tierce and in cart:Your ink is your poison, your pen is what not;Your ink is your drink, your pen is your pot.To my goddess Melpomene, pride of her sex,I gave, as you beg, your most humble respects:The rest of your compliment I dare not tell her,For she never descends so low as the cellar;But before you can put yourself under her banners,She declares from her throne you must learn better manners.If once in your cellar my Phoebus should shine,I tell you I'd not give a fig for your wine;So I'll leave him behind, for I certainly know it,What he ripens above ground, he sours below it.But why should we fight thus, my partner so dearWith three hundred and sixty-five poems a-year?Let's quarrel no longer, since Dan and George RochfortWill laugh in their sleeves: I can tell you they watch for't.Then George will rejoice, and Dan will sing highday:Hoc Ithacus velit, et magni mercentur Atridae.

Erratum in your last, 1. antepenult, pro "fear a Dun" lege "fear aquam veritati.

I wish, when you prated, your letter you'd dated:Much plague it created. I scolded and rated;My soul is much grated; for your man I long waited.I think you are fated, like a bear to be baited:Your man is belated: the case I have stated;And me you have cheated. My stable’s unslated.Come back t'us well freighted.I remember my late head; and wish you translated,For teasing me.

Mrs. Dingley desires me singlyHer service to present you; hopes that will content you;But Johnson madam is grown a sad dame,For want of your converse, and cannot send one verse.

You keep such a twattling with you and your bottling;But I see the sum total, we shall ne'er have a bottle;The long and the short, we shall not have a quart,I wish you would sign't, that we have a pint.For all your colloguing, I'd be glad for a knoggin:But I doubt 'tis a sham; you won't give us a dram.'Tis of shine a mouth moon-ful, you won't part with a spoonful,And I must be nimble, if I can fill my thimble,You see I won't stop, till I come to a drop;But I doubt the oraculum, is a poor supernaculum;Though perhaps you may tell it, for a grace if we smell it.