Works

Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste;

I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:...

But he by bawling news about,
And aptly using brush and clout,
A justice of the peace became,
To punish rogues who do the same.

I sing the man of courage tried,
O'errun with ignorance and pride,...

As Lord Carteret's residence in Ireland as Viceroy was a series of cabals against the authority of the Prime Minister, he failed not, as well from his love of literature as from his hatred to Walpole, to attach to himself as mu...

Know all men by these presents, Death, the tamer,
By mortgage has secured the corpse of Demar;
Nor can four hundred thousand sterling pound
Redeem him from his prison underground....

Ye people of Ireland, both country and city,
Come listen with patience, and hear out my ditty:
At this time I'll choose to be wiser than witty.
Which nobody can deny.
...

The church and clergy here, no doubt,
Are very near a-kin;
Both weather-beaten are without,
And empty both within.

O Neptune! Neptune! must I still
Be here detain'd against my will?
Is this your justice, when I'm come
Above two hundred miles from home;
O'er mountains steep, o'er dusty plains,...

By Satan taught, all conjurors know
Your mistress in a glass to show,
And you can do as much:
In this the devil and you agree;
None e'er made verses worse than he,
And thine, I swear, are such.

Thanks to my stars, I once can see
A window here from scribbling free!
Here no conceited coxcombs pass,
To scratch their paltry drabs on glass;
Nor party fool is calling names,...

Femineo generi tribuantur.

The Muses, whom the richest silks array,
Refuse to fling their shining gowns away;
The pencil clothes the nine in bright brocades,...

Not asking or expecting aught,
One day I went to view the court,
Unbent and free from care or thought,
Though thither fears and hopes resort.

A piece of tapestry took my eye,...

The enclosed prologue is formed upon the story of the secretary's not allowing you to act, unless you would pay him '300 per annum; upon which you got a license from the Lord Mayor to act as strollers....

When foes are o'ercome, we preserve them from slaughter,
To be hewers of wood, and drawers of water.
Now, although to draw water is not very good,
Yet we all should rejoice to be hewers of Wood....

As when of old some sorceress threw
O'er the moon's face a sable hue,
To drive unseen her magic chair,
At midnight, through the darken'd air;
Wise people, who believed with reason...

The glass, by lovers' nonsense blurr'd,
Dims and obscures our sight;
So, when our passions Love has stirr'd,
It darkens Reason's light.

"Qui color ater erat, nunc est contrarius atro."[1]

With singing of ballads, and crying of news,
With whitening of buckles, and blacking of shoes,
Did Hartley set out, both shoeless and shirtless,...

While the king and his ministers keep such a pother,
And all about changing one whore for another,
Think I to myself, what need all this strife,
His majesty first had a whore of a wife,...

Thus spoke great Bedel[1] from his tomb:
"Mortal, I would not change my doom,
To live in such a restless state,
To be unfortunately great;
To flatter fools, and spurn at knaves,...

POPE has the talent well to speak,
But not to reach the ear;
His loudest voice is low and weak,
The Dean too deaf to hear.

Awhile they on each other look,
Then different studies choose;...

On one Delacourt's complimenting Carthy on his Poetry

Carthy, you say, writes well - his genius true,
You pawn your word for him - he'll vouch for you.
So two poor knaves, who find their credit fail,...