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Dr. Sheridan's Reply To The Dean
By Jonathan Swift
Don't think these few lines which I send, a reproach,
From my Muse in a car, to your Muse in a coach.
The great god of poems delights in a car,
Which makes him so bright that we see him from far;
For, were he mew'd up in a coach, 'tis allow'd
We'd see him no more than we see through a cloud.
You know to apply this - I do not disparage
Your lines, but I say they're the worse for the carriage.
Now first you deny that a woman's a sieve;
I say that she is: What reason d'ye give?
Because she lets out more than she takes in.
Is't that you advance for't? you are still to begin.
Your major and minor I both can refute,
I'll teach you hereafter with whom to dispute.
A sieve keeps in half, deny't if you can.
D. "Adzucks, I mistook it, who thought of the bran?"
I tell you in short, sir, you[1] should have a pair o' stocks
For thinking to palm on your friend such a paradox.
Indeed, I confess, at the close you grew better,
But you light from your coach when you finish'd your letter.
Your thing which you say wants interpretation,
What's name for a maiden - the first man's damnation?
A damsel - Adam's hell - ay, there I have hit it,
Just as you conceived it, just so have I writ it.
Since this I've discover'd, I'll make you to know it,
That now I'm your Phoebus, and you are my poet.
But if you interpret the two lines that follow,
I'll again be your poet, and you my Apollo.
Why a noble lord's dog, and my school-house this weather,
Make up the best catch when they're coupled together?
From my Ringsend car, Sept. 12, 1718, past 5 in the morning, on a repetition day.
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