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 chinks;
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 Gods! 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 Laocoon.
'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 dicunt," 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
"Cassandra," a romance by La Calprenède, 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 amusements 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]
'Twill appear to your cost, you are fairly trepann'd,
For the chord of your circle is now in their hand.
The chord, or the radius, it matters not whether,
By which your jade Pegasus, fix'd in a tether,
As his betters are used, shall be lash'd round the ring,
Three fellows with whips, and the Dean holds the string.
Will Hancock declares, you are out of your compass,
To encroach on his art by writing of bombast;
And has taken just now a firm resolution
To answer your style without circumlocution.
Lady Betty[2] presents you her service most humble,
And is not afraid your worship will grumble,
That she make of your verses a hoop for Miss Tam.[3]
Which is all at present; and so I remain--
[Footnote 1: There were four human figures in the centre of the circular
verses.--_F._]
[Footnote 2: Daughter of the Earl of Drogheda, and married to George
Rochfort, Esq.--_F._]
[Footnote 3: Miss Thomason, Lady Betty's daughter, then, perhaps, about a
year old; afterwards married to Gustavus Lambert, Esq., of Paynstown,
in the county of Meath.--_Scott._]
ON DR. SHERIDAN'S CIRCULAR VERSES
BY MR. GEORGE ROCHFORT
With music and poetry equally blest,
A bard thus Apollo most humbly addrest:
"Great author of harmony, verses, and light!
Assisted by thee, I both fiddle and write.
Yet unheeded I scrape, or I scribble all day,
My verse is neglected, my tunes thrown away.
Thy substitute here, Vice Apollo, disdains
To vouch for my numbers, or list to my strains;
Thy manual signet refuses to put
To the airs I produce from the pen or the gut.
Be thou then propitious, great Phoebus! and grant
Relief, or reward, to my merit, or want.
Though the Dean and Delany transcendently shine,
O brighten one solo or sonnet of mine!
With them I'm content thou shouldst make thy abode;
But visit thy servant in jig or in ode;
Make one work immortal: 'tis all I request."
Apollo look'd pleased; and, resolving to jest,
Replied, "Honest friend, I've consider'd thy case;
Nor dislike thy well-meaning and humorous face.
Thy petition I grant: the boon is not great;
Thy works shall continue; and here's the receipt.
On rondeaus hereafter thy fiddle-strings spend:
Write verses in circles: they never shall end."