YOUR mandate I got, You may all go to pot; Had your senses been right, You’d have sent before night; As I hope to be saved, 5 I put off being shaved; For I could not make bold, While the matter was cold, To meddle in suds, Or to put on my duds; 10 So tell Horneck and Nesbitt, And Baker and his bit, And Kauffmann beside, And the Jessamy Bride, With the rest of the crew, 15 The Reynoldses two, Little Comedy’s face, And the Captain in lace, (By-the-bye you may tell him, I have something to sell him; 20 Of use I insist, When he comes to enlist. Your worships must know That a few days ago, An order went out, 25 For the foot guards so stout To wear tails in high taste, Twelve inches at least: Now I’ve got him a scale To measure each tail, 30 To lengthen a short tail, And a long one to curtail.)— Yet how can I when vext, Thus stray from my text? Tell each other to rue 35 Your Devonshire crew, For sending so late To one of my state. But ’tis Reynolds’s way From wisdom to stray, 40 And Angelica’s whim To be frolick like him, But, alas! Your good worships, how could they be wiser, When both have been spoil’d in to-day’s _Advertiser_? OLIVER GOLDSMITH. LETTER IN PROSE AND VERSE TO MRS. BUNBURY MADAM, I read your letter with all that allowance which critical candour could require, but after all find so much to object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot help giving it a serious answer. I am not so ignorant, Madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms contained in it, and solecisms also. (Solecism is a word that comes from the town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains, from a town also of that name;—but this is learning you have no taste for!)—I say, Madam, there are sarcasms in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I’ll take leave to quote your own words, and give you my remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows:— ‘I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here, And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear, To open our ball the first day of the year.’