The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2Swift, Jonathan
General
The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2
Swift, Jonathan
Poetry
And, when this is over, we'll make him amends,
To the Dean he shall go; they shall kiss and be friends:
But how? Why, the Dean shall to him disclose
A face for to kiss, without eyes, ears, or nose.
Knock him down, etc.
If you say this is hard on a man that is reckon'd
That sergeant-at-law whom we call Kite the Second,
You mistake; for a slave, who will coax his superiors,
May be proud to be licking a great man's posteriors.
Knock him down, etc.
What care we how high runs his passion or pride?
Though his soul he despises, he values his hide;
Then fear not his tongue, or his sword, or his knife;
He'll take his revenge on his innocent wife.
Knock him down, down, down, keep him down.
[Footnote 1: GRUB STREET JOURNAL, No. 189, August 9,1734.--"In December
last, Mr. Bettesworth, of the city of Dublin, serjeant-at-law, and member
of parliament, openly swore, before many hundreds of people, that, upon
the first opportunity, by the help of ruffians, he would murder or maim
the Dean of St. Patrick's, (Dr. Swift.) Upon which thirty-one of the
principal inhabitants of that liberty signed a paper to this effect:
'That, out of their great love and respect to the Dean, to whom the whole
kingdom hath so many obligations, they would endeavour to defend the life
and limbs of the said Dean against a certain man and all his ruffians and
murderers.' With which paper they, in the name of themselves and all the
inhabitants of the city, attended the Dean on January 8, who being
extremely ill in bed of a giddiness and deafness, and not able to receive
them, immediately dictated a very grateful answer. The occasion of a
certain man's declaration of his villanous design against the Dean, was a
frivolous unproved suspicion that he had written some lines in verse
reflecting upon him."--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 2: Kevan Bayl was a cant term for the rabble of this district
of Dublin.]
[Footnote 3: Swift, in a letter to the Duke of Dorset, January, 1733-4,
gives a full account of Bettesworth's visit to him, about which he says
that the serjeant had spread some five hundred falsehoods.--_W. E. B._]
ON THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHEL,[1] AND BETTESWORTH
Dear Dick, pr'ythee tell by what passion you move?
The world is in doubt whether hatred or love;
And, while at good Cashel you rail with such spite,
They shrewdly suspect it is all but a bite.
You certainly know, though so loudly you vapour,
His spite cannot wound who attempted the Drapier.
Then, pr'ythee, reflect, take a word of advice;
And, as your old wont is, change sides in a trice:
On his virtues hold forth; 'tis the very best way;
And say of the man what all honest men say.
But if, still obdurate, your anger remains,
If still your foul bosom more rancour contains,
Say then more than they, nay, lavishly flatter;
Tis your gross panegyrics alone can bespatter;
For thine, my dear Dick, give me leave to speak plain,
Like very foul mops, dirty more than they clean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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