My ink’s my flash, my pen’s my bolt; Whene'er I please to thunder, I'll make you tremble like a colt, And thus I'll keep you under. THOMAS SHERIDAN. TO THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S Dear Dean, I'm in a sad condition, I cannot see to read or write; Pity the darkness of thy Priscian, Whose days are all transform'd to night. My head, though light, 's a dungeon grown, The windows of my soul are closed; Therefore to sleep I lay me down, My verse and I are both composed. Sleep, did I say? that cannot be; For who can sleep, that wants his eyes? My bed is useless then to me, Therefore I lay me down to rise. Unnumber'd thoughts pass to and fro Upon the surface of my brain; In various maze they come and go, And come and go again. So have you seen in sheet burnt black, The fiery sparks at random run; Now here, now there, some turning back Some ending where they just begun. THOMAS SHERIDAN. AN ANSWER, BY DELANY, TO THOMAS SHERIDAN Dear Sherry, I'm sorry for your bloodsheded sore eye, And the more I consider your case, still the more I Regret it, for see how the pain on't has wore ye. Besides, the good Whigs, who strangely adore ye, In pity cry out, "He's a poor blinded Tory." But listen to me, and I'll soon lay before ye A sovereign cure well attested in Gory. First wash it with _ros_, that makes dative _rori_, Then send for three leeches, and let them all gore ye; Then take a cordial dram to restore ye, Then take Lady Judith, and walk a fine boree, Then take a glass of good claret _ex more_, Then stay as long as you can _ab uxore_; And then if friend Dick[1] will but ope your back-door, he Will quickly dispel the black clouds that hang o'er ye, And make you so bright, that you'll sing tory rory, And make a new ballad worth ten of John Dory: (Though I work your cure, yet he'll get the glory.) I'm now in the back school-house, high up one story, Quite weary with teaching, and ready to _mori_. My candle's just out too, no longer I'll pore ye, But away to Clem Barry's,[2]--there’s an end of my story. [Footnote 1: Dr. Richard Helsham.] [Footnote 2: See "The Country Life," i, 140.] A REPLY, BY SHERIDAN, TO DELANY I like your collyrium, Take my eyes, sir, and clear ye 'um, 'Twill gain you a great reputation; By this you may rise, Like the doctor so wise,[1] Who open'd the eyes of the nation. And these, I must tell ye, Are bigger than its belly;-- You know, there’s in Livy a story Of the hands and the feet Denying of meat,-- Don't I write in the dark like a Tory? Your water so far goes, 'Twould serve for an Argus, Were all his whole hundred sore; So many we read He had in his head, Or Ovid's a son of a whore. For your recipe, sir, May my lids never stir, If ever I think once to fee you; For I'd have you to know, When abroad I can go, That it's honour enough, if I see you. [Footnote 1: Probably Dr. Davenant.] ANOTHER REPLY, BY SHERIDAN