The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 423 pages of information about The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2.

The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 423 pages of information about The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2.
has more goodness in his little finger than you have in your whole body:  My master is a personable man, and not a spindle-shank hoddy doddy.  And now, whereby I find you would fain make an excuse, Because my master, one day, in anger, call’d you a goose:  Which, and I am sure I have been his servant four years since October, And he never call’d me worse than sweet-heart, drunk or sober:  Not that I know his reverence was ever concern’d to my knowledge, Though you and your come-rogues keep him out so late in your wicked college.  You say you will eat grass on his grave:[1] a Christian eat grass!  Whereby you now confess yourself to be a goose or an ass:  But that’s as much as to say, that my master should die before ye; Well, well, that’s as God pleases; and I don’t believe that’s a true story:  And so say I told you so, and you may go tell my master; what care I?  And I don’t care who knows it; ’tis all one to Mary.  Everybody knows that I love to tell truth, and shame the devil:  I am but a poor servant; but I think gentlefolks should be civil.  Besides, you found fault with our victuals one day that you was here; I remember it was on a Tuesday, of all days in the year.  And Saunders, the man, says you are always jesting and mocking:  Mary, said he, (one day as I was mending my master’s stocking;) My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the school—­ I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes him a fool.  Saunders, said I, I would rather than a quart of ale He would come into our kitchen, and I would pin a dish-clout to his tail.  And now I must go, and get Saunders to direct this letter; For I write but a sad scrawl; but my sister Marget she writes better.  Well, but I must run and make the bed, before my master comes from prayers:  And see now, it strikes ten, and I hear him coming up stairs; Whereof I could say more to your verses, if I could write written hand; And so I remain, in a civil way, your servant to ’command,
     MARY.

[Footnote 1:  See ante, p. 349.—­W.E.B.]

A PORTRAIT FROM THE LIFE

Come sit by my side, while this picture I draw: 
In chattering a magpie, in pride a jackdaw;
A temper the devil himself could not bridle;
Impertinent mixture of busy and idle;
As rude as a bear, no mule half so crabbed;
She swills like a sow, and she breeds like a rabbit;
A housewife in bed, at table a slattern;
For all an example, for no one a pattern. 
Now tell me, friend Thomas,[1] Ford,[2] Grattan,[3] and Merry Dan,[4]
Has this any likeness to good Madam Sheridan?

[Footnote 1:  Dr. Thos.  Sheridan.]

[Footnote 2:  Chas. Ford, of Woodpark, Esq.]

[Footnote 3:  Rev. John Grattan.]

[Footnote 4:  Rev. Daniel Jackson.]

ON STEALING A CROWN, WHEN THE DEAN WAS ASLEEP

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.