Your mawkins there smocks hempen wear;
  Of Holland not an ell in,
No, not a rag, whate’er your brag,
  Is found at Ballyspellin.

But Tom will prate at any rate,
  All other nymphs expelling: 
Because he gets a few grisettes
  At lousy Ballyspellin.

There’s bonny Jane, in yonder lane,
  Just o’er against the Bell inn;
Where can you meet a lass so sweet,
  Round all your Ballyspellin?

We have a girl deserves an earl;
  She came from Enniskellin;
So fair, so young, no such among
  The belles of Ballyspellin.

How would you stare, to see her there,
  The foggy mists dispelling,
That cloud the brows of every blowse
  Who lives at Ballyspellin!

Now, as I live, I would not give
  A stiver or a skellin,
To towse and kiss the fairest miss
  That leaks at Ballyspellin.

Whoe’er will raise such lies as these
  Deserves a good cudgelling: 
Who falsely boasts of belles and toasts
  At dirty Ballyspellin.

My rhymes are gone to all but one,
  Which is, our trees are felling;
As proper quite as those you write,
  To force in Ballyspellin.

[Footnote 1:  This answer, which seems to have been made while Swift was on a visit at Sir Arthur Acheson’s, “in a mere jest and innocent merriment,” was resented by Sheridan as an affront on the lady and himself, “against all the rules of reason, taste, good nature, judgment, gratitude, or common manners.”  See “The History of the Second Solomon,” “Prose Works,” xi, 157.  The mutual irritation soon passed, and the Dean and Sheridan resumed their intimate friendship.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  A food much used in Scotland, the north of Ireland, and other parts.  It is made of oatmeal, and sometimes of the shellings of oats; and known by the names of sowins or flummery.—­F.]

AN EPISTLE TO TWO FRIENDS[1]

TO DR. HELSHAM [2]

Nov. 23, at night, 1731.

SIR,

When I left you, I found myself of the grape’s juice sick;
I’m so full of pity I never abuse sick;
And the patientest patient ever you knew sick;
Both when I am purge-sick, and when I am spew-sick. 
I pitied my cat, whom I knew by her mew sick: 
She mended at first, but now she’s anew sick. 
Captain Butler made some in the church black and blue sick. 
Dean Cross, had he preach’d, would have made us all pew-sick. 
Are not you, in a crowd when you sweat and you stew, sick? 
Lady Santry got out of the church[3] when she grew sick,
And as fast as she could, to the deanery flew sick. 
Miss Morice was (I can assure you ’tis true) sick: 
For, who would not be in that numerous crew sick? 
Such music would make a fanatic or Jew sick,
Yet, ladies are seldom at ombre or loo sick. 
Nor is old Nanny Shales,[4] whene’er she does