To make it pass upon the nation,
By dint of his sole approbation. 
The task is arduous, patrons find,
To warp the sense of all mankind: 
Who think your Muse must first aspire,
Ere he advance the doctor higher. 
  You’ve cause to say he meant you well: 
That you are thankful, who can tell? 
For still you’re short (which grieves your spirit)
Of his intent:  you mean your merit. 
  Ah! quanto rectius, tu adepte,
Qui nil moliris tarn inepte?[2]
Smedley,[3] thou Jonathan of Clogher,
“When thou thy humble lay dost offer
To Grafton’s grace, with grateful heart,
Thy thanks and verse devoid of art: 
Content with what his bounty gave,
No larger income dost thou crave.” 
  But you must have cascades, and all
Ierne’s lake, for your canal,
Your vistoes, barges, and (a pox on
All pride!) our speaker for your coxon:[4]
It’s pity that he can’t bestow you
Twelve commoners in caps to row you. 
Thus Edgar proud, in days of yore,[5]
Held monarchs labouring at the oar;
And, as he pass’d, so swell’d the Dee,
Enraged, as Ern would do at thee. 
  How different is this from Smedley! 
(His name is up, he may in bed lie)
“Who only asks some pretty cure,
In wholesome soil and ether pure: 
The garden stored with artless flowers,
In either angle shady bowers: 
No gay parterre with costly green
Must in the ambient hedge be seen;
But Nature freely takes her course,
Nor fears from him ungrateful force: 
No shears to check her sprouting vigour,
Or shape the yews to antic figure.” 
  But you, forsooth, your all must squander
On that poor spot, call’d Dell-ville, yonder;
And when you’ve been at vast expenses
In whims, parterres, canals, and fences,
Your assets fail, and cash is wanting;
Nor farther buildings, farther planting: 
No wonder, when you raise and level,
Think this wall low, and that wall bevel. 
Here a convenient box you found,
Which you demolish’d to the ground: 
Then built, then took up with your arbour,
And set the house to Rupert Barber. 
You sprang an arch which, in a scurvy
Humour, you tumbled topsy-turvy. 
You change a circle to a square,
Then to a circle as you were: 
Who can imagine whence the fund is,
That you quadrata change rotundis? 
  To Fame a temple you erect,
A Flora does the dome protect;
Mounts, walks, on high; and in a hollow
You place the Muses and Apollo;
There shining ’midst his train, to grace
Your whimsical poetic place. 
  These stories were of old design’d
As fables:  but you have refined
The poets mythologic dreams,
To real Muses, gods, and streams. 
Who would not swear, when you contrive thus,
That you’re Don Quixote redivivus? 
Beneath, a dry canal there lies,
Which only Winter’s rain supplies. 
O! couldst thou, by some magic spell,
Hither convey St. Patrick’s well![6]