Jo-seph.]       [Footnote 2: Nathan.]       [Footnote 3: Swift.] 

  

  

       THE DEAN'S ANSWER     

      The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit, I cannot but envy the pride of her wit, Which thus she will venture profusely to throw On so mean a design, and a subject so low. For mean's her design, and her subject as mean, The first but a rebus, the last but a dean. A dean's but a parson: and what is a rebus? A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus. The corruption of verse; for, when all is done, It is but a paraphrase made on a pun. But a genius like hers no subject can stifle, It shows and discovers itself through a trifle. By reading this trifle, I quickly began To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man. Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff, Which others for mantuas would think fine enough:      So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here, Might furnish a second-rate poet a year. Thus much for the verse, we proceed to the next, Where the nymph has entirely forsaken her text:      Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season:      And what she describes to be merit, is treason:      The changes which faction has made in the state, Have put the dean's politics quite out of date:      Now no one regards what he utters with freedom, And, should he write pamphlets, no great man would read 'em; And, should want or desert stand in need of his aid, This racer would prove but a dull founder'd jade. 

  

  

       STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY MARCH 13, 1718-19     

      Stella this day is thirty-four,      (We shan't dispute a year or more:)      However, Stella, be not troubled, Although thy size and years are doubled Since first I saw thee at sixteen, The brightest virgin on the green; So little is thy form declined; Made up so largely in thy mind. O, would it please the gods to split Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit! No age could furnish out a pair Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair; With half the lustre of your eyes, With half your wit, your years, and size. And then, before it grew too late, How should I beg of gentle fate,      (That either nymph might have her swain,)      To split my worship too in twain. 

  

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