The hireling senator of modern days
Bedaubs the guilty great with nauseous praise:
And Dick the scavenger with equal grace
Flirts from his cart the mud in W-1-le's face.

SENT BY DR DELANY TO DR SWIFT,

IN ORDER TO BE ADMITTED TO SPEAK TO HIM WHEN HE WAS DEAF.

1724.

DEAR Sir, I think, 'tis doubly hard,

Your ears and doors should both be barr'd.
Can any thing be more unkind?

Must I not see, 'cause you are blind?
Methinks a friend at night should cheer you.
A friend that loves to see and hear you.
Why am I robb'd of that delight,

When you can be no loser by't?

Nay, when 'tis plain (for what is plainer?)
That, if you heard, you'd be no gainer?
For sure you are not yet to learn,
That hearing is not your concern.
Then be your doors no longer barr'd:
Your business, sir, is to be heard.

THE ANSWER.

THE wise pretend to make it clear,
'Tis no great loss to lose an ear.
Why are we then so fond of two,
When by experience one would do?
'Tis true, say they, cut off the head,
And there's an end; the man is dead;
Because, among all human race,
None e'er was known to have a brace:
But confidently they maintain,

That where we find the members twain,
The loss of one is no such trouble,
Since t'other will in strength be double.
The limb surviving, you may swear,
Becomes his brother's lawful heir :
Thus, for a trial, let me beg of
Your reverence but to cut one leg off,
And you shall find, by this device,
The other will be stronger twice;
For every day you shall be gaining
New vigour to the leg remaining.
So, when an eye has lost its brother,
You see the better with the other.
Cut off your hand, and you may do
With t'other hand the work of two:
Because the soul her power contracts,
And on the brother limb reacts.

But yet the point is not so clear in Another case, the sense of hearing: For, though the place of either ear Be distant, as one head can bear?

Yet Galen most acutely shows you,
(Consult his book de partium usu)
That from each ear, as he observes,
There creep two auditory nerves,
Not to be seen without a glass,
Which near the os petrosum pass;
Thence to the neck; and moving thorough there,
One goes to this, and one to t'other ear;
Which made my grandam always stuff her ears
Both right and left, as fellow-sufferers.
You see my learning; but, to shorten it,
When my left ear was deaf a fortnight,
To t'other ear I felt it coming on :
And thus I solve this hard phenomenon.
'Tis true, a glass will bring supplies
To weak, or old, or clouded eyes:
Your arms, though both your eyes were lost,
Would guard your nose against a post :
Without your legs, two legs of wood
Are stronger, and almost as good:
And as for hands, there have been those
Who, wanting both, have used their toes.
But no contrivance yet appears

To furnish artificial ears.

*There have been instances of a man's writing with his foot.

-H.

A QUIET LIFE AND A GOOD NAME.

TO A FRIEND WHO MARRIED A SHREW.

1724.

NELL scolded in so loud a-din,

That Will durst hardly venture in:
He marked the conjugal dispute;
Nell roar'd incessant, Dick sat mute;
But, when he saw his friend appear,
Cry'd bravely, Patience, good my dear!"
At sight of Will, she bawl'd no more,
But hurry'd out and clapt the door.
Why Dick! the Devil's in thy Nell,
(Quoth Will) thy house is worse than Hell:
Why what a peal the jade has rung !
D-n her, why don't you slit her tongue?
For nothing else will make it cease.
Dear Will I suffer this for peace:
I never quarrel with my wife;
I bear it for a quiet life.

Scripture you know, exhorts us to it;

Bids us to seek peace, and ensue it.

Will went again to visit Dick;

And entering in the very nick,

He saw virago Nell belabour,

With Dick's own staff, his peaceful neighbour :

Poor Will, who needs must interpose,

Received a brace or two of blows.

But now, to make my story short,
Will drew out Dick to take a quart.
Why Dick, thy wife has devilish whims ;

Ods-buds! why don't you break her limbs?

If she were mine, and had such tricks,
I'd teach her how to handle sticks:
Z-ds! I would ship her to Jamaica,
Or truck the carrion for tobacco :
I'd send her far enough away-
Dear Will; but what would people say?
Lord! I should get so ill a name,

The neighbours round would cry out shame.
Dick suffer'd for his peace and credit;
But who believ'd him when he said it?
Can he, who makes himself a slave,
Consult his peace, or credit save?
Dick found it by his ill success,
His quiet small, his credit less.
She serv'd him at the usual rate;

She stunn'd, and then she broke his pate:
And what he thought the hardest case,
The parish jeer'd him to his face ;
Those men, who wore the breeches least,
Call'd him a cuckold, fool, and beast.
At home he was pursu'd with noise;
Abroad was pester'd by the boys:
Within, his wife would break his bones;
Without they pelted him with stones;
The 'prentices procur'd a riding, *
To act his patience and her chiding.
False patience and mistaken pride!
There are ten thousand Dicks beside;
Slaves to their quiet and good name,
Are us'd like Dick, and bear the blame.

* A well-known humorous cavalcade, in ridicule of a scolding wife and hen-pecked husband.-H.