See what by drinking you have done: 
You’ve made your phiz a skeleton,
From the long distance of your crown,
      t’ your gullet.

A REJOINDER BY THE DEAN IN JACKSON’S NAME

Wearied with saying grace and prayer,
I hasten’d down to country air,
To read your answer, and prepare
      reply to’t: 

But your fair lines so grossly flatter,
Pray do they praise me or bespatter? 
I must suspect you mean the latter—­
      Ah! slyboot!

It must be so! what else, alas! 
Can mean by culling of a face,
And all that stuff of toilet, glass,
      and box-comb?

But be’t as ’twill, this you must grant,
That you’re a daub, whilst I but paint;
Then which of us two is the quaint-
      er coxcomb?

I value not your jokes of noose,
Your gibes and all your foul abuse,
More than the dirt beneath my shoes,
      nor fear it.

Yet one thing vexes me, I own,
Thou sorry scarecrow of skin and bone;
To be called lean by a skeleton,
      who’d bear it?

’Tis true, indeed, to curry friends,
You seem to praise, to make amends,
And yet, before your stanza ends,
      you flout me,

’Bout latent charms beneath my clothes,
For every one that knows me, knows
That I have nothing like my nose
      about me: 

I pass now where you fleer and laugh,
’Cause I call Dan my better half! 
O there you think you have me safe! 
      But hold, sir;

Is not a penny often found
To be much greater than a pound! 
By your good leave, my most profound
      and bold sir,
Dan’s noble metal, Sherry base;
So Dan’s the better, though the less,
An ounce of gold’s worth ten of brass,
      dull pedant!

As to your spelling, let me see,
If SHE makes sher, and RI makes ry,
Good spelling-master:  your crany
      has lead in’t.

ANOTHER REJOINDER BY THE DEAN, IN JACKSON’S NAME

Three days for answer I have waited,
I thought an ace you’d ne’er have bated
And art thou forced to yield, ill-fated
      poetaster?

Henceforth acknowledge, that a nose
Of thy dimension’s fit for prose;
But every one that knows Dan, knows
      thy master.

Blush for ill spelling, for ill lines,
And fly with hurry to Rathmines;[1]
Thy fame, thy genius, now declines,
      proud boaster.

I hear with some concern your roar
And flying think to quit the score,
By clapping billets on your door
      and posts, sir.

Thy ruin, Tom, I never meant,
I’m grieved to hear your banishment,
But pleased to find you do relent
      and cry on.

I maul’d you, when you look’d so bluff,
But now I’ll secret keep your stuff;
For know, prostration is enough
      to th’ lion.