Your answer in half-an-hour, though you are at prayers; you have a pencil in your pocket.

[Footnote 1:  A village near Dublin, where Dr. Sheridan had a country house.]

[Footnote 2:  Stella was at this time in a very declining state of health.  She died the January following.—­F.]

[Footnote 3:  The youth who died for love of his own image reflected in a fountain, and was changed into a flower of the same name.  Ovid, “Metam.,” iii, 407.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 4:  He means Stella, who was certainly one of the most amiable women in the world.—­F.]

ON THE FIVE LADIES AT SOT’S HOLE[1] WITH THE DOCTOR[2] AT THEIR HEAD

N.B.  THE LADIES TREATED THE DOCTOR. 
SENT AS FROM AN OFFICER IN THE ARMY. 1728

Fair ladies, number five,
  Who in your merry freaks,
With little Tom contrive
  To feast on ale and steaks;

While he sits by a-grinning,
  To see you safe in Sot’s Hole,
Set up with greasy linen,
  And neither mugs nor pots whole;

Alas!  I never thought
  A priest would please your palate;
Besides, I’ll hold a groat
  He’ll put you in a ballad;

Where I shall see your faces,
  On paper daub’d so foul,
They’ll be no more like graces,
  Than Venus like an owl.

And we shall take you rather
  To be a midnight pack
Of witches met together,
  With Beelzebub in black.

It fills my heart with woe,
  To think such ladies fine
Should be reduced so low,
  To treat a dull divine.

Be by a parson cheated! 
  Had you been cunning stagers,
You might yourselves be treated
  By captains and by majors.

See how corruption grows,
  While mothers, daughters, aunts,
Instead of powder’d beaux,
  From pulpits choose gallants.

If we, who wear our wigs
  With fantail and with snake,
Are bubbled thus by prigs;
  Z——­ds! who would be a rake?

Had I a heart to fight,
  I’d knock the Doctor down;
Or could I read or write,
  Egad!  I’d wear a gown.

Then leave him to his birch;[3]
  And at the Rose on Sunday,
The parson safe at church,
  I’ll treat you with burgundy.

[Footnote 1:  An ale-house in Dublin, famous for beef-steaks.—­F.]

[Footnote 2:  Doctor Thomas Sheridan.—­F.]

[Footnote 3:  Dr. Sheridan was a schoolmaster.—­F.]

THE FIVE LADIES’ ANSWER TO THE BEAU

WITH THE WIG AND WINGS AT HIS HEAD
BY DR. SHERIDAN

You little scribbling beau,
  What demon made you write? 
Because to write you know
  As much as you can fight.

For compliment so scurvy,
  I wish we had you here;
We’d turn you topsy-turvy
  Into a mug of beer.