[Footnote 8:  Ramble.]

[Footnote 9:  Not vomiting.]

[Footnote 10:  Thrusting out the lip.]

[Footnote 11:  This is to be understood not in the sense of wort, when brewers put yeast or harm in it; but its true meaning is, deceived or cheated.]

[Footnote 12:  Hit your fancy.]

[Footnote 13:  Sullen fits.  We have a merry jig, called Dumpty-Deary, invented to rouse ladies from the dumps.]

[Footnote 14:  Reflection of the sun.]

[Footnote 15:  Motherly woman.] [Footnote 16:  Not grace before and after meat, nor their graces the duchesses, but the Graces which attended on Venus.]

[Footnote 17:  Not Flanders-lace, but gold and silver lace.  By borrowed, I mean such as run into honest tradesmen’s debts, for which they were not able to pay, as many of them did for French silver lace, against the last birth-day.—­Vid. the shopkeepers’ books.]

[Footnote 18:  Girls who love to hear themselves prate, and put on a number of monkey-airs to catch men.]

[Footnote 19:  I hope none will be so uncomplaisant to the ladies as to think these comparisons are odious.]

[Footnote 20:  Tell the whole world; not to proclaim them as robbers and rapparees.]

AN ANSWER TO A SCANDALOUS POEM

Wherein the Author most audaciously presumes to cast an indignity upon their highnesses the Clouds, by comparing them to a woman.  Written by DERMOT O’NEPHELY, Chief Cape of Howth.[1]

BY DR. SWIFT

ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE CLOUDS

N.B.  The following answer to that scurrilous libel against us, should have been published long ago in our own justification:  But it was advised, that, considering the high importance of the subject, it should be deferred until the meeting of the General Assembly of the Nation.

[Two passages within crotchets are added to this poem, from a copy found amongst Swift’s papers.  It is indorsed, “Quaere, should it go.”  And a little lower, “More, but of no use.”]

Presumptuous bard! how could you dare
A woman with a cloud compare? 
Strange pride and insolence you show
Inferior mortals there below. 
And is our thunder in your ears
So frequent or so loud as theirs? 
Alas! our thunder soon goes out;
And only makes you more devout. 
Then is not female clatter worse,
That drives you not to pray, but curse? 
  We hardly thunder thrice a-year;
The bolt discharged, the sky grows clear;
But every sublunary dowdy,
The more she scolds, the more she’s cloudy.
[How useful were a woman’s thunder,
If she, like us, would burst asunder! 
Yet, though her stays hath often cursed her,
And, whisp’ring, wish’d the devil burst her: 
For hourly thund’ring in his face,
She ne’er was known to burst a lace.]