1729

An ass’s hoof alone can hold
That poisonous juice, which kills by cold. 
Methought, when I this poem read,
No vessel but an ass’s head
Such frigid fustian could contain;
I mean, the head without the brain. 
The cold conceits, the chilling thoughts,
Went down like stupifying draughts;
I found my head begin to swim,
A numbness crept through every limb. 
In haste, with imprecations dire,
I threw the volume in the fire;
When, (who could think?) though cold as ice,
It burnt to ashes in a trice. 
  How could I more enhance its fame? 
Though born in snow, it died in flame.

AN EXCELLENT NEW BALLAD OR, THE TRUE ENGLISH DEAN[1] TO BE HANGED FOR A RAPE. 1730

Our brethren of England, who love us so dear,
  And in all they do for us so kindly do mean,
(A blessing upon them!) have sent us this year,
  For the good of our church, a true English dean. 
A holier priest ne’er was wrapt up in crape,
The worst you can say, he committed a rape.

In his journey to Dublin, he lighted at Chester,
  And there he grew fond of another man’s wife;
Burst into her chamber and would have caress’d her;
  But she valued her honour much more than her life. 
She bustled, and struggled, and made her escape
To a room full of guests, for fear of a rape.

The dean he pursued, to recover his game;
  And now to attack her again he prepares: 
But the company stood in defence of the dame,
  They cudgell’d, and cuff’d him, and kick’d him down stairs. 
His deanship was now in a damnable scrape,
And this was no time for committing a rape.

To Dublin he comes, to the bagnio he goes,
  And orders the landlord to bring him a whore;
No scruple came on him his gown to expose,
  ’Twas what all his life he had practised before. 
He made himself drunk with the juice of the grape,
And got a good clap, but committed no rape.

The dean, and his landlord, a jolly comrade,
  Resolved for a fortnight to swim in delight;
For why, they had both been brought up to the trade
  Of drinking all day, and of whoring all night. 
His landlord was ready his deanship to ape
In every debauch but committing a rape.

This Protestant zealot, this English divine,
  In church and in state was of principles sound;
Was truer than Steele to the Hanover line,
  And grieved that a Tory should live above ground. 
Shall a subject so loyal be hang’d by the nape,
For no other crime but committing a rape?

By old Popish canons, as wise men have penn’d ’em,
  Each priest had a concubine jure ecclesiae;
Who’d be Dean of Fernes without a commendam? 
  And precedents we can produce, if it please ye: 
Then why should the dean, when whores are so cheap,
Be put to the peril and toil of a rape?