For why should you stay in the filthy hole, I mean the city so smoky,
When you have not one friend left in town, or at least not one that's witty, to joke w' ye?
For as for honest John[1], though I'm not sure on't, yet I'll be hang'd, lest he
Be gone down to the county of Wexford with that great peer the lord Anglesey.
O! but I forgot; perhaps, by this time, you may have one come to town, but I don't know whether he be friend or foe, Delany:
But, however, if he be come, bring him down, and you shall go back in a fortnight, for I know there's no delaying ye.
O! I forgot too; I believe there may be one more, I mean that great fat joker, friend Helsham, he
That wrote the prologue[2], and if you stay with him, depend on't, in the end, he'll sham ye.
Bring down Long Shanks Jim[3] too; but, now I think on't, he's not yet come from Courtown[4], I fancy;
For I heard, a month ago, that he was down there a courting sly Nancy.
- ↑ Supposed to mean Dr. Walmsley.
- ↑ One spoken by young Putland, in 1720, before Hippolytus; in which Dr. Sheridan (who had written a prologue for the occasion) was most unexpectedly and egregiously laughed at.
- ↑ Dr. James Stopford, bishop of Cloyne.
- ↑ The seat of Hussay, esq. in the county of Kildare.
this groupe had a genius for poetry, and a taste for the polite arts. In this retirement they passed their hours very agreeably, and frequently amused themselves with poetical jest and whimsies of the brain, of which some slight specimens are here preserved. See Dr. Delany's humourous description of Gaulstown House, in vol. XVIII. of this collection.
