28
SWIFT'S POEMS.
"With these is parson Swift,
Not knowing how to spend his time,
Does make a wretched shift,
To deafen them with puns and rhyme."
I.
ONCE on a time, as old stories rehearse,
A friar would need show his talent in Latin;
But was sorely put to 't in the midst of a verse,
Because he could find no word to come pat in:
Then all in the place
He left a void space,
And so went to bed in a desperate case:
When behold the next morning a wonderful riddle!
He found it was strangely filled up in the middle.
Cho. Let censuring criticks then think what they list on 't;
Who would not write verses with such an assistant?
II.
This put me the friar into an amazement:
For he wisely consider'd it must be a sprite;
- ↑ Lady Betty Berkeley, finding the preceding verses in the author's room unfinished, wrote under them the concluding stanza; which gave occasion to this ballad, written by the author in a counterfeit hand, as if a third person had done it.
That
