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AS a thorn bush, or oaken bough,
Stuck in an Irish cabin's brow,
Above the door, on country fair,
Betokens entertainment there;
So bays on poets' brows have been
Set, for a sign of wit within.
And, as ill neighbours in the night
Pull down an alehouse bush for spite;
The laurel so, by poets worn,
Is by the teeth of Envy torn;
Envy, a canker-worm, which tears
Those sacred leaves that lightning spares.
And now t' exemplify this moral:
Tom having earn'd a twig of laurel,
(Which, measur'd on his head, was found
Not long enough to reach half round,
But, like a girl's cockade, was ty'd,
A trophy, on his temple-side)
Paddy repin'd to see him wear
This badge of honour in his hair;
- ↑ Dr. Sheridan was publisher of the "Intelligencer," a weekly paper, written principally by himself; but Dr. Swift occasionally supplied him with a letter. Dr. Delany, piqued at the approbation those papers received, attacked them violently both in conversation and in print; but unfortunately stumbled on some of the numbers which the dean had written, and all the world admired; which gave rise to these verses.
Vol. VII.
E e
And,
