le you got and you gave!
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
When he was be-Roscius'd and you were bepraised!
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
To act as an angel, and mix with the skies!
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill,
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.
Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And Slander itself must allow him good-nature:
He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper:
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser?
I answer, no, no, for he always was wiser.
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that.
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah no!
Then what was his failing? Come, tell it, and burn ye,--
He was, could he help it? a special attorney.
Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind:
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand:
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland;
Still born to improve us in every part,
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart:
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,
When they judged without skill he was still hard of hearing:
When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.
XLII. THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.
This piece was first printed in _The Busy Body_ in 1759, in direct
imitation of the style of Swift. It was, therefore, improperly
included in the Dublin edition of Swift's works, and in the edition
of Swift edited by Sir Walter Scott.
Logicians have but ill defined
As rational the human mind,
Reason they say belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can,
Wise Aristotle and Smiglesius
By ratiocinations specious
Have strove to prove with great precision,
With definition and division,
_Homo est ratione preditum_;
But for my soul I cannot credit 'em.
And must in spite of them maintain,
That man and all his ways are vain:
And that this boasted lord of nature
Is both a weak and erring creature.
That instinct is a surer guide
Than reason, boasting mortals' pride;
And that brute beasts are far before 'em,
_Deus est anima br
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