--_F._]
[Footnote 4: Dr. James Stopford, Bishop of Cloyne.--_F._]
[Footnote 5: The seat of ---- Hussay, Esq., in the county of
Kildare.--_F._]
TO GEORGE-NIM-DAN-DEAN, ESQ.
UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE VERSES. BY DR. DELANY IN SHERIDAN'S NAME[1]
Hail, human compound quadrifarious,
Invincible as wight Briareus![2]
Hail! doubly-doubled mighty merry one,
Stronger than triple-bodied Geryon![3]
O may your vastness deign t' excuse
The praises of a puny Muse,
Unable, in her utmost flight,
To reach thy huge colossian height!
T' attempt to write like thee were frantic,
Whose lines are, like thyself, gigantic.
Yet let me bless, in humbler strain,
Thy vast, thy bold Cambysian[4] vein,
Pour'd out t' enrich thy native isle,
As Egypt wont to be with Nile.
O, how I joy to see thee wander,
In many a winding loose meander,
In circling mazes, smooth and supple,
And ending in a clink quadruple;
Loud, yet agreeable withal,
Like rivers rattling in their fall!
Thine, sure, is poetry divine,
Where wit and majesty combine;
Where every line, as huge as seven,
If stretch'd in length, would reach to Heaven:
Here all comparing would be slandering,
The least is more than Alexandrine.
Against thy verse Time sees with pain,
He whets his envious scythe in vain;
For though from thee he much may pare,
Yet much thou still wilt have to spare.
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