Here lies the Earl of Suffolk’s fool,

From threshing Corn, he turns to thresh his Brains;For which Her My allows him Grains.Though ’tis confess’t, that those who ever sawHis Poems, think them all not worth a Straw.Thrice happy Duck, employ’d in threshing Stubble!Thy Toil is lessen’d, and thy Profits double.

I said—’Why let him, if he will:’And so I bade Sir Arthur write.His manners would not let him wait,Lest we should think ourselves neglected,And so we see him at our gateThree days before he was expected,After a week, a month, a quarter,And day succeeding after day,Says not a word of his departure,Though not a soul…

He entertain’d her half a yearWith generous wines and costly cheer.Don Carlos made her chief director,That she might o’er the servants hector.In half a week the dame grew nice,Got all things at the highest price:Now at the table head she sits,Presented with the nicest bits:She look’d on partridges with scorn,Except they tasted of the corn:A…

Partridge is dead; nay more, he diedEre he could prove the good ‘squire lied.Strange, an astrologer should dieWithout one wonder in the sky!Not one of his crony starsTo pay their duty at his hearse!No meteor, no eclipse appear’d!No comet with a flaming beard!The sun has rose, and gone to bed,Just as if Partridge were not…

By dull divines, who look with envious eyesOn ev’ry genius that attempts to rise;And pausing o’er a pipe, with doubtful nod,Give hints, that poets ne’er believe in God.So clowns on scholars as on wizards look,And take a folio for a conj’ring book.Swift had the sin of wit, no venial crime:Nay, ’twas affirm’d, he sometimes dealt…

Which thus she will venture profusely to throwOn so mean a design, and a subject so low.For mean’s her design, and her subject as mean,The first but a rebus, the last but a dean.A dean’s but a parson: and what is a rebus?A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus.The corruption of verse; for,…