Indulgent you to female kind,
To all their weaker sides are blind:
Nine more such champions as the dean
Would soon restore our ancient reign;
How well, to win the ladies hearts,
You celebrate their wit and parts!
How have I felt my spirits rais'd,
By you so oft, so highly prais'd!
Transform'd by your convincing tongue
To witty, beautiful, and young,
I hope to quit that awkward shame,
Affected by each vulgar dame,
To modesty a weak pretence;
And soon grow pert on men of sense;
To show my face with scornful air;
Let others match it, if they dare.
Impatient to be out of debt,
O, may I never once forget
The bard, who humbly deigns to choose
Me for the subject of his Muse!
Behind my back, before my nose,
He sounds my praise in verse and prose.
My heart with emulation burns
To make you suitable returns;
My gratitude the world shall know;
And see, the printer's boy below;
Ye hawkers all, your voices lift;
"A Panegyrick on dean Swift!"
And then to mend the matter still,
"By lady Anne of Market-hill!"
I thus begin: My grateful Muse
Salutes the dean in different views;
Dean, butler, usher, jester, tutor,
Robert and Darby's[1] coadjutor;
- ↑ The names of two overseers.
