VERSES.

IN REPLY TO AN INVITATION TO DINNER AT DR. BAKER'S.1

This is a poem! This is a copy of verses!"

YOUR mandate I got,

You may all go to pot;

Had your senses been right,

You'd have sent before night;
As I hope to be saved,
I put off being shaved;

For I could not make bold,
While the matter was cold,
To meddle in suds,

Or to put on my duds;

So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,

And Baker and his bit,

And Kauffman beside,

And the Jessamy bride,2
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses two,

1 Written about the year 1769, in reply to an invitation to dinner at Dr. afterwards Sir George Baker's (d. 1809,) to meet the Misses Horneck, Angelica Kauffman, Miss Reynolds, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others. For the above verses, first published in 1837, the reader is indebted to Major General Sir Henry Bunbury, Bart. P. C.

2 Miss Mary Horneck, afterwards Mrs. Gwyn. She died in 1840, aged 88. P. C.

Little Comedy's1 face,
And the Captain in lace.2
(By the bye you may tell him,
I have something to sell him;
Of use I insist,

When he comes to enlist.

Your worships must know
That a few days ago,

An order went out

For the foot guards so stout
To wear tails in high taste,
Twelve inches at least:
Now I've got him a scale
To measure each tail,
To lengthen a short tail,
And a long one to curtail.)—

Yet how can I when vext,
Thus stray from my text?
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late

To one of my state.
But 'tis Reynolds's way

From wisdom to stray,

1 Miss Catherine Horneck, afterwards (1771) Mrs. Bunbury, Her portrait by Sir Joshua, one of his finest works, is now at Bowood.

2 Ensign (afterwards General) Horneck, son of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane Horneck.

And Angelica's whim

To be frolick like him,

But, alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,

When both have been spoil'd in to-day's Adver

tiser ? 1

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

1 The following is the compliment alluded to:-
"While fair Angelica, with matchless grace,
Paints Conway's lovely form and Stanhope's face;
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay,
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.
But when the likeness she hath done for thee,
O Reynolds! with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own,
Such strength, such harmony excell'd by none,
And thou art rivall'd by thyself alone.”

LETTER,

IN PROSE AND VERSE, TO MRS. BUNBURY.1

MADAM: I read your letter with all that allowance which critical candour could require, but after all find so much to object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot help giving it a serious answer. I am not so ignorant, Madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms contained in it, and solecisms also, (solecism is a word that comes from the town of Soleis in Attica among the Greeks, built by Solon, and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains from a town also of that name; but this is learning you have no taste for.)—I say, Madam, there are sarcasms in it and solecisms also. But, not to seem an illnatured critic, I'll take leave to quote your own words, and give you my remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows:

"I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here,
And your spring velvet coat very smart will appear,
To open our ball the first day in the year."

Pray, Madam, where did you ever find the

1 See note 1, p. 152. An invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Bunbury, in a rhyming and jocular strain, to spend some time with them at their seat at Barton in Suffolk, brought from the Poet the above reply, printed for the first time in 1837 by Messrs. Prior and Wright, though written in 1772. P. C.

epithet "good" applied to the title of Doctor? Had you called me learned Doctor, or grave Doctor, or noble Doctor, it might be allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of my spring velvet coat, and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, that is in the middle of winter ;velvet in the middle of winter!!!

-a spring That would

be a solecism indeed; and yet, to increase the in-
consistence, in another part of your letter you call
me a beau: now, on one side or other, you must
be wrong.
If I am a beau, I can never think of
wearing a spring velvet in winter; and if I am
not a beau-why-then-that explains itself. But
let me go on to your two next strange lines:-

"And bring with you a wig that is modish and gay,
To dance with the girls that are making of hay."

The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself seem sensible of; you say your sister will laugh, and so indeed she well may. The Latins have an expression for a contemptuous sort of laughter, Naso contemnere adunco; that is, to laugh with a crooked nose; she may laugh at you in the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I am come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, which is, to take your and your sister's advice in playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises my indignation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires