The Plagues Of A Country Life

A companion with news; a great want of shoes; Eat lean meat or choose; a church without pews; Our horses away; no straw, oats, or hay; December in May; our boys run away; all servants at play.

A FAITHFUL INVENTORY OF THE FURNITURE BELONGING TO ---- ROOM IN T. C. D. IN IMITATION OF DR. SWIFT'S MANNER. WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1725

----quaeque ipse miserrima vidi.

This description of a scholar's room in Trinity College, Dublin, was found among Mr. Smith's papers. It is not in the Dean's hand, but seems to have been the production of Sheridan.

Imprimis, there's a table blotted, A tatter'd hanging all bespotted. A bed of flocks, as I may rank it, Reduced to rug and half a blanket. A tinder box without a flint, An oaken desk with nothing in't; A pair of tongs bought from a broker, A fender and a rusty poker; A penny pot and basin, this Design'd for water, that for piss; A broken-winded pair of bellows, Two knives and forks, but neither fellows. Item, a surplice, not unmeeting, Either for table-cloth, or sheeting; There is likewise a pair of breeches, But patch'd, and fallen in the stitches, Hung up in study very little, Plaster'd with cobweb and spittle, An airy prospect all so pleasing, From my light window without glazing, A trencher and a College bottle, Piled up on Locke and Aristotle. A prayer-book, which he seldom handles A save-all and two farthing candles. A smutty ballad, musty libel, A Burgersdicius and a Bible. The C**** Seasons and the Senses By Overton, to save expenses. Item, (if I am not much mistaken,) A mouse-trap with a bit of bacon. A candlestick without a snuffer, Whereby his fingers often suffer. Two odd old shoes I should not skip here, Each strapless serves instead of slippers, And chairs a couple, I forgot 'em, But each of them without a bottom. Thus I in rhyme have comprehended His goods, and so my schedule's ended.