SIR JOSEPH’s false as he is fair.———
Is it necessary to challenge, what no one will be absurd enough to give—a contradiction to so acknowledged a truth? Or is it necessary to state to the fashionable reader, that whatever may be the degree of Sir Joseph’s boasted falshood, it cannot surpass the fairness of his complexion? The position, therefore, is what logicians call convertible: nothing can equal his falshood but his fairness; nothing his fairness but his falshood.—Incomparable!
Proceeding to a description of his eloquence, he says,
A sty of pigs, though all at once it squeaks,
Means not so much as MAWBEY when he speaks;
And his’try says, he never yet had bred
A pig with such a voice or such a head!
Except, indeed, when he essays to joke;
And then his wit is truly pig-in-poke.
Describing Sir Joseph’s acquisitions as a scholar, the author adds,
His various knowledge I will still maintain,
He is indeed a knowing man in grain.
Some commentators have invidiously suggested, that the last line of this couplet should be printed thus,
He is indeed a knowing man-in grain:
assigning as their reason, that the phrase in grain evidently alludes to bran, with which Sir Joseph’s little grunting commonwealth is supported; and for the discreet and prudent purchase of which our worthy baronet is famous.
Our author concludes his description of this great senator with the following distich: