The Dean's Answer (A Rebus by Vanessa)

By: Jonathan Swift

    The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,
    I cannot but envy the pride of her wit,
    Which thus she will venture profusely to throw
    On 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, when all is done,
    It is but a paraphrase made on a pun.
    But a genius like hers no subject can stifle,
    It shows and discovers itself through a trifle.
    By reading this trifle, I quickly began
    To find her a great wit, but the dean a small man.
    Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff,
    Which others for mantuas would think fine enough:
    So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here,
    Might furnish a second-rate poet a year.
    Thus much for the verse, we proceed to the next,
    Where the nymph has entirely forsaken her text:
    Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season:
    And what she describes to be merit, is treason:
    The changes which faction has made in the state,
    Have put the dean's politics quite out of date:
    Now no one regards what he utters with freedom,
    And, should he write pamphlets, no great man would read 'em;
    And, should want or desert stand in need of his aid,
    This racer would prove but a dull founder'd jade.

---