[Footnote 11: This is to be understood not in the sense of wort, when brewers put yeast or harm in it; but its true meaning is, deceived or cheated.]
[Footnote 13: Sullen fits. We have a merry jig, called Dumpty-Deary, invented to rouse ladies from the dumps.]
[Footnote 15: Motherly woman.] [Footnote 16: Not grace before and after meat, nor their graces the duchesses, but the Graces which attended on Venus.]
[Footnote 17: Not Flanders-lace, but gold and silver lace. By borrowed, I mean such as run into honest tradesmen's debts, for which they were not able to pay, as many of them did for French silver lace, against the last birth-day.--Vid. the shopkeepers' books.]
[Footnote 18: Girls who love to hear themselves prate, and put on a number of monkey-airs to catch men.]
[Footnote 19: I hope none will be so uncomplaisant to the ladies as to think these comparisons are odious.]
[Footnote 20: Tell the whole world; not to proclaim them as robbers and rapparees.]
Wherein the Author most audaciously presumes to cast an indignity upon their highnesses the Clouds, by comparing them to a woman. Written by DERMOT O'NEPHELY, Chief Cape of Howth.[1]
N.B. The following answer to that scurrilous libel against us, should have been published long ago in our own justification: But it was advised, that, considering the high importance of the subject, it should be deferred until the meeting of the General Assembly of the Nation.
[Two passages within crotchets are added to this poem, from a copy found amongst Swift's papers. It is indorsed, "Quære, should it go." And a little lower, "More, but of no use."]