Classic Poem

Sir,
Delany reports it, and he has a shrewd tongue,
That we both act the part of the clown and the cow-dung;
We lie cramming ourselves, and are ready to burst,
Yet still are no wiser than we were at first.
Pudet haec opprobria, I freely must tell ye,
Et diu potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.
Though Delany advised you to plague me no longer,
You reply and rejoin like Hoadly of Bangor.
I must now, at one sitting, pay off my old score:
How many to answer? One, two, three, four.
But because the three former are long ago past,
I shall, for method sake, begin with the last.
You treat me like a boy that knocks down his foe,
Who, ere t'other gets up, demands the riding blow.
Yet I know a young rogue, that thrown flat on the field,
Would, as he lay under, cry out, 'Sirrah, yield':
So, the French, when our generals soundly did pay 'em,
Went triumphant to church, and sang stoutly Te deum:
So the famous Tom Leigh, when quite run aground,
Comes off by out-laughing the company round.
In every vile pamphlet you'll read the same fancies,
Having thus overthrown all our further advances.
My offers of peace you ill understood.
Friend Sheridan, when will you know your own good?
'Twas to teach you in modester language your duty;
For, were you a dog, I could not be rude t'ye.
As a good quiet soul, who no mischief intends
To a quarrelsome fellow, cries, 'Let us be friends.'
But we like Antaeus and Hercules fight,
The oftener you fall, the oftener you write;
And I'll use you as he did that overgrown clown,
I'll first take you up, and then take you down:
And, 'tis your own case, for you never can wound
The worst dunce in your school, till he's heaved from the ground.