O since it was thy fortune to be born A dwarf on some Scotch _Inch_, and then to flinch From all the Gog-like jostle of great men. Still with thy small crow pen Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn-- Still Scottish story daintily adorn, Be still a shade--and when this age is fled, When we poor sons and daughters of reality Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead, And Time destroys our mottoes of morality, The lithographic hand of Old Mortality Shall still restore thy emblem on the stone, A featureless death's head, And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown! TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQUIRE, EDITOR OF THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. Dost thou not suspect my years?-- MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. I. Oh! Mr. Urban! never must _thou_ lurch A sober age made serious drunk by thee; Hop in thy pleasant way from church to church, And nurse thy little bald Biography. II. Oh, my Sylvanus! what a heart is thine! And what a page attends thee! Long may I Hang in demure confusion o'er each line That asks thy little questions with a sigh! III. Old tottering years have nodded to their falls, Like pensioners that creep about and die; But thou, Old Parr of periodicals, Livest in monthly immortality! IV. How sweet!--as Byron of _his_ infant said,-- "Knowledge of objects" in thine eye to trace; To see the mild no-meanings of thy head, Taking a quiet nap upon thy face! V. How dear through thy Obituary to roam, And not a name of any name to catch! To meet thy Criticism walking home Averse from rows, and never calling "Watch!" VI. Rich is thy page in soporific things,-- Composing compositions,--lulling men,-- Faded old posies of unburied rings,-- Confessions dozing from an opiate pen:-- VII. Lives of Right Reverends that have never liv'd,-- Deaths of good people that have really died,-- Parishioners,--hatch'd, husbanded, and wiv'd,-- Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side by side! VIII. The sacred query,--the remote response,-- The march of serious mind, extremely slow,-- The graver's cut at some right aged sconce, Famous for nothing many years ago! IX. B. asks of C. if Milton e'er did write "Comus," obscured beneath some Ludlow lid;-- And C., next month, an answer doth indite, Informing B. that Mr. Milton did! X. X. sends the portrait of a genuine flea, Caught upon Martin Luther years agone; And Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee, Long dead, that gather'd honey for King John. XI. There is no end of thee,--there is no end, Sylvanus, of thy A, B, C, D-merits! Thou dost, with alphabets, old walls attend, And poke the letters into holes, like ferrets. XII.