"Without formal petition Thus stands my condition, I am closely blocked up in a garret, Where I scribble and smoke, And sadly invoke The powerful assistance of claret. Four children and a wife 'Tis hard on my life, Besides myself and a Muse To be all clothed and fed, Now the times are so dead, By my scribbling of doggrel and news; And what I shall do, I'm a wretch if I know So hard is the fate of a poet, I must either turn rogue, Or what's as bad--pedagogue, And so drudge like a thing that has no wit." How much are we indebted to the pecuniary embarrassments of poets for the interest we take in them. Who could read sentiment written by a man faring sumptuously every day? Towards the end of his life, Brown became acquainted with Lord Dorset, and we read of his once dining with that nobleman and finding a note for fifty pounds under his plate. Tom Brown seems to have regarded with great contempt his contemporary Tom D'Urfey--best known as a composer of sonnets--words and music. He addresses to him "upon his incomparable ballads, called by him Pindaric Odes," the following acrimonious lines-- "Thou cur, half French half English breed, Thou mongrel of Parnassus, To think tall lines, run up to seed, Should ever tamely pass us. "Thou write Pindaricks and be damned Write epigrams for cutlers, None with thy lyricks can be shammed But chambermaids and butlers. "In t'other world expect dry blows; No tears can wash thy stains out, Horace will pluck thee by the nose And Pindar beat thy brains out."