For thee, who, mindful of the Scribbler’s lot Dost in these lines their ill success relate, If chance, when in the world thy name’s forgot, Some kindred Poet should enquire thy fate? Haply some tavern waiter may declare, “Oft have we seen him at the hour of ten Sipping his coffee, with a mournful air, Or holding sage discourse with learned men. In yonder box, now moisten’d as with tears, Conning his wayward verses he would sit; Now sooth’d with hope, and now depress’d with fears, He pour’d the wild effusions of his wit. One morn we miss’d him at the ’custom’d place, Nor at the bar, nor in the room was he: Another came, who had not seen his face, In the King’s Bench, or Fleet, or Marshalsea. Him next, in sad procession borne along, We saw proceeding through the churchyard’s gloom Affliction had abridg’d his mournful song, And wrote this sad inscription on his tomb.” EPITAPH. Here rests his head, six feet beneath the earth, An hapless youth, to hunger often known; The Grub-street Muses frown’d not at his birth, But mark’d the scribbling infant for their own. Tho’ in his breast each virtue made abode, The Public never recompensed his lays; He gave the King――’twas all he could――an ode―― The King refus’d his only wish――the Bays. No further seek his errors to reveal, Or scrutinise his wit with envious eye Oblivion’s hand his writings shall conceal, And with the Poet all his works shall die. From _The Literary Magazine, and British Review_, London, September, 1789. ――――:o:―――― ELEGY. _Written in Bartlemy Fair at five o’clock in the morning._ The clock bell tolls the hour of early day, The lowing herd their Smithfield penance drie, The watchman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the fair――all solitude to me! Now the first beams of morning glad the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds; Save when the sheep dog bays with hoarse affright, And brutal drovers pen the unwilling folds. Save that where sheltered, or from wind or shower, The lock’d out ’prentice, or frail nymph complain, Of such as, wandering near their secret bower, Molest them, sensible in sleep, to pain, Beneath those ragged tents――that boarded shade, Which late display’d its stores in tempting heaps; There, children, dogs, cakes, oysters, all are laid, There guardian of the whole, the master sleeps. The busy call of care-begetting morn, The well-slept passenger’s unheeding tread; The showman’s clarion, or the echoing horn, Too soon must rouse them from their lowly bed. Perhaps in this neglected booth is laid, Some head volcanic, oft discharging fire! Hands――that the rod of _magic_ lately sway’d; Toes――that so nimbly danc’d upon the wire.