Here lies old Hobson: Death hath broke his girt, And here, alas! hath laid him in the dirt; Or else, the ways being foul, twenty to one He's here stuck in a slough and overthrown. 'Twas such a shifter that, if truth were known, Death was half glad when he had got him down; For he had any time this ten years full Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and the Bull; And, surely, Death could never have prevailed, Had not his weekly course of carriage failed; But, lately, finding him so long at home, And thinking now his journey's end was come, And that he had taken up his latest inn, In the kind office of a Chamberlain Showed him his room where he must lodge that night, Pulled off his boots, and took away the light: If any ask for him, it shall be said, 'Hobson hath supped, and's newly gone to bed.'" The subject seems to have been an engrossing one to the youthful poet, for he harked back to it in the following variant:-- "Here lieth one who did most truly prove That he could never die while he could move; So hung his destiny, never to rot While he might still jog on and keep his trot, Made of sphere-metal, never to decay Until his revolution was at stay! Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime 'Gainst old truth) motion numbered out his time; And, like an engine moved with wheel and weight, His principles being ceased, he ended straight. Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, And too much breathing put him out of breath; Nor were it contradiction to affirm Too long _vacation_ hastened on his _term_; Merely to drive the time away he sickened, Fainted and died, nor would with ale be quickened. 'Nay,' quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretched, 'If I may not carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetched; But vow' (though the cross Doctors all stood hearers) 'For one _carrier_ put down, to make six _bearers_.' Ease was his chief disease, and, to judge right, He died for heaviness that his cart went light; His leisure told him that his time was come, And lack of load made his life burdensome; That even to his last breath, (there be that say't,) As he were pressed to death, he cried 'More weight!' But, had his doings lasted as they were, He had been an immortal Carrier. Obedient to the moon, he spent his date In course reciprocal, and had his fate Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas; Yet, strange to think, his wain was his increase; His letters are delivered all and gone; Only remains this superscription." The next example--an anonymous one--makes no bad third--