Joseph, farewell! dear funny Joe! We met with mirth,--we part in pain! For many a long, long year must go Ere Fun can see thy like again-- For Nature does not keep great stores Of perfect Clowns--that are not _Boors_! TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE “GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE.” “Dost thou not suspect my years?”--_Much Ado about Nothing._ 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. 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! 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! 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! 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!” Rich is thy page in soporific things,-- Composing compositions,--lulling men,-- Faded old posies of unburied rings,-- Confessions dozing from an opiate pen:-- Lives of Right Reverends that have never lived,-- Deaths of good people that have really died,-- Parishioners,--hatched,--husbanded,--and wived,-- Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side by side! The sacred query,--the remote response,-- The march of serious mind, extremely slow,-- The graver’s cut at some right agèd sconce, Famous for nothing many years ago! 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. sends the portrait of a genuine flea, Caught upon Martin Luther years agone;-- And Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee, Long dead, that gathered honey for King John. 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. Go on, Sylvanus!--Bear a wary eye, The churches cannot yet be quite run out! Some parishes must yet have been passed by,-- There’s Bullock-Smithy has a church no doubt! Go on--and close the eyes of distant ages! Nourish the names of the undoubted dead! So Epicures shall pick thy lobster-pages, Heavy and lively, though but seldom _red_.