"_THOU_ lay thy branch of _laurel_ down!" Why, what thou'st stole is not enow; And, were it lawfully thine own, Does Rogers want it most, or thou? Keep to thyself thy withered bough, Or send it back to Doctor Donne:[33] Were justice done to both, I trow, He'd have but little, and thou--none. 2. "_Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown_." A crown! why, twist it how you will, Thy chaplet must be foolscap still. When next you visit Delphi's town, Enquire amongst your fellow-lodgers, They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown, Some years before your birth, to Rogers. 3. "_Let every other bring his own_." When coals to Newcastle are carried, And owls sent to Athens, as wonders, From his spouse when the Regent's unmarried, Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders; When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel, When Castlereagh's wife has an heir, Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel, And thou shalt have plenty to spare. [First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 397.] FOOTNOTES: [32] ["On the same day I received from him the following additional scraps ['To Lord Thurlow']. The lines in Italics are from the eulogy that provoked his waggish comments."--_Life_, p. 181. The last stanza of Thurlow's poem supplied the text-- "Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown, (Let ev'ry other bring his own,) I lay my branch of laurel down."] [33] [Lord Thurlow affected an archaic style in his Sonnets and other verses. In the Preface to the second edition of _Poems, etc._, he writes, "I think that our Poetry has been continually declining since the days of Milton and Cowley ... and that the golden age of our language is in the reign of Queen Elizabeth."] THE DEVIL'S DRIVE.[ii][34] 1. THE Devil returned to Hell by two, And he stayed at home till five; When he dined on some homicides done in _ragoût_, And a rebel or so in an _Irish_ stew, And sausages made of a self-slain Jew, And bethought himself what next to do, "And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive. I walked in the morning, I'll ride to-night; In darkness my children take most delight, And I'll see how my favourites thrive. 10 2. "And what shall I ride in?" quoth Lucifer, then-- "If I followed my taste, indeed, I should mount in a waggon of wounded men, And smile to see them bleed. But these will be furnished again and again, And at present my purpose is speed; To see my manor as much as I may, And watch that no souls shall be poached away. 3.