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He lov'd old Books and nappy ale,
So liv'd at Streatham, next to THRALE,
'Twas there this stain of grease I boast
Was made by Dr. JOHNSON's toast.
(He did it, as I think, for Spite;
My Master call'd him Jacobite !)
And now that I so long to-day
Have rested post discrimina,

Safe in the brass-wir'd book-case where
I watch'd the Vicar's whit'ning hair,
Must I these travell'd bones inter

In some Collector's sepulchre !

Must I be torn herefrom and thrown

With frontispiece and colophon!

With vagrant E's, and I's, and O's,

The spoil of plunder'd Folios!

With scraps and snippets that to ME
Are naught but kitchen company!

Nay, rather, FRIEND, this favour grant me:
Tear me at once; but don't transplant me.

CHELTENHAM,

Sept. 31, 1792.

"BUY,

THE WATER OF GOLD

UY,-who'll buy?" In the market-place,
Out of the market din and clatter,

The quack with his puckered persuasive face
Patters away in the ancient patter.

"Buy,-who'll buy? In this flask I holdIn this little flask that I tap with my stick, sirIs the famed, infallible Water of Gold,

The One, Original, True Elixir !

"Buy,-who'll buy? There's a maiden there,-
She with the ell-long flaxen tresses,-
Here is a draught that will make you fair,
Fit for an Emperor's own caresses!

"Buy,-who'll buy? Are you old and gray? Drink but of this, and in less than a minute, Lo! you will dance like the flowers in May, Chirp and chirk like a new-fledged linnet!

"Buy,-who'll buy? Is a baby ill?

Drop but a drop of this in his throttle, Straight he will gossip and gorge his fill, Brisk as a burgher over a bottle!

"Here is wealth for your life,-if you will but ask;

Here is health for your limb, without lint or lotion;

Here is all that you lack, in this tiny flask;

And the price is a couple of silver groschen!

"Buy,-who'll buy ?" So the tale runs on: And still in the Great World's market-places The Quack, with his quack catholicon,

Finds ever his crowd of upturned faces;

For he plays on our hearts with his pipe and drum, On our vague regret, on our weary yearning; For he sells the thing that never can come,

Or the thing that has vanished, past returning.

A FANCY FROM FONTENELLE

"De mémoires de Roses on n'a point vu mourir le Jardinier."

THE Rose in the garden slipped her bud, And she laughed in the pride of her youthful blood,

As she thought of the Gardener standing by"He is old,—so old! And he soon must die!"

The full Rose waxed in the warm June air,

And she spread and spread till her heart lay bare; And she laughed once more as she heard his tread

"He is older now! He will soon be dead!"

But the breeze of the morning blew, and found That the leaves of the blown Rose strewed the

ground;

And he came at noon, that Gardener old,
And he raked them gently under the mould.

And I wove the thing to a random rhyme,
For the Rose is Beauty, the Gardener, Time.

DON QUIXOTE

EHIND thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack,
Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and
fro,

Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe,
And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back,
Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack!
To make wiseacredom, both high and low,
Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go)
Dispatch its Dogberrys upon thy track:
Alas! poor Knight! Alas! poor soul possest!
Yet would to-day when Courtesy grows chill,
And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest,
Some fire of thine might burn within us still!
Ah, would but one might lay his lance in rest,
And charge in earnest . were it but a mill!

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