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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


LINES ON LEIGH HUNT by THOMAS MOORE

First Line: NEXT WEEK WILL BE PUBLISHED (AS 'LIVES' ARE THE RAGE)

NEXT week will be publisht (as " Lives " are the rage)
The whole Reminiscences, wondrous and strange,
Of a small puppy-dog that lived once in the cage
Of the late noble Lion at Exeter 'Change.


Tho' the dog is a dog of the kind they call " sad, "
'Tis a puppy that much to good breed ing pretends;
And few dogs have such opportunities had
Of knowing how Lions behave - among friends;


How that animal eats, how he snores, how he drinks ,
Is all noted down by this Boswell so small;
And ' t is plain from each sentence, the puppy-dog thinks
That the Lion was no such great things after all .


Tho' he roared pretty well -this the puppy allows
It was all, he says, borrowed - all second- hand roar;
And he vastly prefers his own little bow WOWS
To the loftiest war- note the Lion could pour.


T is indeed as good fun as a Cynic could ask,
To see how this cockney- bred setter of rabbits
Takes gravely the Lord of the Forest to task,
And judges of lions by puppy- dog


Nay, fed as he was (and this makes it a dark case)
With sops every day from the Lion's own pan,
He lifts up his leg at the noble beast's carcass,
And-does all a dog so diminutive can.


However, the book ' s a good book, being rich in
Examples and warnings to lions high bred,
How they suffer small mongrelly curs in their kitchen,
Who ' ll feed on them living and foul them when dead.


WANTED Authors of all- work to job for the season,
No matter which party, so faithful to neither;
Good hacks who, if posed for a rhyme or a reason,
Can manage, like ******, to do with out either.


If in jail, all the better for out- o' -door topics;
Your jail is for Travellers a charming retreat:
They can take a day's rule for a trip to the Tropics,
And sail round the world at their ease in the Fleet. --


For a Dramatist too the most useful of schools
He can study high life in the King's Bench community;
Aristotle could scarce keep him more within rules,
And of place he at least must adhere to the unity.


Any lady or gentleman, come to an age
To have good " Reminiscences " (three-score or higher),
Will meet with encouragement - so much, per page,
And the spelling and grammar both found by the buyer.


No matter with what their remembrance is stockt,
So they'll only remember the quan tum desired;
Enough to fill handsomely Two Volumes, oct.,
Price twenty- four shillings, is all that's required.


They may treat us, like Kelly, with old jeu-d'esprits,
Like Dibdin, may tell of each farcical frolic;
Or kindly inform us, like Madame Genlis,?
That gingerbread-cakes always give them the colic.


Wanted also a new stock of Pamphlets on Corn
By Farmers " and " Landholders" (worthies whose lands
Enclosed all in bow- pots, their attics adorn,
Or whose share of the soil may be seen on their hands ) .


No- Popery Sermons, in ever so dull a vein,
Sure of a market; - should they too who pen ' em
Be renegade Papists, like Murtagh O'Sullivan,
Something extra allowed for the additional venom.


Funds, Physic, Corn, Poetry, Boxing, Romance,
All excellent subjects for turning a penny;
To write upon all is an author's sole chance
For attaining, at last , the least knowl edge of any. ----


Nine times out of ten, if his title is good,
The material within of small consequence is;
Let him only write fine, and, if not understood,
Why - that's the concern of the reader, not his. --


Nota Bene-an Essay, now printing, to show,
That Horace (as clearly as words could express it )
Was for taxing the Fund-holders, ages ago
When he wrote thus - Quodcunque, in Fund is, assess it. "




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