POEMS, BY A POOR GENTLEMAN. There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a rug. GOLDSMITH. POETRY and poverty begin with the same letter, and, in more respects than one, are as like each other as two P's." Nine tailors are the making of a man, but not so the nine Muses. Their votaries are notoriously only water-drinkers, eating mutton cold, and dwelling in attics. Look at the miserable lives and deaths recorded of the poets. "Butler," says Mr. D'Israeli, "lived in a cellar, and Goldsmith in a Deserted Village. Savage ran wild-Chatterton was carried on St. Augustine's Back like a young gipsy; and his half-starved Rowley always said heigho, when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray's days were ode-ious, and Gay's gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was shipwrecked. Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a subscription for him, and went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poor-house, Spenser could n't afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and down by his daughters, to save the expense of a dog.' It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circumstances. Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality—and what execrable rhymes Sir Richard Blackmore composed in his chariot. In a hay-cart he might have sung like a Burns. As the editors of magazines and annuals (save one) well know, the truly poetical contributions which can be inserted, are not those which come post free, in rose-colored tinted paper, scented with musk, and sealed with fancy wax. The real article arrives by post unpaid, sealed with rosin, or possibly with a dab of pitch or cobbler's wax, bearing the impression of a halfpenny, or more frequently of a buttonthe paper is dingy and scant--the hand-writing has evidently come to the author by nature there are trips in the spelling, and Priscian is a little scratched or so-but a rill of the true Castalian runs through the whole composition, though its fountain-head was a broken tea-cup, instead of a silver standish. A few years ago I used to be favored with numerous poems for insertion, which bore the signature of Fitz-Norman; the crest on the seal had probably descended from the Conquest, and the packets were invariably delivered by a Patagonian footman in green and gold. The author was evidently rich, and the verses were as palpably poor; they were declined, with the usual answer to correspondents who do not answer, and the communications ceased -as I thought forever, but I was deceived; a few days back one of the dirtiest and raggedest of street urchins delivered a soiled whity brown packet, closed with a wafer, which bore the impress of a thimble. The paper had more the odor of tobacco than of rose leaves, and the writing appeared to have been perpetrated with a skewer dipped in coffee-grounds; but the old signature of Fitz-Norman had the honor to be my "very humble servant" at the foot of the letter. It was too certain that he had fallen from affluence to indigence, but the adversity which had wrought such a change upon the writing implements, had, as usual, improved his poetry. The neat crowquill never traced on the superfine Bath paper any thing so unaffected as the following: STANZAS WRITTEN UNDER THE FEAR OF BAILIFFS. Alas! of all the noxious things That haunts the "Debtor's Door!" Saint Sepulchre's begins to toll, The Sheriffs seek the cell :— So I expect their officers, And tremble at the bell! I look for beer, and yet I quake SONNET WRITTEN IN A WORKHOUSE, Он, blessed ease! no more of heaven I ask: And lose the workhouse, saving in the works Unlearned toil, unlettered labors hence! SONNET.—A SOMNAMBULIST. “A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.”—BYRON. METHOUGHT for Fancy is the strangest gadder With heartfelt hope of getting up to Heaven: And still I climbed when it had chimed eleven, Nor yet of landing-place became aware; But on, with steadfast hope, I struggled still, To gain that blessed haven from all care, Where tears are wiped, and hearts forget their ill, When, lo! I wakened on a sadder stair— Tramp tramp-tramp-tramp-upon the Brixton Mill: FUGITIVE LINES ON PAWNING MY WATCH. "Aurum pot-a-bile.:"-Gold biles the pot.-FREE TRANSLATION. FAREWELL then, my golden repeater, We're come to my Uncle's old shop; And hunger won't be a dumb-waiter, The Cerberus growls for a sop. To quit thee, my comrade diurnal, My feelings will certainly scotch; But oh! there's a riot internal, And Famine calls out for the Watch! Oh! hunger's a terrible trial, So here goes the plates of your dial To fetch me some Williams's beef! As famished as any lost seaman, I've fasted for many a dawn, And now must play chess with the Demon, And give it a check with a pawn. I've fasted, since dining at Buncle's, 1 No Peachum it is, or young Lockit, So long I have wandered a starver, Right heavy and sad the event is, |