small hut of haunted stones--
For certainly the first pernicious man
That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee
In some vile literary caravan--
Shown for a shilling
Would be thy killing,
Think of Crachami's miserable span!
No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in
Than there it fell in--
But when she felt herself a show, she tried
To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf! and died!

XVII.

O since it was thy fortune to be born
A dwarf on some Scotch _Inch_, and then to flinch
From all the Gog-like jostle of great men,
Still with thy small crow pen
Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn--
Still Scottish story daintily adorn,
Be still a shade--and when this age is fled,
When we poor sons and daughters of reality
Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead,
And Time destroys our mottoes of morality--
The lithographic hand of Old Mortality
Shall still restore thy emblem on the stone,
A featureless death's head,
And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown!

ODE TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SENIOR.

"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit."
_Twelfth Night_.

I.

Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage,
To toddle down the hill of life,
And taste the flannel'd ease of age,
Apart from pantomimic strife--
"Retir'd--(for Young would call it so)--
The world shut out"--in Pleasant Row!

II.

And hast thou really wash'd at last
From each white cheek the red half-moon!
And all thy public Clownship cast,
To play the private Pantaloon?
All youth--all ages--yet to be
Shall have a heavy miss of thee!

III.

Thou didst not preach to make us wise--
Thou hadst no finger in our schooling--
Thou didst not "lure us to the skies"--
Thy simple, simple trade was--Fooling!
And yet, Heav'n knows! we could--we can
Much "better spare a better man!"

IV.

Oh, had it pleased the gout to take
The reverend Croly from the stage,
Or Southey, for our quiet's sake,
Or Mr. Fletcher, Cupid's sage,
Or, damme! namby-pamby Poole,--
Or any other clown or fool!

V.

Go, Dibdin--all that bear the name,
Go, Byeway Highway man! go! go!
Go, Skeffy--man of painted fame,
But leave thy partner, painted Joe!
I could bear Kirby on the wane,
Or Signor Paulo with a sprain!

VI.

Had Joseph Wilfrid Parkins made
His gray hairs scarce in private peace--
Had Waithman sought a rural shade--
Or Cob