With a sadness at heart, and an earnest hope grounded on his misanthropic sadness, when I first knew him in his 20th or 21st year, that a something existed in his bodily organism that in the sight of the All-Merciful lessened his responsibility, and the moral imputation of his acts and feelings.

MS.

26

DRINKING VERSUS THINKING

OR, A SONG AGAINST THE NEW
PHILOSOPHY

My Merry men all, that drink with glee
This fanciful Philosophy,

Pray tell me what good is it?
If antient Nick should come and take
The same across the Stygian Lake,
I guess we ne'er should miss it.
Away, each pale, self-brooding spark
That goes truth-hunting in the dark,
Away from our carousing!

To Pallas we resign such fowls-
Grave birds of wisdom! ye're but owls,
And all your trade but mousing!
My Merry men all, here's punch and
wine,

And spicy bishop, drink divine !

Let's live while we are able. While Mirth and Sense sit, hand in glove,

This Don Philosophy we'll shove

Dead drunk beneath the table! M. Post, Sep. 25, 1801.

27

A HINT TO PREMIERS AND FIRST CONSULS

FROM AN OLD TRAGEDY, VIZ. AGATHA TO KING ARCHELAUS

THREE truths should make thee often think and pause;

The first is, that thou govern'st over

men ;

[The twenty Original Epigrams' fol

come;

My looking-glass will always be at home. M. Post, Dec. 16, 1801.

29

TO A CRITIC

WHO EXTRACTED A PASSAGE FROM A
POEM WITHOUT ADDING A WORD RE-
SPECTING THE CONTEXT, AND THEN
DERIDED IT AS UNINTELLIGIBLE.

MOST candid critic, what if I,
By way of joke, pull out your eye,
And holding up the fragment, cry,

6 Ha ha! that men such fools should be!

Behold this shapeless Dab!-and he
Who own'd it, fancied it could see!'
The joke were mighty analytic,
But should you like it, candid critic?
M. Post, Dec. 16, 1801.

30

ALWAYS AUDIBLE

PASS under Jack's window at twelve at night,

You'll hear him still-he's roaring! Pass under Jack's window at twelve at

noon,

You'll hear him still-he's snoring! Morn. Post, Dec. 19, 1801.

31

PONDERE NON NUMERO FRIENDS should be weigh'd, not told; who boasts to have won

A multitude of friends, he ne'er had one. Morn. Post, Dec. 26, 1801.

in September and October 1802, with the signature ' ΕΣΤΗΣΕ. ]

(September 23, 1802.)

33

WHAT is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole, Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

34

CHARLES, grave or merry, at no lie would stick,

And taught at length his memory the same trick.

Believing thus what he so oft repeats He's brought the thing to such a pass, poor youth,

That now himself and no one else he cheats,

Save when unluckily he tells the truth.

35

AN evil spirit's on thee, friend! of late! Ev'n from the hour thou cam'st to thy Estate.

Thy mirth all gone, thy kindness, thy discretion,

Th' estate hath prov'd to thee a most complete possession.

Shame, shame, old friend! would'st thou be truly blest,

Be thy wealth's Lord, not slave! possessor, not possess'd.

36

HERE lies the Devil-ask no other name. Well-but you mean Lord--? Hush! we mean the same.

elf!

He shews his clothes! Alas! he shews

himself.

humming;

And when I first read German, made me stare.

lovers,

What hides the body oft the mind dis

covers.

As common as the Sun to lord and loon, And all their husbands horned as the

Moon.