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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 385 671 9 
 
 Hollinger Corp. 
 pH8.5 
 
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 T> 
 
Class 
 
 Book. 
 
 DOBELL COLLECTION 
 
ps 
 
 MY POEMS, 
 
MY POEMS, 
 
 AN 
 
 INSTRUCTIVE AND ENTERTAINING 
 
 MISCELLANY 
 
 OF 
 
 TALES, TRANSLATIONS, REFLECTIONS, THOUGHTS, 
 SIMILES, SENTIMENTS, 
 
 AND A VARIETY OF 
 
 SERIOUS, COMIC, HUMOROUS, AND OTHER 
 
 LUDICROUS PIECES, IN A STYLE 
 
 NEW AND ORIGINAL. 
 
 For jl will, for no man's pleasure 
 
 Change a syllable or measure, 
 
 Pedants shall not tie my strains 
 
 To our antique Poet's veins, 
 
 Being born as free as these, 
 
 I will sing as I shall please. Wither! afudSoutky. 
 
 BY ME. 
 
 CUT OF MY APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 I to the muses have been bound, 
 
 These fourteen years by strong indentures. Lyrical Balladsi 
 
 Come for ye know me, listen to my lay. MadoC. 
 
 WITH A 
 
 Prefatory essap ^ntitteb, 
 THE COMPLETE ART OF VERSIFICATION, 
 
 OR 
 
 EVERY MAN HIS OWN 
 
 And those who cannot write and those who can 
 
 Shall rhyme and scrawl and scribble to a man. Pcpt 
 
 CALCUTTA: 
 
 1812, 
 

 205449 
 .'13 
 
SKETCH OF AN ESSAY, 
 
 ESTITLEB 
 
 THE COMPLETE ART OF VERSIFICATION; 
 
 OR 
 
 every man his own 
 
 JPOjET. 
 
 CONSIDERING the vast utility of Poetry to Man- 
 kind, which like music, " softens Rocks and bends 
 the rugged Oak," and considering, the injury this 
 valuable art ha& sustained, from the pretensions of 
 Persons to its possession, who have no pretentions at 
 all ; I have been induced to plan and digest and 
 digest a plan, by which every man may be a Poet, 
 and yet Poetry shall lose none of its present value ; as 
 folio weth. 
 
 Poetry, according to the practice of the most able 
 modern Professors, contains but two things, Rhythm 
 
[ ii ] 
 
 and Rhyme : — Rhythm, for the benefit of my unlearn- 
 ed Pleaders, I shall call Measure ; and of Measure, 
 therefore I proceed to treat. 
 
 Now Measure as an attribute is threefold, of capa- 
 city, of weight and of space ; we have nothing to do 
 with capacity in the present instance, and as to weight 
 the lighter that verses are the better ; we therefore 
 come to space, and here occurs the first difficulty. 
 
 It has been usual for young Poets to find out the 
 length of Verses by their feet ; rather a mistake by the 
 bye, as it should have been, by their fingers ; but 
 this is troublesome to the most dexterous hands, and 
 besides every body's fingers are not limber enough, to 
 finger this harpsicord of the muses ; what I propose 
 therefore is this. 
 
 I have ascertained by my Compasses, the lengths of 
 various decasyllabic, hendecasyllabic, dodecasyllabic, 
 &c. &c. lines, according to the custom of the best 
 Poets ; and of each of these I have made out the aver- 
 
[ iii ] 
 
 age inches ) as per the adjoined scaler according to 
 this scale let any body therefrre draw two lines 
 down his page, one to the left, the other to the right, at 
 the proper distance; and he will be a perfect master, 
 a very Taylor, in the art of measuring. 
 
 We now come to the Rhyme, the most important 
 part of the whole; for let me ask, what Poet ever 
 gave up Rhyme for Sense, or did not give up Sense 
 for Rhyme ? But this is to digress. We are to sup- 
 ply Rhimes for our Poet; let him take up any set of 
 Verses he pleases, and copy the last word of each 
 line as he finds them, putting them next the right 
 hand delineated line, which I have before mentioned, 
 and both difficulties are discussed. He may now pre- 
 fix any wrrds he pleases, to his Rhyming particle ; 
 and he has written excellent Verses : specimens of the 
 mode follow my scale. 
 
 Before I conclude, I may perhaps doubt, whether 
 the moderns have not gone beyond me, by putting 
 lines of all lengths together, higgledy piggledy like 
 
[ iv ] 
 
 a carps of recruits at the first muster, and scattreing 
 Rhymes here and there at random, like the shots of a 
 bad marksman, amongst a covey of Partridges*. how* 
 ever I am one of the old school, J wish to have some** 
 thing at least amongst my Verses, I can give up reason^ 
 as well as they ; but I must stickle for Rhyme. For 
 those who may prefer being in fashion, I have a set of 
 dice^ particularly marked, which they may throw for 
 each line, and so discover the number of inches, it 
 will be proper to fill up. P. P. 
 
 The graduated scale and specimens of Versification 
 will appear in the regular Publication, 
 
SELECT SPECIMENS 
 
 fro:.i 
 
 MY FOEMi 
 
 AN IDEA. 
 
 OBJECT divine of hearts and eyes, 
 Prime manufacture of the skies, 
 No earthly price can purchase thee. 
 Except the verse — that's bid by me, 
 
 A SENTIMENT. 
 
 Trust not the world — -its promises you'll find, 
 
 Are nought but words & words are nought but wind. 
 
 A DOUBT. 
 
 That others may have lit the fire 
 Of ardent love and hot desire, 
 I may perhaps suppose, 
 But I must needs conceive amaze 
 How you can teach a fire to blaze, 
 By shedding on it — snows. 
 
[ 2 ] 
 A THOUGHT. 
 
 She flies me and I'm all alone. 
 
 Amidst this bustling crowd ; 
 
 I seek the shade and there my moan 
 
 Makes silence seem aloud — 
 
 Thus can a solitude a city be, 
 
 And thus a crowd 9 s a solitude to me. 
 
 tJHANSON. 
 
 This Anne so fair 
 
 Who claims my song, 
 
 Why comes she not, I must declare, 
 
 This lovely Anne is wrong. 
 
 My sighs and air 
 
 To grief belong, 
 
 Why comes she not, I must declare, 
 
 This lovely Anne is wrong. 
 
 How shall I bear, 
 
 My grief so strong : 
 
 She comes not, IH1 e'en seek my fair; 
 
 Which is not very wrong. 
 
[ 3 ] 
 
 PASSION. 
 
 Spring from your sockets now unuseful sight, 
 Leave eyes bedimmed — this* devil of a head: 
 Those charms have shed upon your orbits night. 
 On you — on life—I am not blind— I'm dead. 
 
 THE RETORT COURTEOUS. 
 
 I gazed and gazed and fondly wildly cried, 
 Whence comes the eloquence of those bright eyes ; 
 It is not Nature's — nature quick replied— 
 I gave the soul — and so your worship lies— 
 
 A FANTASY. 
 
 Lucinda frowning aimed an icy dart, 
 To freeze those flames, that set on hre my heart 5 
 They meet, when lo ! dissolved the ice appears, 
 And all the water gushes forth in tears. 
 
 THE POET TO LOYE DECEASED. 
 
 Light of my life, my latest spark 
 Now o'er thy grave stone flashes — 
 And how much heat I owed thee mark, 
 By gazing on my ashes. 
 
 * This is not merely the idiomatical expression, but a delicate 
 allusion, to the last invented whirligig play thing, for grown up 
 young ladies. 
 
C 4 ] 
 
 THE 
 
 COOKMAIB* 
 
 A REVERIE. 
 
 See the ancient Mariner^ Queen Qrrila^ the host of 
 Kings j Alice Brandy &;c &;c>fer other instances 
 of the Simple- Sublime.. 
 
 I. 
 
 JlT is a worthy Cookmaid, 
 Who sits by the fire alone, 
 And all the ear, can possibly hear $ 
 Is her nose's mourning tone. 
 
 But fast as a church, though she seems to be, 
 
 She does not sleep a wink, 
 
 For she is frightened out of her life, 
 
 She does not sleep a wink. 
 
 Thrice three times three at evening fall, 
 
 Strange noises at the door; 
 
 Have rung their call, through the lonely hall, 
 
 Where foot is heard bo more. ,■ 
 
[ 3 ] 
 
 For from the dull and dusty town, 
 Are the master and mistress scone, 
 And there is none but the Cookmaid, 
 Left in the house alone. 
 
 And every night 9 to her great fright, 
 Though not afraid before. 
 
 She hears the tap— come rap rap rap, 
 Thrice at the street dooiv- 
 
 II. 
 
 Fainter and fainter sound the wheels. 
 And the hurly burly is over, 
 
 And Margery, by the fire side, 
 Is snoring away in clover. 
 
 And before her eyes, there seem to rise, 
 Visions quite pleasing and pat, 
 Gravies, and stews, and sops in the pan, 
 And she floats in an ether of fat. 
 
 When from her dream, she woke with a scream. 
 
 And up she jumped in a flurry, 
 
 For a knocking so loud, there was at the door. 
 
 That she ran to it in a hurry. 
 
[ 6 ] 
 
 For is it a letter, or is it a friend, 
 Or is it her swain bewitching; 
 The youth who vows, he will espouse, 
 This goddess of the kitchen. 
 
 But nor friend, nor letter, nor swain, was there. 
 Nor ever seemed to have been:, 
 And not a soul could Margery see, 
 Because, there was none to be seem. 
 
 III. 
 
 Another night 'twas just the same, 
 
 Another night the knocking came, 
 
 But nothing still appeared, 
 
 And it seemed that the knocker knocked of itself, 
 
 And Margery was afeared. 
 
 And she fell away, and the folks did say. 
 Lo neighbours only look ! 
 Though late so fat, as lean as a cat, 
 Is now poor mistress Cook. 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 The swain who basked in Margery's eyes, 
 Was a cobler stout and tall, 
 And at night 'twas his to pace the streets. 
 And the waning hours to call. 
 
I r ] 
 
 And much did he mourn his Margery, 
 
 That she should be so slim. 
 
 And gave sigh for sigh, and cry for cry, 
 
 When she told her griefs to him. 
 
 And full of chivalrous emprize, 
 
 In ambuscade he snugly lies, 
 
 With staff and lanthorn to explore, 
 
 The cause of ^all this rumpus at the door. 
 
 Alone, alone, all all alone, 
 All alone by himself, watched he, 
 So lone indeed, that he himself, 
 Did scarce seem there to be. 
 
 And he watched on, till it grew dark and late, 
 
 And the chimes had sounded half past eight, 
 
 And who shall say, the youth's dismay, 
 
 When the fearful sounds began, 
 
 But resolved to be bold, 
 
 He sprang from his hold, 
 
 And some vagabond boys, 
 
 Who had made all the noise, 
 
 As fast as they could from him ran, 
 
 FIN I S. 
 
TO 'BE IN THE PRESS, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR 
 
 OF 
 
 MY POEMS. 
 
 Audax omnia perpeti. 
 
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LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS 
 
 014 385 671 9 
 
 Hollinger Corp. 
 pH 8.5 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 385 671 9 
 
 Hollinger Corp. 
 P H8.5