Note 45 — Chapter VI

Half a poet.] O, fie! friend Cockloft, this savors of sheer envy. Were there any doubts of the Doctor’s being a whole poet—aye, and a big poet, the following verse would set them at rest. It shows that he is a complete jockey on Pegasus; and when the poor nag won’t pace, he’ll cudgel him as soundly as he does his own brains:—

“Yes, we were ’raptured when he said

We’re all republican, all fed-

Ral fellow-citizens, Americans,

And hoped we’d done with faction’s hurricanes!”—Costive.

93Is this poetic frenzy (alias idiotism), or is it turgid stupidity? Truly it is as smooth as a pine-log causeway; it confirms the Doctor’s right to his sir-name, and can only be matched by a stave from the Doctor’s contemporary bard and rival rhymester, Searson—videlicet:—

“From house to house soon took my departure,

And to the garden look’d for sweet nature.

The fishing very great at Mount Vernon,

When there with other scenes I look’d upon.

This pleasing seat hath its prospects so high,

That one would think ’twas for astronomy,

’Twould answer for an observatory.”

The reader will perceive the similarity in taste, style, and ear of these rival poets. I have their works bound up together, and Minshull’s into the bargain. It shall go hard but they shall all descend the gutter of immortality together.