TO MY FRIEND THE INDICATOR
Reading edition
(1820)
Your easy Essays indicate a flow, Dear Friend, of brain which we may elsewhere seek; And to their pages I, and hundreds, owe, That Wednesday is the sweetest of the week. Such observation, wit, and sense, are shewn, We think the days of Bickerstaff returned; And that a portion of that oil you own, In his undying midnight lamp which burned. I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's head, Or wrong the rules of grammar understood; But, with the leave of Priscian be it said, The Indicative is your Potential Mood. Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator— H[unt], your best title yet is INDICATOR.