[Clare by William Hilton - 1820]
Nor wealth nor learning ever makes a poet
Tis natures blessing so the story goes
& my condition goes the way to show it
Tho up to Bible classes I was taught
My school account is hardly worth the telling
I staid no time to master as I ought
A hardish chapter in it without spelling
A timber merchant father was—that is
A maker & a seller out of matches
This honest truth somes very apt to quiz
That can do nothing but such meddling catches
These I woud ask is the prime strops of Packwood
A pin the worse cause he has humbler been
Then why—but hold—I quake at Mr B[lackwood]
Hell rap my knuckles in his magazine
Things may (as gran observes of Turners Blacking)
Be very good & very worthy praise
But theres such puffing & such swindling quacking
That merits next to nothing now adays
Some praise themselves some by their friends are stuck
As highs our weathercock upon the steeple
While all beside are trampld in the muck
I humbly hope youre no such kind of people
Truth waits times touchstone as the just attacker
To burst the bubble & to put to rout
Each pompous sounding literary cracker—
Mine lives as long as many Ive no doubt
I will but print them as I hinted at
Deceit may be decieved its no great matter
Big as a frog I almost burst with that
She puffs me up but she is apt to flatter
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