Impromptu Lines To Captain Riddell（1 / 1）

impromptu lines to captain riddell

on returning a newspaper.

your news and review, sir.

i've read through and through, sir,

with little admiring or blaming;

the papers are barren

of home-news or foreign,

no murders or rapes worth the naming.

our friends, the reviewers,

those chippers and hewers,

are judges of mortar and stone, sir;

but of meet or unmeet,

in a fabric complete,

i'll boldly pronounce they are none, sir;

my goose-quill too rude is

to tell all your goodness

bestow'd on your servant, the poet;

would to god i had one

like a beam of the sun,

and then all the world, sir, should know it!