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!