Works

I was urging my old Hypothesis that bad Verses were easily written, & says I the Italians pretend to have the sole Art of Improvisare, but I could do it as well as they. Hester defied me, & I bid her give me a Subject: She said I must make twenty Lines extempore on Lady Gideon’s Ball that we had been at the Night before. In short I must make ’em before Dinner—it wanted but 10 Minutes I repeated her these during the first Course, I had not Time to write ’em down, before we got into the parlour

On Assemblies to write while one waits for one’s Dinner,
Is a penance too hard for an old hardened Sinner;
’For tho’ empty your Poet, th’ Assembly was full,
And the place might be gay, tho’ the Verses were dull:
I must trot like Miss Markham to finish in Time,
For the Beef that’s o’ Roasting regards not my Rhyme,
And Lord Lewisham would soon be as lean as myself,
Were he set to such Work—and the Meat on the Shelf.
While Sir Sampson the Cook¹, Harry Cotton the Waiter,
Are likely to smart by my eager Ill nature;
No Consequence harsh should be drawn from my Spite,
When the Bard is so hungry, the Satire must bite:
Unmerciful Hester! six Lines still are wanting
My Wit all dry’d up, and my Stomach quite fainting
Whilst of Fools yet unsung a whole Hecatomb offers
No Thought in their Souls, and no Gold in their Coffers:
But the Bell rings at last, and as once Iphigene
Was saved by a Hind in the critical Scene;
So a fat Haunch of Venson may stand them instead,
And in lieu of Lord Gage’s,—give me a Calve’s Head.

Footnotes

1. Sir Sampson Gideon, the husband of Lady Gideon. He was M.P. for Cambridgeshire, and was raised to the peerage as Baron Eardley of Spalding, in 1789.↩︎