Good reader, supposing you’ve looked through this book,
Some fair verses no doubt you have read;
Some good sketches, with bad ones—the latter but few;
But did soliloquy enter your head?
How many are left who their names have inscribed
In a mood both happy and free?
How many in Britain, how many abroad?
Some sleep ’neath the old willow tree.
A later scribbler appropriately asks this poet to “Cheer up!” He is followed by one who rhymes “spruce” with “Bettws,” which is a very close approximation to the correct pronunciation. Then comes the “Marquis of Alicampane,” and later a critic who implores some heterographical guest, “Do cultivate a taste for spelling.” Then comes a shapeless scribble, signed and priced by some wag, “J. M. W. Turner, £450.”
The fate that follows distinguished visitors who gravely and pompously enter their names is seen in the comments on the entry, “Sir William Barlow, K.C.B., and Lady Barlow.” There was at that period a popular song called “Billy Barlow,” and with the hint thus afforded some idle artist has drawn in the margin his ideas of Sir William and his lady. They are not flattering.