62
THE TASTE OF THE TIMES
Some whim or fancy pleases every eye;
For talents premature 'tis now the rage:
In Music how great Handel would have smil'd
T' have seen what crowds are raptur'd with a child!
A Garrick we have had in little Betty—
And now we're told we have a Pitt in Petty!
All must allow, since thus it is decreed,
He is a very petty Pitt indeed!
? 1806.
First printed (from an autograph MS.) by Mr. Bertram Dobell in the Athenæum, Jan. 9, 1904. Now collected for the first time.
63
ON PITT AND FOX
Britannia's boast, her glory and her pride,
Pitt in his Country's service lived and died:
At length resolv'd, like Pitt had done, to do,
For once to serve his Country, Fox died too!
First published by Mr. B. Dobell in the Athenæum, Jan. 6, 1904. This epigram belongs to the same MS. source as the preceding, 'On the Taste of the Times,' and may have been the composition of S. T. C.
