HUNGERFORD MARKET.
POEMS BY A POOR GENTLEMAN.
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a rug.—GOLDSMITH.
POETRY and poverty begin with the same letter, and in more respects than one, are “as like each other as two P’s.”—Nine tailors are the making of a man, but not so the nine Muses. Their votaries are notoriously only water drinkers, eating mutton cold, and dwelling in attics. Look at the miserable lives and deaths recorded of the poets. “Butler,” says Mr. D’Israeli, “lived in a cellar, and Goldsmith in a Deserted Village. Savage ran wild,—Chatterton was carried on St. Augustine’s Back like a young gipsy; and his half-starved Rowley always said Heigho, when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray’s day’s were ode-ious, and Gay’s gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was shipwrecked. Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a subscription for him, and went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poor-house, Spenser couldn’t afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and down by his daughters to save the expense of a dog.”
It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circumstances. Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality—and what execrable rhymes Sir Richard Blackmore composed in his chariot; in a hay-cart he might have sung like a Burns.