But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
A sprightly young belle, who was an admirer of poetry, would often tease her beau, who had made some acquaintance with the muses, to write verses for her. One day, becoming quite importunate, she would take no denial. “Come, pray, do now write some poetry for me—won’t you? I’ll help you out. I’ll furnish you with rhymes if you will make lines for them. Here now:—
| please, | moan, |
| tease, | bone.” |
He at length good-humoredly complied, and filled up the measure as follows:—
To a form that is faultless, a face that must—please,
Is added a restless desire to—tease;
O, how my hard fate I should ever be—moan,
Could I but believe she’d be bone of my—bone!
Mr. Bogart, a young man of Albany, who died in 1826, at the age of twenty-one, displayed astonishing facility in impromptu writing.