But mark’d the scribbling infant for their own.
Tho’ in his breast each virtue made abode,
The Public never recompensed his lays;
He gave the King—’twas all he could—an ode—
The King refus’d his only wish—the Bays.
No further seek his errors to reveal,
Or scrutinise his wit with envious eye
Oblivion’s hand his writings shall conceal,
And with the Poet all his works shall die.
From The Literary Magazine, and British Review, London, September, 1789.