Or if perchance the beds be spare,
Upon the straw he’ll close his eyes,
And sleep with Dapple or the mare.
These lines were written in August, 1808, by Connop Thirlwall, a precocious youth of eleven years of age, on the occasion of receiving the present of a copy of Bloomfield’s poem, “The Plough Boy.” The little work from which “The Pot-boy” is extracted, is entitled “Primitiæ; or Essays and Poems,” by Connop Thirlwall, with a preface by his father, the Rev, Thomas Thirlwall, M.A., who asserts that these Essays and Poems were entirely composed by his son before he was eleven years of age, a statement which requires considerable credulity from the reader.
JOHN KEATS.
Born Oct. 29, 1796. | Died Dec. 27, 1820.
Who kill’d John Keats?
“I” says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;