As little Will Carstairs.
[47] Priol, i.e. three.
[48] Carstairs, though a poor poet, was vain of his abilities as such. About the year 1731, Thomas Whittle and he being in a large company at the Burnt-house in Newcastle, the conversation turned on their respective merits as disciples of the Muses. A wager was soon bet on the subject; and it was agreed, that an hour should be allowed for each of them to write satyrical verses on the other. The two poets were accordingly placed in separate apartments; and at the expiration of the time specified, it was determined, by throwing up a halfpenny, which of the two should first read his lays: it fell to Whittle’s lot; but before he had got to the end, his competitor was so chagrined, that he put the concoctions of his less fertile brain in the fire; the wager of course was won by Whittle’s party.
THOMAS WHITTLE, HIS HUMOROUS LETTER,
TO MASTER MOODY, THE RAZOR-SETTER.
Newcastle on Tyne, May Twenty-nine.
Good Master Moody,
My beard being cloudy,
My cheeks, chin, and lips
Like moon i’ the ’clipse,