While studying o'er the fire one day
My Hobbes amidst the smoke,
They bore my Colman clean away,
And carried off my Coke.
They picked my Locke, to me far more
Than Bramah's patent's worth;
And now my losses I deplore
Without a Home on earth.
If once a book you let them lift,
Another they conceal;
For though I caught them stealing Swift,
As swiftly went my Steele.
Hope is not now upon my shelf,
Where late he stood elated;
But, what is strange, my Pope himself
Is excommunicated.
My little Suckling in the grave
Is sunk, to swell the ravage;
And what 'twas Crusoe's fate to save
'Twas mine to lose—a Savage.
Even Glover's works I cannot put
My frozen hands upon;
Though ever since I lost my Foote
My Bunyan has been gone.
My Hoyle with Cotton went; oppressed,
My Taylor too must sail;
To save my Goldsmith from arrest,
In vain I offered Bayle.
I Prior sought, but could not see
The Hood so late in front;
And when I turned to hunt for Lee,
Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt?
I tried to laugh, old care to tickle,
Yet could not Tickell touch,
And then, alas! I missed my Mickle,
And surely mickle's much.
'Tis quite enough my griefs to feed,
My sorrows to excuse,
To think I cannot read my Reid,
Nor even use my Hughes.