I have made two inscriptions lately, at the request of Thomas Gifford, Esq., who is sowing twenty acres with acorns on one side of his house, and twenty acres with ditto on the other.[544] He erects two memorials of stone on the occasion, that, when posterity shall be curious to know the age of the oaks, their curiosity may be gratified.
1.
INSCRIPTION.
Other stones the era tell
When some feeble mortal fell.
I stand here to date the birth
Of these hardy sons of earth.
Anno 1790.
2.
INSCRIPTION.
Reader! Behold a monument
That asks no sigh or tear,
Though it perpetuate the event
Of a great burial here.
Anno 1791.
My works therefore will not all perish, or will not all perish soon, for he has ordered his lapidary to cut the characters very deep, and in stone extremely hard. It is not in vain, then, that I have so long exercised the business of a poet. I shall at last reap the reward of my labours, and be immortal probably for many years.
Ever thine,
W. C.