The Antiquary.
The following lines were written by an old and particular friend of the erudite individual who received them:—
To Richard Gough, Esq.
O tu severi Religio loci!
Hail, genius of this littered study!
Or tell what name you most delight in
For sure where all the ink is muddy,
And no clean margin left to write in,
No common deity resides.
We see, we feel thy power divine,
In every tattered folio’s dust,
Each mangled manuscript is thine,
And thine the antique helmet’s rust.
Nor less observed thy power presides
Where plundered brasses crowd the floor,
Or dog’s-eared drawings burst their binding
Hid by Confusion’s puzzling door
Beyond the reach of mortal finding.
Than if beneath a costly roof
Each moulding edged by golden fillet,
The Russian binding, insect proof,
Blushed at the foppery of ———
Give me, when tired by dust and sun,
If rightly I thy name invoke,
The bustle of the town to shun,
And breathe unvext by city smoke.
But, ah! if from these cobwebbed walls,
And from this moth-embroidered cushion,
Too fretful Fortune rudely calls,
Resolved the cares of life to push on—
Give me at least to pass my age
At ease in some book-tapestried cell,
Where I may turn the pictured page,
Nor start at visitants’ loud bell.[394]
[392] Sykes’s Local Records, p. 79.
[393] Dr. Stukeley’s Itinerary.
[394] Dr. Porster’s Perennial Calendar.