TO *******

WITH A POCKET BOOK.

A HUMBLE gift indeed, my Love!

Yet spare the frown which would reprove, As first the stranger meets your look; You'll find it, tho' in value small,

A useful servant at your call,

Then take a new year's Pocket Book.

Whate'er you wish to keep in mind,

Here let it be but safe consign'd,

Give it among these leaves a nook;

Tho' mem❜ry's vivid pencil fail,
The black lead one will still avail

Within your little Pocket Book.

Should you perchance e'er wish to know
How the Great world just then may go,

Who's Earl or Marquis, Lord or Duke,

In Parliament who holds a Seat,

The information you will get

By ref'rence to your Pocket Book,

If saucy Hackney Coachmen swear,

And boldly stickle for a fare

Which well your spirit may not brook,

At once to end the wordy fight,

And shortly prove who's wrong, who's right,
Consult your little Pocket Book.

How Luna's monthly course will run;

The rise and setting of the Sun;

When first the crown each Sov'reign took;

Fasts, Feasts, and Birth-days; Kings and Queens;

The Army, Navy; Bishops, Deans;

All mingle in the Pocket Book.

Such are the virtues it has got;

Then take it, and ah let it not,

Tho' humble, meet with thy rebuke;

Do not upon thy Ackland frown,

For that so much he has laid down

About a paltry Pocket Book;

But as, whene'er I've offer'd aught,

That smile with winning sweetness fraught

Ne'er yet thy lovely face forsook,

So to my wishes still incline,

So smile too on this gift of mine,

Tho' 'tis but a poor Pocket Book.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY IMITATED.

Vix ea nostra voeo.

1

OVID.

To be,

Or not to be, a Gamester-that's the question.
Whether 'tis better, in a sordid hovel

To bear the buffetings of adverse Fortune,

Or her own weapons to take up against her,

And, by a venture, end them?—To play,—to win,
And, by that winning too, to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand corporal ills
That Want is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To play ;—to win ;-
To win! perchance to lose;―ay, there's the rub!

For in our play what luck may chance to come,

When we have shuffled o'er th' eventful pack,

Must give us pause: There's the respect, that makes Our poverty to be of so long life;

For who would bear the cares and

pangs of want,

The rich man's scorn, the proud man's contumely,

The landlord's threats, the crying calls of hunger, The insolence of creditors, the spurns

That begging paupers of the unfeeling take,

When he himself might his own fortune make
With a bare dice-box? Who would labour bear,

Or groan and sweat under a servile life,

But that the dread of something underhand,
Of sharpers leagued in combination vile,➡
Those undiscovered harpies, from whose fangs
Few gamesters safe return,-puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than hazard others that we know not of?