 | A Collection of Original Poems |  |
173
Florio;
or, The Plagiary.
But more provoking still—here comes the wight,Who glories in the verse he cannot write;
Who anxious to procure a spurious name,
Fondly mistakes his infamy for fame;
Who to his fav'rite-self attempts to raise,
With pilfer'd song, a monument of praise;—
On his own stock, who labours not to thrive,
But lives by plund'ring th'industrious hive;
Like the rude Indian, strips the feather'd race,
With the gay spoil his meaner brow to grace;
His titles such to the poor fame he gets,
As Wards, or Japhets, were to their estates;
174
Yes—when at school, he was a hopeful lad;
But like too forward plants that early shoot,
Soon sapless grew, and wither'd at the root;
Yet still might pass for a consummate wit,
Allow him but those pieces Marcus writ,
Which as his own he can so well repeat.
Tun'd by his voice, how sweet the numbers flow,
Nay 'twas extempore, too, he'd have you know;
Pity—'twas writ so many years ago.
Florio, in one thing, surely does excel,
If stealing wisely's next to writing well.
| A Collection of Original Poems | |