No More Learning

162, 163.
The lines in italics, which precede each stanza, are taken from the last
stanza of Lord Thurlow's poem. ]



TO LORD THURLOW. [32]

1.

"_I lay my branch of laurel down_. "

"_THOU_ lay thy branch of _laurel_ down! "
Why, what thou'st stole is not enow;
And, were it lawfully thine own,
Does Rogers want it most, or thou?
Keep to thyself thy withered bough,
Or send it back to Doctor Donne:[33]
Were justice done to both, I trow,
He'd have but little, and thou--none.

2.

"_Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown_. "

A crown! why, twist it how you will,
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still.
When next you visit Delphi's town,
Enquire amongst your fellow-lodgers,
They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown,
Some years before your birth, to Rogers.

3.

"_Let every other bring his own_.
"

When coals to Newcastle are carried,
And owls sent to Athens, as wonders,
From his spouse when the Regent's unmarried,
Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders;
When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel,
When Castlereagh's wife has an heir,
Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel,
And thou shalt have plenty to spare.

[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 397. ]

FOOTNOTES:

[32] ["On the same day I received from him the following additional
scraps ['To Lord Thurlow']. The lines in Italics are from the eulogy
that provoked his waggish comments. "--_Life_, p. 181. The last stanza of
Thurlow's poem supplied the text--

"Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown,
(Let ev'ry other bring his own,)
I lay my branch of laurel down. "]

[33] [Lord Thurlow affected an archaic style in his Sonnets and other
verses. In the Preface to the second edition of _Poems, etc. _, he
writes, "I think that our Poetry has been continually declining since
the days of Milton and Cowley . . . and that the golden age of our
language is in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. "]



THE DEVIL'S DRIVE. [ii][34]

1.