No More Learning

His rhymes are of the costive kind,
And barren as each valley
In deserts which he left behind
Has been the Muse of Gally.

6.

He has a Seat in Parliament,
Is fat and passing wealthy;
And surely he should be content
With these and being healthy:
But Great Ambition will misrule
Men at all risks to sally,--
Now makes a poet--now a fool,
And _we_ know _which_--of Gally.

7.

Some in the playhouse like to row,
Some with the Watch to battle,
Exchanging many a midnight blow
To Music of the Rattle.
Some folks like rowing on the Thames,
Some rowing in an Alley,
But all the Row my fancy claims
Is _rowing_--of my _Gally_.

_April_ 11, 1818. [107]

FOOTNOTES:

[103] [For Fop's Alley, see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 410, _note_ 2. ]

[104] [H. Gally Knight (1786-1846) was at Cambridge with Byron. ]

[105] [William Upton was the author of _Poems on Several Occasions_,
1788, and of the _Words of the most Favourite Songs, Duets, etc. _, sung
at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster Bridge, etc. In the dedication to
Mrs. Astley he speaks of himself as the author of the _Black Cattle_,
_Fair Rosamond_, etc.
He has also been credited with the words of James
Hook's famous song, _A Lass of Richmond Hill_, but this has been
disputed. (See _Notes and Queries_, 1878, Series V. vol. ix. p. 495. )]

[106] [Compare--

"Th' unloaded camel, pacing slow.
Crops the rough herbage or the tamarisk spray. "

_Alashtar_ (by H. G. Knight), 1817, Canto I, stanza viii, lines 5, 6. ]

[107] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for
the first time printed. For stanzas 3, 4, 6, see _Letters_, 1900, iv.
219, 220.