To * * Esq. Of * * With A Life Of The Late Ingenious Mr. W M. Hogarth. Dear Cosmopolitan,--I Know I Should Address You A Rondeau, Or Else Announce What I've To Say At Least En Ballade Fratris'E; But No: For Once I Leave Gymnasticks, And Take To Simple Hudibrasticks; Why Should I Choose Another Way, When This Was Good Enough For Gay? You Love, My Friend, With Me, I Think, That Age Of Lustre And Of Link; Of Chelsea China And Long "S"Es, Of Bag-Wigs And Of Flowered Dresses; That Age Of Folly And Of Cards, Of Hackney Chairs And Hackney Bards; --No H--Lts, No K--G--N P--Ls Were Then Dispensing Competence To Men; The Gentle Trade Was Left To Churls, Your Frowsy Tonsons And Your Curlls; Mere Wolves In Ambush To Attack The Author In A Sheep-Skin Back; Then Savage And His Brother-Sinners In Porridge-Island Div'D For Dinners; Or Doz'D On Covent Garden Bulks, And Liken'D Letters To The Hulks;-- You Know That By-Gone Time, I Say, That Aimless Easy-Moral'D Day, When Rosy Morn Found Madam Still Wrangling At Ombre Or Quadrille, When Good Sir John Reel'D Home To Bed, From Pontack'S Or The Shakespear'S Head; When Trip Convey'D His Master'S Cloaths, And Took His Titles And His Oaths; While Betty, In A Cast Brocade, Ogled My Lord At Masquerade; When Garrick Play'D The Guilty Richard, Or Mouth'D Macbeth With Mrs. Pritchard; When Foote Grimac'D His Snarling Wit; When Churchill Bullied In The Pit; When The Cuzzoni Sang-- But There! The Further Catalogue I Spare, Having No Purpose To Eclipse That Tedious Tale Of Homer'S Ships;-- This Is The Man That Drew It All From Pannier Alley To The Mall, Then Turn'D And Drew It Once Again From Bird-Cage Walk To Lewknor'S Lane;-- Its Rakes And Fools, Its Rogues And Sots; Its Brawling Quacks, Its Starveling Scots; Its Ups And Downs, Its Rags And Garters, Its Henleys, Lovats, Malcolms, Chartres; Its Splendour, Squalor, Shame, Disease; Its Quicquid Agunt Homines;-- Nor Yet Omitted To Pourtray Furens Quid Possit Foemina;-- In Short, Held Up To Ev'Ry Class Nature'S Unflatt'Ring Looking-Glass; And, From His Canvass, Spoke To All The Message Of A Juvenal. Take Him. His Merits Most Aver: His Weak Point Is--His Chronicler! Nov^R. 1, 1879.