| Citation |
FJ.782.030
10 Apr 1782:31 (51)
As an impartial writer, and in my opinion a very good one,
whose labours may sweeten and polish any press, I have
thought it but reasonable to favour your paper with some of
my productions. Mr. Claypoole may grow vain if he should
have a monopoly of my works, you will therefore please to
print the following trifle. I fear you will think it a
little performance, but it is upon a little subject, and
Horace is clearly of my side, who advises his poet always to
adapt his song to his subject. Besides I am a great lover
of parodies, for it they are not witty in themselves, they
are the cause of wit, as the finest grass grows where there
are the richest lumps of dung. The original song is an
elegant one, but poetic history leaves us in the dark as to
the author: From the simplicity and gravity some have
supposed it to be the work of a judge of the present
century, while others with more ill nature than reason
ascribe it to a school boy at Eaton; but your readers will,
I doubt not, all recollect it from its first and second
line---
"There was a little man,
And he woo'd a little maid, " &c.
Which I have parodied thus---
There was a little judge,
And he woo'd a charming Goddess,
And he said, Charming Goddess,
Will you wed, wed, wed.
. . . [3 verses]
Though your temples are but small,
Without parlour or hall,
My spinnet shall tickle, tickle, tickle.
Rivington may write,
And Franklin--shew his spite:
Oh! they've put me in a horrible pickle, pickle, pickle.
. . . [2 more verses, signed] Calumniator.
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