I knew him in his livelier London days,

A brilliant diner-out, though but a curate,

And not a joke he cut but earned its praise,

Until Preferment, coming at a sure rate,

(O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways!

Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?)

Gave him, to lay the Devil who looks o'er Lincoln,[800]A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.