Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers
Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers
Original Text
Jonathan Swift, The Works, 4 vols. (Dublin: George Faulkner, 1735). B-10 9061 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).
1 Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
2 Down from your garrets haste;
3Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
4 Not yet consign'd to paste;
5 I know a trick to make you thrive;
6 O, 'tis a quaint device:
7Your still-born poems shall revive,
8 And scorn to wrap up spice.
9 Get all your verses printed fair,
10 Then let them well be dried;
11And Curll must have a special care
12 To leave the margin wide.
13 Lend these to paper-sparing Pope;
14 And when he sets to write,
15No letter with an envelope
16 Could give him more delight.
17 When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
18 Why then recall your loan;
19Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
20 And swear they are your own.
Publication Start Year
1735
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
2RP 1.530.
Rhyme
Form