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,
A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.