When first we issued from the Press,
In days less strenuous and prolific,
The folks who bought us could not guess
That we should serve for soporific.

The small-paned shop where we were sold,
Down a blind-alley in the City,
Where friendly Bookmen met of old,
Is now no more — and more's the pity!

That was the Age of Auction Sales,
When lives of Books were somewhat longer;
Our sign-board was The Crab and Scales ,
And he that " kept" there, was a Conger —

Our Publisher — a man of might
(As large as Johnson was, and louder),
Who planned new things from morn to night,
And owned a famous Fever Powder.

We scored at first. We took high ground,
Preached Aristotle from our garret,
Called Gray " remote" and Locke " unsound,"
And gave strange plates of plant and parrot;

Our Rebuses were reckoned neat,
Our Logogriphs were much debated;
Our note, in Ethics, was " discreet,"
In Politics, 'twas " plainly stated."

We had our views. In Art and Song
We were — above all — patriotic;
We hated the imported throng
Of Fiddlers, Singers, Cooks exotic. ...

Then matters changed. Our Foremost Bard
(Later a copious rhetorician)
Found crambo -rhyming far too hard,
And " odes Pindarick" not his mission;

Our Fictionist, whose " High-Life" page
Failed to provide the funds he needed,
Threw up his post for " living wage,"
And as a " Pen-cutter" succeeded;

The cunning Artist, too, that drew
Our stage Roxana and Statira ,
Flamed out in folio with a new
(Subscription) Ruins of Palmyra ,

Which he set off to visit. Next
Our Essayist, the kind, the gentle,
Whose wayward Humour never vexed,
Whose Wit was never detrimental,

Fell sick and died. Then came a day,
Day to be draped with black, and banished!
When all our sales had ebbed away,
And what we had of vogue, had vanished —

When, by some stroke of Fate concealed
(Or stress of butcher and of baker),
Our stock-in-trade entire was wheeled
To " Mr. Pastem , the Trunk Maker!"
. . . . . . .

Such is our mournful history!
You'll need some tranquillizing slumber.
I offer it. " Times change, and we" ...
I am a genuine Back-Number!