lxxxviii
Another
Here lies John Trot, the Friend of all mankind :
He has not left one enemy behind.
Friends were quite hard to find, old authors say ;
But now they stand in everybody's way.
MS. Book, p. 37. Cp. xlix, 1. 51. Gil. i. i8r (last couplet only), DGR, WMR, EY, WBY (' Coupl' xiv, xvii, xv, 18). DGR entitles ' Epitaph '; the rest omit title.
lxxxix
My title as a Genius thus is prov'd :
Not prais'd by Hayley, nor by Flaxman lov'd.
MS. Book, p. 38. Gil. i. 181, WMR (« Coupl.' xxi. 3) with title 'On Hayley,' EY i. 219.
2 nor] or EY.
Cp. with this and other epigrams in the MS. Book on Flaxman and Hayley the verses written some eight years earlier : these interesting lines, which have not been previously printed, I owe to the courtesy of Mr. A. G. B. Russell.
' To my Dearest Friend John Flaxman these Lines:
I bless thee, O Father of Heaven and Earth ! that ever I saw Flax-
man's face.
Angels stand round my spirit in Heaven, the blessed of Heaven are
my friends upon Earth.
When Flaxman was taken to Italy, Fuseli was given to me for
a Season,
And now Flaxman hath given me Hayley, his friend, to be mine —
such my lot upon Earth !
Now my lot in the Heavens is this : Milton lov'd me in childhood,
and shew'd me his face ;
Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years
gave me his hand ;
Paracelsus and Behmen appeared to me ; terrors appeared in the
Heavens above ;
The American War began ; All its dark horrors passed before my face
Across the Atlantic to France ; Then the French Revolution commenc'd
in thick clouds ;
And my Angels have told me that seeing such visions, I could not
subsist on the Earth,
But by my conjunction with Flaxman, who knows to forgive nervous
fear.
12 Sept., 1800.'
