To My Book[94]

Unhappy Volume!--doom'd by fate To meet with unrelenting hate From those who can their venom spit, Yet condescend to steal your wit: While Shylock with malicious spirit, Allows you not a grain of merit, While he an idle pomp assumes, Let him return his borrowed plumes, And you will find the insect creeping, With not a feather worth the keeping.

This appeared originally as a part of the "New Year's Verses" for 1783. See Volume II, page 199, supra. Text from the 1795 edition, which is the "unhappy volume" alluded to.