Ogburne St. Andrew, near Marlborough.
* * * * *
Minor Queries.
_Robert Innes, a Grub Street Poet._--Is there anything known respecting
a strange "madcap," one Robert Innes, who, according to a printed
broadside now before me, was a pauper in St. Peter's Hospital, 1787? He
was in the habit of penning doggrel ballads and hawking them about for
sale. Some of them have a degree of humour, and are, to a certain
extent, valuable at the present time for their notices of passing
events. In one of these now rare effusions, he styles himself "R. Innes,
O.P.," and in explanation gives the following lines:--
"Some put unto their name A.M.,
And others put a D. and D.,
If 'tis no harm to mimick them,
I adds unto my name O.P.
"Master of Arts, sure I am not,
No Doctor, no Divine I be
But OAKUM PICKING is my lot,
Of the same clay are we all three."
The "works" of this "rogue and vagabond," now in my possession, were
given me by the late Mr. Catnach of Seven Dials.