From the far Lavinian shore,
I your markets come to store;
Muse not, though so far I dwell,
And my wares come here to sell;
Such is the sacred hunger for gold.
Then come to my pack,
While I cry
"What d'ye lack,
What d'ye buy?
For here it is to be sold."
I have beauty, honour, grace,
Fortune, favour, time, and place,
And what else thou would'st request,
E'en the thing thou likest best;
First, let me have but a touch of your gold.
Then, come to me, lad,
Thou shalt have
What thy dad
Never gave;
For here it is to be sold.
Madam, come, see what you lack,
I've complexions in my pack;
White and red you may have in this place,
To hide your old and wrinkled face.
First, let me have but a touch of your gold,
Then you shall seem
Like a girl of fifteen,
Although you be threescore and ten years old.
While on this subject, perhaps I may be permitted to ask whether any
reader of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" can throw light on the following
questionable statement made by a correspondent of the _Morning Herald_,
of the 16th September, 1822.
"Looking over and old volume the other day, printed in 1771,
I find it remarked that it was known as a tradition, that
Shakspeare shut himself up all night in Westminster Abbey when
he wrote the ghost scene in Hamlet."
I do not find in Wilson's _Shakspeariana_ the title of a single "old"
book printed in 1771, on the subject of Shakspere.