LXXXII.

I knew him in his livelier London days, A brilliant diner-out, though but a curate, And not a joke he cut but earned its praise, Until Preferment, coming at a sure rate, (O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways! Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?) Gave him, to lay the Devil who looks o'er Lincoln,[800] A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.