Ballad, to the Tune of “Salley in Our Alley.”

Of all the twice ten thousand bards
     That ever penned a canto,
Whom Pudding or whom Praise rewards
     For lining a portmanteau;
Of all the poets ever known,
     From Grub-street to Fop’s Alley,
The Muse may boast—the World must own
     There ‘s none like pretty Gally!

He writes as well as any Miss,
     Has published many a poem;
The shame is yours, the gain is his,
     In case you should not know ’em:
He has ten thousand pounds a year—
     I do not mean to vally—
His songs at sixpence would be dear,
     So give them gratis, Gally!

And if this statement should seem queer,
     Or set down in a hurry,
Go, ask (if he will be sincere)
     His bookseller—John Murray.
Come, say, how many have been sold,
     And don’t stand shilly-shally,
Of bound and lettered, red and gold,
     Well printed works of Gally.

For Astley’s circus Upton writes,
     And also for the Surry; (sic)
Fitzgerald weekly still recites,
     Though grinning Critics worry:
Miss Holford’s Peg, and Sotheby’s Saul,
     In fame exactly tally;
From Stationer’s Hall to Grocer’s Stall
     They go—and so does Gally.

He rode upon a Camel’s hump
     Through Araby the sandy,
Which surely must have hurt the rump
     Of this poetic dandy.
His rhymes are of the costive kind,
     And barren as each valley
In deserts which he left behind
     Has been the Muse of Gally.

He has a Seat in Parliament,
     Is fat and passing healthy;
And surely he should be content
     With these and being wealthy:
But Great Ambition will misrule
     Men at all risks to sally,—
Now makes a poet—now a fool,
     And we know which—of Gally.

Some in the playhouse like to row,
     Some with the Watch to battle,
Exchanging many a midnight blow
     To Music of the Rattle.
Some folks like rowing on the Thames,
     Some rowing in an Alley,
But all the Row my fancy claims
     Is rowing of my Gally.