A POETICAL PIPE -MAKER. 175 



performances, that " lie licks with his naked tongue, 

 red-hot tobacco-pipes flaming with brimstone." 



In 1787 John Frederick Bryant, " late tobacco-pipe 

 maker at Bristol," published a few " Verses " to which 

 he appended a memoir of his own vicissitudes " while I 

 went about the country with a hamper of pipes upon 

 my shoulder, in that manner travelling ten, fifteen, and 

 often twenty miles out." Such were the difficulties of a 

 small country trader, half a century ago. In these 

 weary and solitary excursions the poor traveller amused 

 himself with composing his " Verses," and as one of 

 these relates to his own trade, and is probably 

 unique as a specimen of a poem by a pipe-maker, it is 

 here reprinted : — 



ON A PIECE OF UNWROUGHT PIPE-CLAY. 



Rude mass of earth, from which with moiled hands 

 (Compulsive taught) the brittle tubes I form, 

 Oft listless, while my vagrant fancy warm 



Roves (heedless of necessity's demands) 



Amid Parnassian bow'rs, or wishful eyes 



The flight of Genius, while sublime she soars 

 Of moral truth in search, or earth explores, 



Or sails with science through the starry skies : — 



Yet must I own (unsightly clod) thy claim 

 To my attention, for thou art my stead, 

 When grows importunate the voice of need, 

 And in the furnace thy last change I speed : 



Ah ! then how eager do I urge the flame, 



How anxious watch thee mid that glowing fire, 



That threats my eye -balls * with extinction dire ! 



* The last lines allude to the damaging effect produced on the eyes by 

 watching the "burning," or baking the pipes in the kilns. The author 

 notes "the tobacco-pipe trade being greatly on the decline" when he 

 published his book, which was chiefly to aid him in his poverty. 



