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Inscribed in black ink upper right: "7"; in graphite center: "+"; on verso in black ink upper left: "8"; in graphite center: "+"

Lettered on inlaid page: "A LONG STORY. 69 | The trembling family they daunt, | They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle. | Rummage his Mother, pinch his Aunt, | And up stairs in a whirlwind rattle. | Each hole and cupboard they explore, | Each creek and cranny of his chamber, | Run hurry-skurry round the floor, | And o'er the bed and tester clamber; | Into the Drawers and China pry, | Papers and books, a huge Imbroglio! | Under a tea cup he might lie, | Or creased like dog-ears, in a folio. | On the first marching of the troops | The Muses, hopeless of his pardon, | Convey'd him underneath their hoops, | To a small closet in the garden. | So"; Lettered on verso, on inlaid page: "70 A LONG STORY. | So Rumour says: (Who will, believe.) | But that they left the door a-jar, | Where, safe and laughing in his sleeve, | He heard the distant din of war. | Short was his joy. He little knew | The power of magic was no fable; | Out of the window, whisk, they flew, | But left a spell upon the table. | The words too eager to unriddle | The poet felt a strange disorder: | Transparent birdlime form'd the middle, | And chains invisible the border, | So cunning was the Apparatus, | The powerful pothooks did so move him, | That, will he, nill he, to the Great-house | He went, as if the devil drove him. | Yet"