Here lies old Hobson,
Death hath broke his girt,
And here alas, hath laid him in the dirt,
Or els the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.'Twas such a shifter, that if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had any time this ten yeers full,
Dodg'd with him, betwixt Cambridge and the Bull.
And surely,
Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly cours of carriage fail'd; But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journeys end was come,
And that he had tane up his latest Inne,
In the kind office of a
Shew'd him his room where he must lodge that night,
Pull'd off his Boots, and took away the light:
If any ask for him, it shall be sed,
Hobson has supt, and 's newly gon to bed.
Title: "On the University Carrier, who sicken'd in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London, by reason of the Plague."This poem and "Another On The Same" are upon Tobias Hobson, here related:--'We have the following account of this extraordinary man in the Spectator No. 509.--"Mr.
Tobias Hobson was a carrier, and the first man in this iland who let out hackney horses.
He lived in Cambridge, and observing that the scholars rid hard, his manner was to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without going from college to college to borrow, as they have done since the death of this worthy man:
I say,
Mr.
Hobson kept a stable of forty good cattel, always ready and fit for traveling; but when a man came for a horse, he was led into the stable, where there was a great choice, but he obliged him to take the horse which stood next to the stable-door; so that every customer was alike well served according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice: from whence it became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say 'Hobson's choice.' This memorable man stands drawn in fresco at an inn (which he used in Bishopsgate-street, with an hundred pound bag under his arm, with this inscription upon the said bag,'The fruitful mother of an hundred more.'"Mr.
Ray in his Collection of English Proverbs says that he raised himself to a great estate, and did much good in the town, relieving the poor, and building a public-conduit in the market-place.
The inscription on the conduit is as follows."Thomas Hobson, late carrier between London and this town, in his life was at the sole charge of erecting this structure A.
D. 1614. He departed this life January I, 1630, and gave by will the rent of seven Lays of pasture-ground lying in St.
Thomas's Lays towards the maintenance of this conduit for ever.
Moreover at his death he gave 10l. towards the further beautifying the same."I cannot say much in commendation of these verses upon his death: they abound with that sort of wit, which was then in request at Cambridge.'~ Th.
Newton,
Milton's Works, 2nd edition, 1753.
