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Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 7

Cotton Tufts to Abigail Adams -

Aug. 15. 1786
In my Acctt. sent Mr. Adams you ...

Abigail Adams to Abigail Adams Smith -

Amsterdam 23d. August 1786
Mr S. and Mr Blount set off ...


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John Quincy Adams to William Cranch

Docno: AFC07d127

Author: JQA
Recipient: Cranch, William
Date: 1786-08-20

[salute] Sir

You are, though living in a garret

No more a Poet, than a Parrot

At first you take a doggrel verse,

And, alexandrine then rehearse.

You hobble on, or wrong or right

With sometimes ten and sometimes eight.

By your own syllogistic rule

You must confess yourself a fool.

and if Bob Longer lacks of wit

He that is shorter must have it.

Besides I see you've chang'd your name

Because the first brought you to shame

{p. 324}

And must certainly be wrong

Who now is short, and now is long.

[signed] R. S.1
RC Privately owned; addressed: “Mr: Bob Longer. In the paradise of fools.”
 
1. Probably an abbreviation for “Robert Shorter” (that is, Bob Shorter), a comment on JQA's and Cranch's relative heights.
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/