Off the shelf: Lear 4

Lear was too ill to be sent off to school, so he was taught at home by his elder sisters, Ann and Sarah. He wrote later: ‘I am almost thanking God that I was never educated, for it seems to me that 999 of those who are so, expensively and laboriously, have lost all before they arrive at my age - & remain like Swift’s Stulbruggs – cut and dry for life, making no use of their earlier-gained treasures:- whereas, I seem to be on the threshold of knowledge.’

There was an Old Person of Anerley,
Whose conduct was strange and unmannerly:
He rushed down the Strand,
With a Pig in each hand,
But returned in the evening to Anerley.