Illustrated poem, a street ballad entitled 'The Wheel of Fortune'.

On one side of a piece of thin wove paper, roughly 260 x 95 mm. Aged and creased, with internal 25 mm closed tear affecting four words of text (all of which can be completed from the context) repaired on blank reverse with archival tape. Otherwise text and illustration clear and entire. Small (30 x 40 mm) woodcut at head, showing two early nineteenth-century country coves outside a cottage. The poem consists of ten four-line stanzas. The first stanza reads 'When I was young I was much beloved | By all young men in the country; | When I was blooming in all my blossom, | A false young lover deceived me.' Last stanza: 'Its time will soon put an end to all things, | And love will soon put an end to me, | And sure there is a place of torment | To punish my lover for slight'ing me.' A touching poem of betrayed love: 'Its turn you round you wheel of fortune, | Its turn you round and smile on me, | For young men's words they're quite uncertain, | For sad experience teaches me.' Scarce. No copy on COPAC or in the British Library.