All but one poor dependent priest withdrawn
(Ah! too regardless of his chaplain's yawn!)
Condemn the unlucky curate to recite

Their last dramatic work by candle-light,
How would the preacher turn each rueful leaf,
Dull as his sermons, but not half so brief!
Yet, since 'tis promised at the rector's death,
He'll risk no living for a little breath.

Then spouts and foams, and cries at every line,
(The Lord forgive him!) "Bravo! grand! divine!"
Hoarse with those praises (which, by flatt'ry fed,
Dependence barters for her bitter bread,)

He strides and stamps along with creaking boot,
Till the floor echoes his emphatic foot;
Then sits again, then rolls his pious eye,
As when the dying vicar will not die!
Nor feels, forsooth, emotion at his heart; -
But all dissemblers overact their part.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING

CHRONICLE.

"WHAT reams of paper, floods of ink,"
Do some men spoil, who never think!
And so perhaps you 'll say of me,
In which your readers may agree.
Still I write on, and tell you why;
Nothing's so bad, you can't deny,
But may instruct or entertain

Without the risk of giving pain, &c. &c.

ON SOME MODERN QUACKS AND REFORMISTS.
In tracing of the human mind

Through all its various courses,

Though strange, 'tis true, we often find
It knows not its recources:

And men through life assume a part

For which no talents they possess,

Yet wonder that, with all their art,

They meet no better with success, &c. &c.

Ye, who aspire to "build the lofty rhyme,"
Believe not all who laud your false "sublime;"
But if some friend shall hear your work, and say,
"Expunge that stanza, lop that line away,"
And, after fruitless efforts, you return

Without amendment, and he answers, "Burn!"
That instant throw your paper in the fire,
Ask not his thoughts, or follow his desire;
But (if true bard!) you scorn to condescend,
And will not alter what you can't defend,

If

you will breed this bastard of your brains,* We'll have no words - I've only lost my pains.

Yet, if you only prize your favourite thought,
As critics kindly do, and authors ought;
If your cool friend annoy you now and then,
And cross whole pages with his plaguy pen;
No matter, throw your ornaments aside,
Better let him than all the world deride.
Give light to passages too much in shade,
Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you've made;
Your friend's "a Johnson," not to leave one word,
However trifling, which may seem absurd;

Si carmina condes,

Nunquam te fallant anima sub vulpe latentes.
Quintilio si quid recitares, Corrige, sodes,
Hoc (aiebat) et hoc: melius te posse negares,
Bis terque expertum frustra, delere jubebat,
Et male tornatos incudi reddere versus.

Si defendere delictum quam vertere malles,
Nullum ultra verbum, aut operam insumebat inanem,
Quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares.

Vir bonus et prudens versus reprehendet inertes:
Culpabit duros; incomptis allinet atrum

Transverso calamo signum; ambitiosa recidet
Ornamenta; parum claris lucem dare coget;
Arguet ambigue dictum; mutanda notabit;
Fiet Aristarchus: nec dicet, Cur ego amicum

"Bastard of your brains." — Minerva being the first by Jupiter's headpiece, and a variety of equally unaccountable parturitions upon earth, such as Madoc, &c. &c. &c.

Such erring trifles lead to serious ills,
And furnish food for critics,* or their quills.

As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tune,
Or the sad influence of the angry moon,
All men avoid bad writers' ready tongues,
As yawning waiters fly ** Fitzscribble's lungs;
Yet on he mouths - ten minutes - tedious each
As prelate's homily, or placeman's speech;
Long as the last years of a lingering lease,
When riot pauses until rents increase.

While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays
O'er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways,
If by some chance he walks into a well,
And shouts for succour with stentorian yell,
"A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!"
Nor woman, man, nor child will stir a pace;
For there his carcass he might freely fling,
From frenzy, or the humour of the thing.
Though this has happen'd to more bards than one;
I'll tell you Budgell's story, and have done.

Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good, (Unless his case be much misunderstood)

Offendam in nugis? hæ nugæ seria ducent

In mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre.
Ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urget,
Aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana,
Vesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poetam,
Qui sapiunt; agitant pueri, incautique sequuntur.
Hic dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat
Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
In puteum, foveamve; licet, Succurrite, longum
Clamet, Io cives! non sit qui tollere curet.
Si quis curet opem ferre, et demittere funem,
Qui scis an prudens huc se dejecerit, atque

Servari nolit? Dicam: Siculique poetæ

"A crust for the critics." Bayes, in the "Rehearsal."

** And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can "fly" from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz with bad wine, or worse poetry) "me servavit Apollo!"

When teased with creditors' continual claims,
"To die like Cato,"* leapt into the Thames!
And therefore be it lawful through the town
For any bard to poison, hang, or drown.
Who saves the intended suicide receives

Small thanks from him who loathes the life he leaves;
And, sooth to say, mad poets must not lose
The glory of that death they freely choose.
Nor is it certain that some sorts of verse
Prick not the poet's conscience as a curse;
Dosed** with vile drams on Sunday he was found,
Or got a child on consecrated ground!
And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage
Fear'd like a bear just bursting from his cage.
If free, all fly his versifying fit,

Fatal at once to simpleton or wit.

But him, unhappy! whom he seizes, — him
He flays with recitation limb by limb;

--

Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach,
And gorges like a lawyer — or a leech.

Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi
Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Ætnam
Insiluit: sit jus liceatque perire poetis:

Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti.

Nec semel hoc fecit; nec, si retractus erit, jam
Fiet homo, et ponet famosæ mortis amorem.
Nec satis apparet cur versus factitet: utrum
Minxerit in patrios cineres, an triste bidental
Moverit incestus: certe furit, ac velut ursus,
Objectos caveæ valuit si frangere clathros,
Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus.
Quem vero arripuit, tenet, occiditque legendo,
Non missura cutem, nisi plenat cruoris, hirudo.

* On his table were found these words: "What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did not "approve;" and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope!

**If "dosed with," &c. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," &c. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present.

THE

CURSE OF MINERVA.

"Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas

Immolat, et pœnam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.”

Eneid. lib. xii.