Where hapless Afric ENGLISH THIEVES assails
With scorching sands and pestilential gales,
They plunge the sword and link the rankling chain,
While Ocean rolls his barrier tides in vain.

The thriving villainies of future time

Will strive in vain to reach our size of crime.
With giant strides we gain the mountain's brow,
And leave our father's dwarfish sins below.
His noblest track, if bolder Vice should fire
Some darling youth, the footsteps of his sire.
Then launch forth, SATIRE! spread thine ample sail,
And give the driving vessel to the gale.

Yet I, to whom the Nine no boon impart,
Who feel cold currents stagnate round my heart,
Must hope, unaided by poetic dream,

No answerable stile for such a theme:

And Freedom's sun, which cheer'd our isle before,
Is quench'd in darkness, to illume no more!

F. Write, but, to scape the ruthless grasp of law, The bullying judge, the ruffian jailor's paw, Be Bethel's seerk thy model, if thou write: Call Scott HUMANE! call Kenyon THE POLITE! Praise Pitt; and round the couplet, if you can, With FRIEND OF FREEDOM! and DELIGHT OF MAN! View at each elbow an insidious spy; And-make no faces, while the king goes by!!

A. Yet, though, should living culprits keenly smart, A jail reward the whirl of Satire's dart; And Scott exult, whilst prison'd Wakefield grieves For preaching Jesus in a den of thieves: m

k See 1 Kings, xiii. 18. W.

S" the Case of Kydd Wake," who was confined for five years in a solitary cell, in Gloucester Gaol. Sce Ann. Reg. m Matt. xxi. 13.

1

What bolts of law can thunder at this head,

Ye Muses! if my quarry be the dead?
Come then; and place, where W**m might have stood,
Some grisly CYCLOPS, smear'd with human blood.
Must some proud prelate feel the tingling lash?
Write LAUD at length, but Hy with a dash.
Name SAUL and FLACCUS boldly: but, beware!
No hint at B**f*d, no thought of Cl*e.
For K**n, JEFFRIES let your weapon hit;

And Rome's SEJANUS strike, for British P*t.

APPENDIX. (G.)

Some Remarks on the literary Character of Mr. WAKEFIELD, in a Letter from the Rev. Dr. PARR.

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DEAR SIR,

WH HATSOEVER traces of irritability, and sometimes even pertinacity, may occur in the publications of our excellent friend, Mr. Wakefield, I know, from my private correspondence with him, that, when treated with the respect due to his talents and attainments, he was patient under opposition, was grateful for information, and would honestly abandon some of those opinions and conjectures, which, previously to our discussions, he had believed to be well founded.

"Conjectural criticism," says Johnson, in his preface to Shakspeare, "has been of great use in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so many mighty minds from the revival of learning to our own age, from [John Andreas] the bishop of Aleria to English Bentley;" and I shall myself add, as Johnson would have added, to Richard Porson." It is not easy,"

says the same writer, "to discover from what cause the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally proceed."—"The various readings of copies, and different interpretations of a passage, seem to be questions that might exercise the wit, without engaging the passions. But, whether it be, that "small things make mean men proud," and vanity catches small occasions; or that all contrariety of opinion, even in those that can defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous strain of invective and contempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politics against those whom he is hired to defame."

Though the temper, or at least the language, of verbal critics, has been, in our own days, much improved by the examples of Markland, Wesseling, Hemsterhusius, Valkenaer, Ruhnken, Heyne, and other illustrious scholars, too many traces may yet be found of that spirit which is so extremely offensive to every well-regulated mind.

The Vannus Critica of D'Orville abounds with recondite criticism; and the severity of the writer has been sometimes excused, on the plea of retaliation, against Pauw, whose coarseness and petulance are quite intolerable. But I must confess that the perpetual recurrence

of illiberal and savage reproach in that celebrated work is wearisome to me, and I remember with pleasure that, in his notes upon Charito, D'Orville has not fallen into this odious way of writing.

No man admires more sincerely than I do the genius and learning of Herman. But I can never read without indignation the arrogant and contemptuous terms in which he speaks of the late Mr. Heath—a man, whose good sense, good manners, and most meritorious labours ought to have protected him from such indignities. Vid. Herman. Obser. Crit. pag. 59, and his note on verse 1002 of the Hecuba, pag. 153.

The manner in which Mr. Brunck speaks of Vauvilliers is by no means warranted by Brunck's great and indisputable superiority; and I suppose that other readers, as well as myself, have observed numerous instances, in which Brunck has slyly stolen the emendations of his insulted predecessor, and meanly endeavoured to disguise his plagiarism.

Perhaps the great erudition, the wonderful sagacity, and the useful discoveries of such men as Joseph Scaliger, Bentley, and Salmasius, may now and then induce us to forgive the insolence of their temper, and the asperity of their invectives. But, when better exam