Though lived he now, he might appeal with scorn
To lords, knights, squires,and doctors, yet unborn :
Or, justly mad, to Moloch's burning fane
Devote the choicest children of his brain.
Judge for yourself; and, as you find, report
Of wit as freely as of beef or port.

Zounds! shall a pert or bluff important wight,
Whose brain is fanciless, whose blood is white;
A mumbling ape of taste; prescribe us laws
To try the poets, for no better cause

Than that he boasts per ann. ten thousand clear,
Yelps in the House, or barely sits a Peer?

For shame! for shame! the liberal British soul To stoop to any stale dictator's rule!

I may be wrong,
and often am no doubt,
But right or wrong, with friends with foes 'twill out.
Thus 'tis perhaps my fault, if I complain

Of trite invention and a flimsy vein,
Tame characters, uninteresting, jejune,
And passions dryly copied from Le Brun "2.

12

12 First painter to Lewis XIV, who, to speak in fashionable French-English, called himself Lewis the Great. Our sovereign lords the passions, Love, Rage, Despair, &c. were graciously pleased to sit to him in their turns for their portraits which he was generous enough to communicate to the public; to the great improvement, no doubt, of history-painting. It was he who they say poisoned Le Sueur; who, without half his advantages in many other respects, was so unreasonable and provoking as to display a genius with which his own could stand no comparison. It was he and his Gothic disciples, who, with sly scratches, defaced the most masterly of this Le Sueur's performances, as often as their barbarous envy could snugly reach them. Yet after all these achievements, he died in his bed! A catastrophe which could not have happened to him in a country like this; where the fine arts are as zealously and judiciously patronized as they are well understood.

For I would rather never judge than wrong
That friend of all men, generous Fenelon.
But in the name of goodness, must I be
The dupe of charms I never yet could see?
And then to flatter where there's no reward-
Better be any patron-hunting bard,

Who half our lords with filthy praise besmears, And sing an anthem to All Ministers:

Taste the' Attic salt in every peer's poor rebus,
And crown each Gothic idol for a Phoebus.

Alas! so far from free, so far from brave,
We dare not show the little Taste we have.
With us you'll see e'en vanity control
The most refined sensations of the soul.

Sad Otway's scenes, great Shakspeare's we defy: Lard, madam! 'tis so unpolite to cry!

For shame, my dear! do 'ye credit all this stuff?I vow-well, this is innocent enough!'

At Athens long ago, the ladies-(married) Dreamt not they misbehaved, though they miscarried

When a wild poet with licentious rage
Turn'd fifty furies loose upon the stage.

They were so tender and so easy moved,
Heavens! how the Grecian ladies must have loved!
For all the fine sensations still have dwelt,
Perhaps, where one was exquisitely felt.
Thus he, who heavenly Maro truly feels,
Stands fix'd on Raphael, and at Handel thrills.
The grosser senses too, the taste, the smell,
Are likely truest where the fine prevail:

Who doubts that Horace must have cater'd well? Friend, I'm a shrewd observer, and will guess What books you dote on from your favourite mess.

K

Brown and L'Estrange will surely charm whome'er
The frothy pertness strikes of weak small beer:
Who steeps the calf's fat loin in greasy sauce,
Will hardly loathe the praise that bastes an ass:
Who riots on Scotch collops, scorns not any
Insipid, fulsome, trashy miscellany;

And who devours whate'er the cook can dish up,
Will for a classic consecrate each bishop 13,
But I am sick of pen and ink; and you
Will find this letter long enough. Adieu!

13 See Felton's Classics.

IMITATIONS

OF

SHAKSPEARE AND SPENSER.

Advertisement from the Publisher 1.

THE following Imitation of Shakspeare was one of our author's first attempts in poetry, made when he was very young. It helped to amuse the solitude of a winter passed in a wild romantic country; and, what is rather particular, was just finished when Mr. Thomson's celebrated poem upon the same subject appeared. Mr. Thomson, soon hearing of it, had the curiosity to procure a copy by the means of a common acquaintance. He showed it to his poetical friends, Mr. Mallet, Mr. Aaron Hill, and Dr. Young, who, it seems, did great honour to it: and the first-mentioned gentleman wrote to one of his friends at Edinburgh, desiring the author's leave to publish it; a request too flattering to youthful vanity to be resisted. But Mr. Mallet altered his mind; and this little piece has hitherto remained unpublished.

The other Imitations of Shakspeare happen to have been saved out of the ruins of an unfinished tragedy on the story of Tereus and Philomela; attempted upon an irregular and extravagant plan, at an age much too early for such achievements. However, they are here exhibited for the sake of such guests as may like a little repast of scraps.

1 Prefixed to these Imitations in Cadell's edition of 1770.

IMITATIONS OF SHAKSPEARE.

Now Summer with her wanton court is gone
To revel on the south side of the world,
And flaunt and frolic out the livelong day:
While Winter, rising pale from northern seas,
Shakes from his hoary locks the drizzling rheum.
A blast so shrewd makes the tall-bodied pines
Unsinew'd bend, and heavy-paced bears
Sends growling to their savage tenements.
Now blows the surly North, and chills through-

out

The stiffening regions; while, by stronger charms Than Circè e'er or fell Medea brew'd,

Each brook, that wont to prattle to its banks, Lies all bestill'd and wedged betwixt its banks, Nor moves the wither'd reeds: and the rash flood That from the mountains held its headstrong

course,

Buried in livid sheets of vaulting ice,

Seen through the shameful breaches, idly creeps
Το pay a scanty tribute to the ocean.
What wonder? when the floating wilderness
That scorns our miles, and calls Geography
A shallow pryer; from whose unsteady mirror
The high-hung pole surveys his dancing locks;
When this still-raving deep lies mute and dead,
Nor heaves its swelling bosom to the winds.
The surges, baited by the fierce north-east,