EPISTLE II.

DEAR Col'nel, Cobham's and your country's

You love a verfe, take fuch as I can send.

(friend!

A Frenchman comes, prefents you with his boy, Bows and begins - -> This lad, Sir, is of Blois : » Obferve his shape how clean! his locks how curl'd! » My only fon, I'd have him fee the world: » His French is pure; his voice too-you shall hear. » Sir, he's your flave, for twenty pound a year. » Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with enfe, >> Your barber, cook', upholft'rer, what you please: A perfect genius at an op'ra-fong

» To fay too much, might do my honour wrong. » Take him with all his virtues, on my word; >> His whole ambition was to ferve a lord:

But, Sir, to you, with what I would not part? >> Tho' faith, I fear, 'twill break his mother's heart. » Once (and but once ) I caught him in a lye, » And then, unwhipp'd, he had the grace to cry: >> The fault he has I fairly shall reveal,

(Could you o'erlook but that ) it is to steal «. If, after this, you took the graceless lad, Could you complain, my friend, he prov'd fo bad? Faith, in such case, if you should profecute, I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit ; Who fent the thief that stole the cash, away, And punish'd him that put it in his way.

D;

Confider then, and judge me in this light; I told you when I went, I could not write; You faid the fame; and are you discontent With laws, to which you gave your own affent? Nay wosfe, to ask for verfe at fuch a time! D'ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme? In Anna's wars, a foldier poor and old Had dearly earn'd a little purfe of gold: Tir'd with a tedious march, one luckless night, He flept, poor dog! and loft it, to a doit. This put the man in fuch a defp'rate mind, Between revenge, and grief, and hunger join'd Against the foe, himself, and all mankind, He leap'd the trenches, fcal'd a castle-wall, Tore down a ftandard, took the fort and all. » Prodigious well; « his great commander cry'd, Gave him much praife, and fome reward befide. Next pleas'd his excellence a town to batter; (Its name I know not, and it's no great matter) » Go on, my friend (he cry'd) see yonder walls! » Advance and conquer! go where glory calls! >> More honours, more rewards, attend the brave «. Don't you remember what reply he gave?

» D'ye think me, noble Gen'ral, fuch a fot?
>>> Let him take caftles who has ne'er a groat «.
Bred up at home, full early I begun

To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus' fon.
Befides, my father taught me from a lad,
The better art to know the good from bad :
(And little fure imported to remove,

To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learned grove.)

But knottier points we knew not half so well,
Depriv'd us foon of our paternal cell;
And certain laws, by fuff'rers thought unjust,
Deny'd all pofts of profit or of trust:
Hopes after hopes of pious papist's fail'd,
While mighty William's thund'ring arm prevail'd.
For right hereditary tax'd and fin'd,

He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;
And me, the Mufes help'd to undergo it;
Convict a papift he, and I a poet.

But thanks to Homer) fince I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive,

Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes,
If I would fcribble, rather than repofe.

Years foll'wing years, fteal fomething ev'ry day,
At last they fteal us from ourselves away;
In one our frolics, one amufements end,
In one a mistress drops, in one a friend :
This fubtle thief of life, this paltry Time,

What will it leave me, if it snatch my rhyme ?

If ev'ry wheel of that unweary'd mill,

That turn'd ten thousand verses, now stands still?

But after all, what would you have me do ?

When out of twenty I can please not two;
When this heroics only deigns to praise,

Sharp fatire that, and that pindaric lays ?
One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg;
The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg ;
Hard task! to hit the palate of such guests,
When Oldfield loves, what Dartineuf detefts.
But grant I may relapfe, for want of grace,

and

(friends?

Again to rhyme; can London be the place?
Who there his Muse, or felf, or foul attends,
In crouds, and courts, law, bufinefs, feasts,
My counsel fends to execute a deed:
A poet begs me, I will hear him read :
In palace-yard at nine you'll find me there-
At ten for certain, Sir, in Bloomsb'ry square-
Before the lords at twelve my caufe comes on-
There's a rehearsal, Sir, exact at one.-
» Oh but a wit can study in the streets,
>> And raise his mind above the mob he meets <<.
Not quite fo well however as one ought;
A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought
And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead,
God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.
Have you not feen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,
Two aldermen difpute it with an ass?
And peers give way, exalted as they are
Ev'n to their own S-r-v-nce in a car?

Go, lofty poet! and in fuch a croud,
Sing thy fonorous verfe-but not aloud.
Alas to gretto's and to groves we run,
To cafe and filence, ev'ry Mufe's fon :
Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,`
Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's-Court.
How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?

How match the bards whom none e'er match'd before?
The man, who stretch'd in Ifis' calm retreat,
To books and study gives fev'n years compleat.
See! ftrow'd with learned duft, his night-cap on,
He walks, an object new beneath the fun!