whatfoe'er thy name,

Hail mighty Bard too

or Durfy, for it's all the fame. To brother bards shall equal praise belong, For wit, for genius, comedy and fong? No coftive Mufe is thine, which freely rakes With ease familiar in the well-known jakes, Happy in skill to foufe through foul and fair, And tofs the dung out with a lordly air. So have I seen, amidst the grinning throng, The sledge procession slowly dragg'd along, Where the mock female fhrew and hen-peck'd male Scoop'd rich contents from either copious pail, Call'd burfts of laughter from the roaring rout, And dash'd and splash'd the filthy grains about.

Quit then, my friend, the Mufes' lov'd abode,
Alas! they lead not to preferment's road.
Be folemn, fad, put on the priestly frown,
Be dull! 'tis facred, and becomes the gown.
Leave wit to others, do a Christian deed,

Your foes fhall thank you, for they know their need.

Broad

Broad is the path by learning's fons poffefs'd,
A thousand modern wits might walk abreast,
Did not each poet mourn his luckless doom,
Joftled by pedants out of elbow room.

I, who nor court their love, nor fear their hate,
Muft mourn in filence o'er the Mufe's fate.
No right of common now on Pindus' hill,
While all our tenures are by critic's will.
Where, watchful guardians of the lady muse,
Dwell monftrous giants, dreadful tall REVIEWS,
Who, as we read in fam'd romance of yore,
Sound but a horn, press forward to the door.
But let fome chief, fome bold advent'rous knight,
Provoke these champions to an equal fight,
Strait into air to spaceless nothing fall
The castle, lions, giants, dwarf and all.

Ill it befits with undiscerning rage,
To cenfure Giants in this polish'd age.
No lack of genius ftains those happy times,

No want of learning, and no dearth of rhymes.

The

The fee-faw Muse that flows by meafur'd laws,
In tuneful numbers, and affected paufe,
With found alone, found's happy virtue fraught,
Which hates the trouble and expence of thought,
Once, every moon throughout the circling year,
With even cadence charms the critic ear.
While, dire promoter of poetic fin,

A Magazine muft hand the lady in.

How Moderns write, how nervous, ftrong and well, The ANTI-ROSCIAD's decent Mufe does tell:

Who, while she strives to cleanse each actor hurt,
Daubs with her praise, and rubs him into dirt.

Sure never yet was happy æra known
So gay, fo wife, so tasteful as our own.
Our curious hiftories rife at once COMPLETE,
Yet ftill continued, as they're paid, per sheet.

See every science which the world wou'd know, Your Magazines shall every month bestow,

Whose very titles fill the mind with awe,
Imperial, Chriftian, Royal, British, Law;
Their rich contents will every reader fit,
Statesman, Divine, Philofopher and Wit ;
Compendious schemes! which teach all things at once,
And make a pedant coxcomb of a dunce.

But let not anger with fuch frenzy grow, Drawcanfir like, to ftrike down friend and foe. To real worth be homage duly paid,

But no allowance to the paltry trade.

My friends I name not (though I boast a few,
To me an honour, and to letters too)

Fain would I praise, but, when fuch Things oppofe,
My praife of course must make them

-'s foes.

If manly JOHNSON, with fatyric rage,
Lafh the dull follies of a trifling age,

If his strong Muse with genuine ftrength aspire,
Glows not the reader with the poet's fire ?

HIS the true fire, where creep the witling fry

To warm themselves, and light their rushlights by.

What

What Mufe like GRAY's fhall pleafing penfive flow Attemper'd fweetly to the ruftic woe?

Or who like him fhall fweep the Theban lyre,
And, as his master, pour forth thoughts of fire?

E'en now to guard afflicted learning's caufe, To judge by reason's rules, and nature's laws, Boast we true critics in their proper right,

While LowTH and Learning, HURD and Taste unite.

Hail facred names! - Oh guard the Muse's page, Save lov'd mistress from a ruffian's rage;

your

See how the gasps and struggles hard for life,
Her wounds all bleeding from the butcher's knife:
Critics, like furgeons, bleft with curious art,
Should mark each paffage to the human heart,
But not, unskilful, yet with lordly air,
Read furgeon's lectures while they scalp and tear.

To names like these I pay the hearty vow, Proud of their worth, and not asham'd to bow.