Whoe'er thou art, all hail! Thy bitter smile
Gilds our dull page, and cheers our humble toil !

Hail, justly famous! who, with fancy blest,
Use fiend-like virulence for sportive jest ;
Who only bark to serve your private ends→→→→
Patrons of Prejudice, Corruption's friends!

Who hurl your venom'd darts at well-earned Fame-
Virtue your hate, and Calumny your aim!
Whoe'er you are, all hail!-Whether the skill
Of youthful C-NN-G guides the ranc'rous quill,
With powers mechanic far above his age

Adapts the paragraph and fills the page,
Measures the column, mends whate'er's amiss,
Rejects THAT Letter, and accepts of THIS;
Or H-MM-D, leaving his official toil,
O'er this great Work consume the midnight oil-
Bills, Passports, Letters, for the Muses quit,
And change dull Business for amusing Wit: -
His life of Labour at one gasp is o'er,

His Books forgot-his Desk belov'd no more!
Proceed to prop the Ministerial cause;
See consequential M-RP-TH nods applause;
In ev'ry Fair One's Ear at Balls and Plays

The gentle GR-NV-LE L-vs-N whispers praise:
Well-judging Patrons, whom such Works can please;
Great Works, well worthy Patrons such as these!

Who heard not, raptur'd, the poetic Sage
Who sung of GALLIA in a headlong rage,

And blandly drew with no uncourtly grace

The simple manners of our English race-
Extoll'd great DUNCAN, and, supremely brave,
Whelm'd BUONAPARTE's pride beneath the Wave?
I swear by all the youths that M-LMSB-RY chose,
By ELLs sapient prominence of nose,

By M-RP-TH's gait important, proud, and big-
By L-v-s-N G-w-R's crop-imitating Wig,
That, could the powers which in those numbers shine,
Could that warm spirit animate my Line,

Bb 3

For

Your

For yet-though firm and fearless in the cause

Of pure Religion, Liberty, and Laws

Though

Your glorious deeds which humbly I rehearse-
Your deeds should live immortal as my Verse;
And, while they wonder'd whence I caught my flame,
Your Sons should blush to read their Father's shame!
Proceed, great men!-your office is not done;

Proceed with what you have so well begun :
Load Fox (if you by PITT would be preferr❜d)
With ev'ry guilt that KENYON ever heard-
Adult'rer, Gamester, Drunkard, Cheat, and Knave,

A factious Demagogue, and pension'd Slave!
Loose, loose your cry-with ire satiric flash;
Let all the Opposition feel your lash,

And prove them to these hot and partial times
A combination of the worst of crimes!

But softer numbers softer subjects fit:-
In liquid phrases thrill the praise of PITT;
Extol in eulogies of candid truth

The Virgin Minister-the Heav'n-born Youth;
The greatest gift that Fate to England gave,
Created to support, and born to save;

Prompt to supply whate'er his Country lacks-
Skilful to GAG, and knowing how to TAX!
With him Companions meet in order stand-
A firm, compact, and well-appointed band:
Skill'd to advance or to retreat DUNDAS,
And bear thick battle on his front of brass;
GRENVILLE with pond'rous head, which match'd we find
By equal ponderosity behind-

To gain th' applauses of great MLM-SE-RY's train;

Though TRUTH approv'd, though favouring VIRTUE Smil'd,
Some doubts remain'd:-We yet were UNREVIL'd.

Thanks to thy zeal! those doubts at length are o'er!
Thy suffrage crowns our wish!—We ask no more,
To stamp with sterling worth each honest line,
Than Censure cloth'd in vapid Verse like thine!

But say-in full-blown Honours dost thou sit
'Midst Brooks's ELDERS, on the BENCH of WIT,
Where H-RE, CHIEF-JUSTICE, frames the stern decree,
While with their LEARNED BROTHER Sages Three,
F-TZP-IR-CK, T-WNSH-D, SH-R-D-N, agree?

Or art thou One-the Party's flatter'd Fool-
Train'd in Debrett's or Ridgeway's Civic School;
One, who with rant and fustian daily wears,
Well-natur'd R-CH-RDS-N! thy patient ears;—
Who sees nor Taste nor Genius in these Times,

Save P-R's buzz prose, and C-RT-NY's kidnapp'd

[rhimes? †

Or

With jaundic'd eyes the noblest Patriot scan;

Proceed-be more opprobrious if you can;
Proceed-be more abusive ev'ry hour!-

To be more stupid is beyond your power.

* Buzz PROSE. The Learned Reader will perceive that this is an elegant Menotonymy, by which the quality belonging to the outside of the head is transferred to the inside. Buzz is an epithet usually applied to a large Wig. It is here used for swelling, burly, bombastic, writing.

There is a picture of Hogarth's (the Election Ball, we believe) in which among a number of Hats thrown together in one corner of the room, it is remarked that there is not one of which you cannot to a certainty point out the owner among the figures dancing, or other. wise distributed through the Picture.

We remember to have seen an experiment of this kind tried at one of the Universities with the WIG and WRITINGS here alluded to.A page,

Bb 4

Or is it He-the Youth, whose daring soul, With Half a Mission sought the Frozen Pole;

And

A page, taken from the most happy and elaborate part of the WRITINGS, was laid upon a table in a Barber's shop, around which a number of WIGS of different descriptions and dimensions were suspended, and among them that of the Author. It was required of a young Student, after reading a few sentences in the page, to point out among the WIGS, THAT which must of necessity belong to the Head in which such sentences had been engendered. The experiment succeeded to a miracle. The Learned Reader will now see all the beauty and propriety of the Menctonymy.

† KIDNAPP'D RHIMES.-KIDNAPP'D, implies something more than stolen. It is, according to an expression of Mr. SHERIDAN'S (in The Critic) 66 using other people's thoughts as Gipsies do stolen Children · "them, to make them pass for their own.”

disfiguring

This is a serious charge against an Author, and ought to be well supported. To the proof then!

In an Ode of the late Lord NUGENT'S, are the following spirited Lines :

"Tho' CATO liv'd-tho' TULLY spoke

"Tho' BRUTUs dealt the godlike stroke,

"Yet perish'd fated ROME!"

The Author alluded to above, saw these Lines, and liked them -39 well he might; and as he had a mind to write about Rome himself, he did not scruple to enlist them into his service: but he thought it right to make a small alteration in their appearance, which he managed thus-Speaking of Rome, he says it is the place

"Where CATO liv'd"

A sober truth: which gets rid at once of all the poetry and spirit of the original, and reduces the sentiment from an example of manners, virtue, patriotism, from the vitæ exemplar dedit of Lord Nugent, to a mere question of inhabitancy. Ubi babitavit Cato-where he was an Inhabitant-householder, paying scot and lot, and had a house on the right hand side of the way, as you go down ESQUILINE-Hill, just opposite to the Poulterer's-But to proceed

& Wore

And then, returning from th’unfinish'd work,
Wrote Half a Letter to demolish BURKE?
Studied BURKE's manner-aped his forms of speech ;-
Though, when he strives his Metaphors to reach,
One luckless slip his meaning overstrains,

And loads the Blunderbuss with B-DF-D's Brains. ||

Whoe'er

"Where CATO liv'd; where TULLY spoke,
"Where BRUTUs dealt the godlike stroke-
"BY WHICH HIS GLORY ROSE !!! "

The last Line is not kidnapped.

We question whether the history of modern Literature can produce an instance of a theft so shameless, and turned to so little advantage.

AND LOADS THE BLUNDERBUSS WITH B-DF-RD'S BRAINS.-This Line is wholly unintelligible without a Note. And we are afraid the Note will be wholly incredible, unless the Reader can fortunately procure the Book to which it refers.

In the "PART OF A LETTER," &c. which was published by Mr. RoBT. AD-R, in answer to Mr. PURKE'S "Letter to the D. of B." nothing is so remarkable as the studious imitation of Mr. BURKE'S style.

His vehemence and his passion, and his irony, his wild imagery, his far-sought illustrations, his rolling and lengthened periods, and the short quick pointed sentences in which he often condenses as much wisdom and wit as others would expand through pages, or through volumes: all these are carefully kept in view by his opponent, though not always very artificially copied or applied.

But Imitators are liable to be led strangely astray: and never was there an instance of a more complete mistake of a plain meaning, than that which this line is intended to illustrate - a mistake no less than of a Coffin for a Corpse. This is hard to believe, or to comprehend; but you shall hear.

Mr. BURKE, in one of his Publications, had talked of the French UNPLUMBING the dead in order to destroy the living,"-by which he intended, without doubt, not metaphorically, but literally, stripping the dead of their LEADEN COFFINS, and then making them (not the DEAD but the COFFINS) into bullets A circumstance perfectly notorious as having been practised by the French at the time the Book was written.

But