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, so wise, so tasteful as our own. Our curious histories rise at once COMPLETE, Yet still 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, Christian, Royal, British, Law; Their rich contents will every reader fit, Statesman, Divine, Philosopher, and Wit; Compendious schemes! which teach all things at

once,

And make a pedant coxcomb of a dunce.

But let not anger with such frenzy grow, Drawcansir like, to strike 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 such Things oppose,
My praise of course must make them

-'s foes.

If manly JOHNSON, with satyric rage, Lash the dull follies of a trifling age,

If his strong Muse with genuine strength 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 Muse like GRAY'S shall pleasing pensive flow

Attemper'd sweetly to the rustic woe?

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

E'en now to guard afflicted learning's cause, To judge by reason's rules, and nature's laws, Boast we true critics in their proper right, While LowTHI and Learning, HURD and Taste unite.

Hail sacred names !-Oh guard the Muses page, Save your lov'd mistress from a ruffian's rage; See how she grasps and struggles hard for life, Her wounds all bleeding from the butcher's knife: Critics, like surgeons, blest with curious art, Should mark each passage to the human heart,

But not, unskilful, yet with lordly air,

Read surgeon'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. To these inscribe my rude, but honest lays, And feel the pleasures of my conscious praise. Not that I mean to court each letter'd name, And poorly glimmer from reflected fame, But that the Muse, who owns no servile fear, Is proud to pay her willing tribute here.

TO

GEORGE COLMAN, ESQ.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE.

WRITTEN JANUARY 1, 1761,

FROM TESSINGTON, IN DERBYSHIRE.

FR

RIENDSHIP with most is dead and cool,
A dull, inactive, stagnant pool;

Your's like the lively current flows,
And shares the pleasure it bestows.
If there is ought, whose lenient pow'r
Can sooth affliction's painful hour,
Sweeten the bitter cup of care,

And snatch the wretched from despair,,
Superior to the sense of woes,

From friendship's source the balsam flows.

Rich then am I, possest of thine,
Who know that happy balsam mine.

In youth, from nature's genuine heat, The souls congenial spring to meet, And emulation's infant strife,

Cements the man in future life.

Oft too the mind well-pleas'd surveys

It's

progress from it's childish days;
Sees how the current upwards ran,
And reads the child o'er in the man.
For men, in reason's sober eyes,
Are children, but of larger size,
Have still their idle hopes and fears,
And Hobby-Horse of riper years.

Whether a blessing, or a curse,
My rattle is the love of verse.
Some fancied parts, and emulation,
Which still aspires to reputation,
Bade infant fancy plume her flight,
And held the laurel full to sight.
For vanity, the poet's sin,

Had ta'en possession all within :
And he whose brain is verse-possest,
Is in himself as highly blest