'Tis not that I design to rob

Thee of thy birth-right, gentle Bob,
For thou art born sole heir, and single,
Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;
Nor that I mean, while thus I knit
My thread-bare sentiments together,
To shew my genius, or my wit,

When God and you know, I have neither ;
Or such, as might be better shewn

By letting Poetry alone.

'Tis not with either of these views,

That I presume to address the Muse;
But to divert a fierce banditti,

(Sworn foes to every thing that's witty!)
That, with a black, infernal train,
Make cruel inroads in my brain,
And daily threaten to drive thence
My little garrison of sense:
The fierce banditti, which I mean,
Are gloomy thoughts, led on by spleen.
Then there's another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly quit

The debt, which justly became due
The moment, when I heard from you:
And you might grumble, crony mine,
If paid in any other coin ;

Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows
(I would say twenty sheets of prose)

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Can

Can ne'er be deem'd worth half so much
As one of gold, and yours was such.
Thus, the preliminaries settled,
I fairly find myself pitch-kettled ;*
And cannot see, tho' few see better,
How I shall hammer out a letter.

First, for a thought-since all agree-
A thought I have it-let me see—
'Tis gone again-Plague on't! I thought
I had it but I have it not.

Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,
That useful thing, her needle, gone;
Rake well the cinders ;---sweep the floor,
And sift the dust behind the door;
While

eager Hodge beholds the prize
In old Grimalkin's glaring eyes;
And Gammer finds it on her knees
In every shining straw, she sees.
This simile were apt enough;
But I've another critic-proof!
The Virtuoso thus, at noon
Broiling beneath a July sun,
The gilded Butterfly pursues,

O'er hedge and ditch, thro' gaps and mews ;

And

* Pitch-kettled a favorite phrase at the time when this Epiftle was written, expreffive of being puzzled, or what, in the Spectators' time, would have been called bamboozled.

And after many a vain essay
To captivate the tempting prey,
Gives him at length the lucky pat,
And has him safe, beneath his hat:
Then lifts it gently from the ground;
But ah! 'tis lost, as soon as found ;
Culprit his liberty regains;

Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains.
The sense was dark; 'twas therefore fit
With simile t' illustrate it ;

But as too much obscures the sight,
As often as too little light,

We have our similies cut short,

For matters of more grave import.
That Matthew's numbers run with ease,
Each man of common sense agrees ;
All men of common sense allow,
That Robert's lines are easy too:
Where then the preference shall we place?
Or how do justice in this case?
Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains
Smooth'd, and refin'd, the meanest strains;
Nor suffer'd one ill chosen rhyme
T'escape him, at the idlest time;
And thus o'er all a lustre cast,

That, while the language lives, shall last.
An't please your Ladyship (quoth I)

For 'tis

my business to reply;

D

Sure

Sure so much labour, so much toil,
Bespeak at least a stubborn soil :

Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,

Who both write well, and write full speed!

Who throw their Helicon about

As freely, as a conduit spout!

Friend Robert, thus like chien scavant,

Let's fall a poem en passant,

Nor needs his genuine ore refine;

'Tis ready polish'd from the mine.

It may be proper to observe, that this lively praise on the playful talent of Lloyd was written six years before that amiable, but unfortunate, Author published the best of his serious poems, "The Actor,” a composition of considerable merit, which proved a prelude to the more powerful, and popular, Rosciad of Churchill; who, after surpassing Lloyd as a rival, assisted him very liberally as a friend. While Cowper resided in the Temple, he seems to have been personally acquainted with the most eminent writers of the time; and the interest, which he probably took in their recent works, tended to increase his powerful, tho' diffident, passion for poetry, and to train him imperceptibly to that masterly command of language, which time and chance led him to display, almost as a new talent at the age of fifty. One of his first associates has informed me, that before he quitted London, he frequently amused himself in translation from antient and modern poets, and devoted his

composition

composition to the service of any friend, who requested it. In a copy of Duncombe's Horace, printed in 1759, I find two of the Satires, translated by Cowper. The Duncombes, father and son, were amiable scholars, of a Hertfordshire family; and the elder Duncombe, in his printed letters, mentions Dr. Cowper (the father of the Poet) as one of his friends, who possessed a talent for poetry, exhibiting at the same time a respectable specimen of his verse. The Duncombes in the preface to their Horace, impute the size of their work to the poetical contributions of their friends. At what time the two Satires, I have mentioned, were translated by William Cowper, I have not been able to ascertain; but they are worthy his pen, and will therefore appear in the Appendix to these

volumes.

Speaking of his own early life, in a letter to Mr. Park (dated March 1792) Cowper says, with that extreme modesty, which was one of his most remarkable characteristics, "From the age of

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twenty to thirty-three, I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law; from thirty-three to sixty, I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a Magazine, or a Review, I was sometimes a Carpenter, at others, a Bird-cage maker, or a Gardener, or a Drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced an Author :-It is a whim, that "has served me longest, and best, and will probably be my last."

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