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MOORE, CAWTHORNE, CUNNINGHAM, and BROWN

and GREEN,

Not much remember'd nor forgotten clean,

Of Britain's poets swell the lengthy list,
Scarce mark'd if present, nor if absent miss'd.

BOYCE, sad example of the poet's lot,
His faults remember'd and his verse forgot,
From cold contempt a morsel doom'd to crave,
And owe to public charity a grave.

In want's worst miseries ran his woeful race,
And all his fame was but proclaim'd disgrace.
Peace to his dust, and may his ashes soar
Where mortal frailty shall beset no more;

Where want shall never tempt to deeds of shame,

And Heaven's pure light shall cleanse the tainted

name!

CHURCHILL, by want and rage impell'd to write,
Whose muse was anger, and whose genius spite,
With satire meant to stab, and not to heal,
The morbid, bloated, feverish commonweal;
Too proud to yield to humble virtue's rule,
Smote half the world with reckless ridicule.

Wit, honour, sense, to him did Heaven impart,
But not that last, best gift, a pious heart.
He blazed awhile in fortune, fame, and pride,
But unrespected lived, untimely died.

But gentler GOLDSMITH, whom no man could hate, Beloved by Heaven, pursued by wayward fate,

Whose verse shall live in every British mind,

Though sweet, yet strong; though nervous, yet refined ;—
A motley part he play'd in life's gay scene,
The dupe of vanity and wayward spleen;
Aping the world, a strange fantastic elf;
Great, generous, noble, when he was himself.

GRAINGER possess'd a true poetic vein,
But why waste numbers on a Sugar-cane?
Say, Doctor, why, since those who only need
Thy blank instructions, sure will never read?

COOPER essay'd a vein to England new,
To be the poet of refined virtù.

His muse, half French, half English, trips away,
A nymph presentable, though rather gay,
Brought up at Paris, and not half at ease

Where British morals hold their strict decrees.

But ill the gentleman supports his claim

To Gresset's wit or old Anacreon's name.

SMOLLETT and Armstrong, both of Pæan's band,
Compatriot offspring of a thoughtful land,
A land severe, whose mettle yet unbroke,
Toils in the team, and yet disdains the yoke.
In mind Athenian, but in spirit still

The land of Wallace wight, and Christie's Will.*
Such then was Scotland, nor could learning, art,
Or finest genius quite subdue that heart.

So neither keenest sense nor soundest morals

Could keep her brightest sons from needless quarrels.
And oft 't would seem her literary men

Reluctant changed the claymore for the pen.
Scots were they both by temper as by birth,

And both were racy of their native earth;
But pensive ARMSTRONG, though he heir'd a name
For bloody deeds of old bequeath'd to fame,

On Liddal's banks renown'd and sands of Drife,

Was yet almost too indolent for strife.

And little of the Scot was in him seen,

Save now and then a passing fit of spleen.

* See Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. II., p. 105. Second Edition.

And sure the man of whom our Thomson sung
(Thomson a Scot in nothing but his tongue)
In such a gentle strain of kind reproof,
As could be dictated by nought but love,
Could not be other than a kindly soul,

Who oft forgot the doctor o'er a bowl;
And when he spied the humming, sparkling cream
Of bright champagne, or snuff'd of punch the
steam,

Even as a poet would forget his theme.

Yet in his graver mood he lectured well

On ills which haply oft himself befell.

And with small practice, but with some small wealth,
He turn'd to stately verse the Art of Health;
And justly earn'd a lofty place among

The masters of the blank didactic song.
Correct his judgment, he knew where to stop,
And smells by no means often of the shop.
Yea, though a learn'd disciple of St. Luke,
He never once alludes to purge or puke;
Nor with hard words of most portentous omen
Describes the thorax, pelvis, or abdomen.

WILKIE, DODSLEY, &c.

WILKIE, the Scottish Homer, so 'tis said;
I will not censure what I never read.

Had Homer been a chief of merry Tweeddale,
And had his trumpet been an old Scotch fiddle,
His Pegasus a shuffling Scotland pad,
He then had wrote the Epigoniad.

Good DODSLEY, honest, bustling, hearty soul,
A footman, verse-man, prose-man, bibliopole;
A menial first beneath a lady's roof,
Then Mercury to guttling Dartineuf,

His humble education soon complete,

He learnt good things to write, good things to eat.
Then boldly enter'd on the buskin'd stage,
And show'd how toys may help to make us sage:
Nay, dared to bite the great with satire's tooth,

And made a Miller tell his King the truth.
In tragic strain he told Cleone's woes,

The touching sorrows and the madd'ning throes

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