University of Virginia Library

EPIGRAM CLXVII.

[While Johnson the Lives of our Poets compos'd]

PLUS ULTRA.

While Johnson the Lives of our Poets compos'd,
He scarce thought how his own would be hack'd, when it clos'd.
We've had life upon life, without end or cessation,
A perfect biographical superfetation:
Male, female, friend, foe, have had hands in the mess;
And the paper announces still more in the press.—

277

Not a cat, tho' for cats Fate spins ninefold the thread,
Has so many lives, living—as Johnson has, dead.