University of Virginia Library

Dear *** when last you wrote, remember well,
The charms of winter, you presum'd to tell;
I felt such shame (kind heaven the shame repay,)
As sense must feel at such a senseless lay;
Take no offence, for ev'ry foolish clown,
Since ***'s muse has come thus hobbling down,
May mount his Pegasus, and laugh at those
Who spur at rhymes, and stumble into prose.
Now, you will say, that view the scholars 'round,
Such wild eccentric wit may oft be found,
Wherefore the poets should receive the bays,
Who sometimes sing for laughter—not for praise,
Thus, while poor Pegasus is flogg'd along,
This hums in prose a dismal dirty song;
That poet's fancies claim a slacken'd rein,
And oft run rapid o'er the flow'ry plain,
Yet, as I may, permit me to make bold,
And ask thee, if thy muse or theme be cold?
I say that folly, spite of reason's voice,
Is now elected, and alas! thy choice;
And when poor reason, by some peasant thrown,
Shall lie neglected where he tumbled down;
No friend this sacred gift of heav'n to take,
Since e'en the learn'd, the pilgrim now forsake;
I here protest, whoe'er against declare
He should to *** and its lord repair,
That seat 'round which the muses oft have cried,
In doleful strains with reason on their side;
O gracious Pallas, goddess of delight,
Vouchsafe for once at *** to alight;
The air is temperate, serene, refin'd,
Not for a dirty, slactern muse designd;
Banish to Hottentot, the drunken whore,
And let her shackie prose with rhymes no more;
For nothing better from this muse we've had
Than dirty simile, and prose run mad.
The subject puts us in a gape, and sleep,
In spite of snuff, will o'er the senses creep;
From line to line the self-same dulness flows,
With not one sketch of wit to yield repose,
A perfect nuisance, which t' endure aright,
Another Argus only has the sleight.
In vain we hope this muse will cease her song
Till wisdom claps a padlock on her tongue;
Goddess of music; our petition hear,
And lend to *** a poetic ear.
Dear ***, reflect, whene'er the maggot bites,
And spite of fate the muse of *** writes,
Myriads of critics do upon her fall,
In vain for measure, or for rhyme they call;
Since common sense by her neglected lies,
While virtue slumbers, and religion dies.
Reflect on this, and own the consequence,
Thus to persist must argue want of sense.

Oh, what repasts the stirling wits prepare?
We read with pleasure or with rapture hear;
Parnassian laurels deck the poets' brow,
And sages to the magic numbers bow
But verse like thine the modest face inflames,
And yet it tickles not the lovely dames;
The lovely fair, endearing sex, bestow'd
On man, to mitigate of life the load.
Who gainsay this, are frantic, I maintain,
Nor merit Hymen nor the silken chain,
And when indecent and immodest, sure
Deserve a gibbet, or a lock secure.—
See the fair charmers blushing as they read,
See virtue start, and decency recede,
Then own your heart of unrelenting stuff;
Or, say you've read too little,—wrote enough.
Oh sex, held sacred by the good and brave,
Which to the world the promis'd saviour gave!
Let love await thee, and let virtue prove
How much you merit, and how much we love;
Let saints salute thee with a song divine,
Fruition meet for souls attun'd as thine;
But why this flight?—kind heav'n avert the stroke,
Nor let religion droop at ***'s joke,
Tho' back'd by heathen Gods, or hell, he dare
To treat Redemption as a strange affair.—
Burke, Hewitt, Henley, Gwatkin, I esteem,
Their virtues, ***, are far above thy theme.
Should Cam, with spreading laurels on his head,
Like thee e'er write, or thee attempt to read,
To Tartarus the rev'rend chief should go,
Drink deep of Lethe, and forget below,
Of Helicon the sweet inspiring taste,
Which oft has charm'd us in his verses past;
He then might mount thy courser's back, and drop
A sprig of birch, triumphant, on the top
Of some rich dunghill, where thy muse oft strays
To cull a simile, or gather bays.—
Cervantes little thought his heroe's horse,
Would be the subject of a limping verse;
Nor could the Don, whose honest nature knew
To virtue's laws the sacred rev'rence due,
Whose friendly bosom beat the pulse of love
To all who in this giddy circle move,
E'er dream, tho' mad with tales of chivalry,
That Rozinante would a pack-horse be
To such a dirty, bastard muse; but hold
This faithful quadruped, tho' blind and old,
By instinct knew an ethic from a whore,
And threw her sprawling, where she'll rise no more.

But stop, my muse, in travestying we're crost,
For here the sense, in Labyrinth, is lost,
The gaudy fly, that now sweet nectar sips,
From Nancy's cheek, or slumb'ring Chloe's lips,
Now flirts, in ecstacy, the candle round;
Now drops in toddy, and is quickly drown'd,
Pardon the simile, (I hate abuse,)
Is but an emblem of thy flirting muse.
Thy list of worthies, worthy we admit,
And wish them social, as we grant them wit.—
The hapless slave who toils, from day to day,
And heedless slumbers half his time away,
Is not an object to deserve a hiss—
But he who strives to write, and writes amiss.—

Thy list of heroes (save the infernal chief
Whose curse eternal, staggers thy belief)
Wise heroes all, but ***, I think 'twas wrong
T' insert their names in such a silly song,—
But honest nature (conscious as I am
There's none so blind, in reason none so lame,
But that he must the sting of satire feel,
Tho' arm'd his head with lead, his breast with steel)
Impels me in the loudest notes to raise,
Oh birch-deserving *** thy song of praise.