Give the Earl's sentence a poetic turn;
Let it run thus: " See all Parnassus mourn,
" Mute ev'ry muse, fee George's praise unfung,
" Their laurels scatter'd, and their lyres unstrung,
" Apollo veils with mists his beamy head,
"Nay, Aganippe murmurs something fad."
Say, will this stile, my Lord, go down or no,
Glib as it did two thousand years ago?
I fancy scarce, and favour'd, if it pass
From a raw school-boy in the second class:
The reason then why no disgust it drew,

Was, that it might be Truth, for aught they knew.
Those early ages no mistrust had shewn,
Ready their faith, their manners roughly hewn,
And while both Reason and Suspicion doz'd,
Priest, Poet, Prophet, Patriot, impos'd.

With all that either broach'd, the world content,
Believ'd still farther than they could invent,
All irrealities came forth reveal'd

By pow'rful Fancy into fact congeal'd.
Then Poetry had elbow-room enough,
And not restrain'd, as now, for want of stuff;
The great abyss of Fable open stood,
And nothing folid rose above the flood.

A new Religion spreading ev'ry where,

The stock of Poetry fell under par ;

For

For Oracles grew dumb, as men grew wife,
None saw for those, who saw with their own eyes.
To waste her leaves no more the sybil chooses,
They and her tripod serve for other uses.
No more the Jesuit prompts her what to tell;
For to say Middleton and Fontenelle.

But the new doctrines being found too pure,
Some able doctors undertook its cure;
It serv'd no purposes but saving finners,
They added that by which themselves were winners;
Ghosts, Devil, Witches, Conjurors, in flocks
Came, like a new subscription, to the stocks;
And Poetry, enlarg'd with a new range,
Began to shew her head again in Change.

The world grown old, its youtiful follies past,
Reason affumes her reign, tho' late, at last.
By flow degrees, and labouring up the hill,
Step after step, yet seeming to stand still,
She wins her way, wherever the advances;
Satyr no more, nor Fawn, nor Dryad dances.
The groves, tho' trembling to a natural breeze,
Dismiss their horrors, and shew nought but trees.
Before her, Nonsense, Superstition fly;
We burn no Witch, let her be e'er so dry :
A woman now may live, tho' past her prime,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Bankrupt

Bankrupt of deities, with all their train,
And fet to work without his tools in vain,
Not genius-crampt (but what can genius do
When it's tied down to one and one make two?)
How can poor Poet stir? In fuch a cafe
We must do fomething to supply their place.

See, at his beck, all Nouns renouncing sense,
Start into persons of some consequence.
Proud of new being, tread poetic ground,
And aggregate their attributes around;
These he may use of right, as his own growth,
In all the rest confin'd to sober Truth.

To bless a nation, fee Charlotta come,
'Twas Anson, and not Neptune, brought her home.
A fingle Nereid stirr'd not from below,
The duce a conch did e'er one Triton blow;
But, in revenge the plough'd her fubject main,
With every virtue 'tending in her train.
Hark, 'tis a people's univerfal voice,

That bless, while they approve their Sov'reign's choice.

On such a theme, my Lord, might one extend

Far as one would, nor strictest Truth offend,
'Twere only proper epithets to find,
To every grace of perfon and of mind;

1

With decent dress, and emblem to improve
All that can merit our esteem and love.
But then to Poetry where's the pretence ?
Locke and Sir Ifaac write not plainer sense.
From the first ages down to modern time,
Derive the pleasing stream of verse and rhime,
However vast from its first source it rose,
Th' inverted river dwindles as it flows.

Thus from the lunar hills some other Nile, Swoln with new stores from snows that melt the while, Stretches his current on to fiercer suns, And glads a thousand nations as he runs, Till having reach'd, proud of his long career, Those sands which belt the middle of our sphere, Exhal'd, absorb'd, diverted, dry foot cross'd, And, finger'd into rivulets, is lost.

Fall'n cherub Simile, who erst divine,
Cloath'd with transcendant beauty didst outshine;
Plain angel Poesy, how art thou loft !
Sunk in Oblivion's pit! from what height toss'd!

Thus to plain Narrative confin'd alone,
Figure, Description, Simile quite gone;
The whole affair evinc'd which we contend,
The thing has had its day, and there's an end.

VOL. VI.

F

With

With Milton, Epic drew its latest breath,
Since Shakespeare, Tragedy puts us to death;
Th' afsaffin Satire sheaths the keen stiletto,
And languishes, depriv'd of the Concetto;
The age with pious eye no longer views
The great mortality of gross abuse.

Soft Elegy has dried up all her tears,
And Gray composes once in seven years;
Celia's and Delia's shine no more in song,
Nor ballad bauls the deafen'd streets along.

My Lord, a little patience further still,
To "Wit is gone," by way of codicil;
Who but will fay the thing that hears me tell?
The man mistakes-Lord Melcombe's very well,
Suppose I faid-O could I! War is done,
Means it there's no such thing, as sword, or gun ?
Party and Faction dead, whoever grants,
Means he that every man has what he wants ?
In all these cafes is implied alone,
That there's no object to employ them on.

A Court, my Lord, and Minister to hit,
And cry corruption, make all public wit :
'Tis on this sense my reason chiefly stands-
There may be cash enough in private hands.

Now