SOLO.

*Hark! do I hear the golden tone?-
Responsive now! and now alone!
Or does my fancy rove?
Reason-born Conviction, hence!
+ And phrenzy-rapt be ev'ry sense,
With the Untruth I love.
Propitious Fiction aid the song;
Poet and Priest to thee belong.

SEMI-CHORUS.

By thee inspir'd, ere yet the tongue was glib,
The cradled infant lisp'd the nurs'ry fib;
Thy vot'ry in maturer youth,

Pleas'd, he renounc'd the name of truth;
And often dar'd the specious to defy,

Proud of th' expansive, bold, uncover'd lie.

AIR.

Propitious FICTION, hear!

And smile, as erst thy father smil'd

Upon his first-born child,

Thy sister dear;

*Golden tone, &c.] The epithet may seem at first more proper for the instrument, but it applies here with great propriety to the sound. In the strictest sense, what is golden sound but the sound of gold? and what could arise more naturally in the writer's mind upon the present occasion? + Phrenzy-rapt, &c.] Auditis? An me ludit amabilis

Insania?

By thee inspir'd, &c.] In the first manuscript:
"While yet a cradled child, he conquer'd shame,
"And lisp'd in fables, for the fables came."

See POPE.

When the nether shades among, *Sin from his forehead sprung.

FULL CHORUS.

Grand deluder! arch impostor!
Countervailing Orde and Foster!
Renoun'd Divine!

The palm is thine :

Be thy name or sung or hist,
Alone it stands-CONSPICUOUS FABULIST!

RECITATIVE for the celebrated Female Singer from Manchester. Symphony of Flutes-pianissimo.

Now in cotton robe array'd,

Poor Manufacture, tax-lamenting maid,
Thy story heard by her devoted wheel,
Each busy-sounding spindle hush'd-

FUGUE.

Now, dreading Irish rape,

Quick shifting voice and shape

DEEP BASS, from Birmingham.

With visage hard, and furnace flush'd,
And black-hair'd chest, and nerve of steel
The sex-chang'd listner stood
In surly pensive mood.

* Sin from his forehead sprung.]

"A goddess armed

"Out of thy head I sprung."

See MILTON's Birth of Sim.

AIR, accompanied with double Bassoons, c.
While the promise-maker spoke

The anvil miss'd the wonted stroke;

In air suspended hammers hung,

While Pitt's own frauds came mended from that tongue.

PART OF CHORUS REPEATED.

Renown'd Divine, &c.

AIR.

Sooth'd with the sound the Priest grew vain,

And all his tales told o'er again,

And added hundreds more;
By turns to this, or that, or both,

He gave the sanction of an oath,

And then the whole forswore.

"Truth," he sung, " was toil and trouble,
"Honour but an empty bubble"-
Glo'ster's aged-London dying—
Poor, too poor, is simple lying!
If the lawn be worth thy wearing,
Win, oh! win it, by thy swearing!

FULL CHORUS REPEATED.

Grand deluder! arch-impostor, &c. *

The quick transition of persons must have struck the reader in the first part of this Ode, and it will be observable throughout: Now Poet, now Muse, now Chorus; then Spinner, Blacksmith, &c. &c. The Doctor, skips from point to point over Parnassus, with a nimbleness that no modern imitator of Pindar ever equalled.-Catch him, even under a momentary shape, who can. I was always an admirer of tergiversation (and as my flatterers might say), no bad practitioner; but it remained for my friend to shew the sublimity to which the figure I am alluding to (I do not know the learned name of it) might be carried.

PART II.

RECITATIVE accompanied.

Enough the parents praise-see of Deceit
The fairer progeny ascends !
Evasion, nymph of agile feet,
With half-veil'd face;

Profession, whispering accents sweet
And many a kindred Fraud attends;
Mutely dealing courtly wiles,
Favʼring nods, and hope-fraught smiles,
A fond, amusive, tutelary race,

That guard the home-pledg'd faith of Kings-
Or flitting, light, on paper wings;

Speed Eastern guile across this earthly ball,'
And waft it back from Windsor to Bengal.

But chiefly thee I woo, of changeful eye,
In courts y'clept Duplicity!

Thy fond looks on mine imprinting,
Vulgar mortals call it squinting-
Baby, of Art and Int'rest bred,

Whom, stealing to the back-stairs head
In fondling arms-with cautious tread,
* Wrinkle-twinkle Jenky bore,

To the baize-lin'd closet door.

}

* Wrinkle-twinkle, &c.] It must have been already observed by the sagacious reader, that our author can coin an epithet as well as a fable. Wrinkles are as frequently produced by the motion of the part as by the advance of age. The head of the distinguished personage here described, though in the prime of its faculties, has had more exercise in every sense than any head in the world. Whether he means any illusion to the worship of the rising

AIR.

Sweet nymph, that liv'st unseen
Within that lov'd recess-

Save when the Closet Councils press,
And junto's speak the thing they mean;

Tell me, ever-busy power,

Where shall I trace thee in that vacant hour?
Art thou content, in the sequester'd grove,
To play with hearts and vows of love!
Or emulous of prouder sway,

Dost thou to list'ning Senates take thy way?
Thy presence let me still enjoy,

With Rose, and the lie-loving boy.

AIR.

*No rogue that goes

Is like that Rose,
Or scatters such deceit ;

Come to my breast

There ever rest

Associate counterfeit !

sun, and imitates the Persian priests, whose grand act of devotion is to turn round; or whether he merely thinks that the working of the head in circles will give analogous effect to the species of argument in which he excels, we must remain in the dark; but certain it is, that whenever he reasons in public, the capital and wonderful part of the frame I am alluding to, is continually revolving upon its axis: and his eyes, as if dazzled with rays that dart on him exclusively, twinkle in their orbs at the rate of sixty twinks to one revolution. I trust I have given a rational account, and not far-fetched, both of the wrinkle and twinkle in this ingenious compound.

* No rogue that goes, &c.] The candid reader will put no improper interpretation on the word rogue. Pretty rogue, dear rogue, &c. are terms of endearment to one sex; pleasant rogue, witty rogue, apply as familiar compliments to the other; Indeed facetious rogue is the common table appellation of this gentleman in Downing-street.