'Tis his to judgment's steady line The fleeting forms of Fashion to restrain, III. While such the gifts his reign bestows, Amid the proud display, Those gems around the throne he throws That shed a softer ray: While from the summits of sublime Renown With those sweet flowers he binds a crown Conspicuous in a nation's eye, Fair Science to reform, reward, and raise, The monarch's meed to claim. THE illustrious Arbiters, of whom we may with great truth describe the noble Earl as the very alter-ipse of Maecenas, and the worthy Pierot, as the most correct counterpart of Petronius, had carefully revised the whole of the preceding productions, and had indulged the defeated ambition of restless and aspiring Poetry, with a most impartial and elaborate Scrutiny (the whole account of which, faithfully translated from the Italian of Signor Delpini, and the English of the Earl of Salisbury, will, in due time, be submitted to the infpection of the curious), were preparing to make a legal return, when an event happened that put a final period to their proceedings.-The following is a correct account of this interesting occurrence: ON Sunday the 17th of the present month, to wit, July, Anno Domini, 1785, just as his Majesty was ascending the stairs of his gallery, to attend divine worship at WINDSOR, he was surprized by the appearance of a little, thick, squat, red-faced man, who, in a very odd dress, and kneeling upon one knee, presented a piece of paper for the Royal acceptation. His Majesty, amazed at the sight of such a figure in such a place, had already given orders to one of the attendant beef-caters to dismiss him from his presence, when, by a certain hasty spasmodic mumbling, together with two or three prompt quotations from Virgil, the person was discovered to be no other than the Rev. Mr. Thomas Warton himself, dressed in the official vesture of his professorship, and the paper which he held in his hand being nothing else but a fair-written petition, designed for the inspection of his Majesty, our gracious Sovereign, made up for the seeming rudeness of the first reception, by a hearty embrace on recognition; and the contents of the petition being forthwith examined, were found to be pretty nearly as follows. We omit the common-place compliments generally introduced in the exordia of these applications, as " relying upon your 66. Majesty's well-known clemency;""con"vinced of your Royal regard for the real "interest of your subjects;"" penetrated "with the fullest conviction of your wis“dom and justice," &c. &c. which, though undoubtedly very true, when considered as addressed to George the Third, might, per haps, as matters of mere form, be applied to a Sovereign, who neither had proved wisdom nor regard for his subjects in one act of his reign, and proceed to the substance and matter of the complaint itself. It sets forth, "That the Petitioner, Mr. Thomas, had "been many years a maker of Poetry, as his "friend Mr. Sadler, the pastry-cook, of Ox"ford, and some other creditable witnesses, "could well evince: that many of his works "of fancy, and more particularly that one, " which is known by the name of his Cri"ticisms upon Milton, had been well re"ceived by the learned; that thus encou 66 raged, he had entered the list, together "with many other great and respectable "candidates, for the honour of a succession "to the vacant Laureatship; that a decided "return had been made in his favour by the "officers best calculated to judge, namely, "the Right Hon. the Earl of Salisbury, and "the learned Signor Delpini, his Lordship's worthy coadjutor; that the Signor's deli 46 66 cacy, unhappily for the Petitioner, like "that of Mr. Corbett, in the instance of the "Westminster election, had inclined him to "the grant of a SCRUTINY; that in conse 86 66 quence of the vexatious and pertinacious perseverance on the part of several gentlemen in this illegal and oppressive measure, the Petitioner had been severely in jured in his spirits, his comforts, and his "interest: that he had been for many years "engaged in a most laborious and expensive 46 undertaking, in which he had been ho"noured with the most liberal communica❝tions from all the universities in Europe, c to wit, a splendid and most correct edition of the Poemata Minora, of the immor"tal Mr. Stephen Duck; that he was also "under positive articles of literary partner 64 ship with his brother, the learned and « well-known Dr. Joseph, to supply two pages per day in his new work, now in "the press, entitled his Essay on the Life " and Writings of Mr. THOMAS HICKA 64 66 THRIFT; in both of which great undertakings, the progress had been most essentially interrupted by the great anxiety and "distress of mind, under which the Peti❝tioner has for some time laboured, on ac"count of this inequitable scrutiny; that the Petitioner is bound by his honour and "his engagement to prepare a new Ode for |