Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit,

And smile at folly, if we can't at wit; Yes, friend! for thee I'll quit my cynic cell,

And bear Swift's motto, Vive la bagatelle !'

Which charm'd our days in each Ægean clime,

As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme. Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past, Soothe thy life's scenes, nor leave thee in the last;

But find in thine, like pagan Plato's bed, Some merry manuscript of mimes, when dead.

350

Let Pastoral be dumb; for who can hope To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope?

Yet his and Phillips' faults, of different kind,

For art too rude, for nature too refined, 390 Instruct how hard the medium 't is to hit 'Twixt too much polish and too coarse a wit.

A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced

In this nice age, when all aspire to taste;
The dirty language and the noisome jest,
Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now
detest;

Proscribed not only in the world polite,
But even too nasty for a city knight !

Some less fastidious Scotchman shall be found,

As bold in Billingsgate, though less renown'd.

As if at table some discordant dish Should shock our optics, such as frogs for fish; 629

As oil in lieu of butter men decry,
And poppies please not in a modern pie;
If all such mixtures then be half a crime,
We must have excellence to relish rhyme.
Mere roast and boil'd no epicure invites;
Thus poetry disgusts, or else delights.

Who shoot not flying rarely touch a gun:
Will he who swims not to the river run?
And men unpractised in exchanging knocks
Must to Jackson ere they dare to box.
go
Whate'er the weapon, cudgel, fist, or foil,
None reach expertness without years of

but you,

Besides all this, must have some genius too.
Be this your sober judgment, and a rule,
And print not piping hot from Southey's
school,

Who (ere another Thalaba appears),
I trust, will spare us for at least nine years.
And hark ye, Southey! pray- - but don't
be vex'd-

Burn all your last three works and half the next.

But why this vain advice? once publish'd, books

Can never be recall'd - from pastry-cooks! Though Madoc, with Pucelle, instead of

punk,

May travel back to Quito - on a trunk!

661