XCV.

But he grew rich, and with his riches grew so
Keen the desire to see his home again,
He thought himself in duty bound to do so,

And not be always thieving on the main;
Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe,

And so he hired a vessel come from Spain. Bound for Curfu; she was a fine polacca, Mann'd with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco.

XCVI.

Himself, and much (heaven knows how gotten) cash,
He then embark'd, with risk of life and limb,
And got clear off, although the attempt was rash;
He said that Providence protected him-

For my part, I say nothing, lest we clash
In our opinions:-well, the ship was trim,
Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on,
Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn.

XCVII.

They reach'd the island, he transferr'd his lading,
And self and live-stock, to another bottom,
And pass'd for a true Turkey-merchant, trading
With goods of various names, but I've forgot 'em.
However, he got off by this evading,

Or else the people would perhaps have shot him; And thus at Venice landed to reclaim

His wife, religion, house, and Christian name.

XCVIII.

His wife received, the patriarch rebaptized him,
(He made the church a present by the way;)
He then threw off the garments which disguised him,
And borrow'd the Count's smallclothes for a day

His friends the more for his long absence prized him,

Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay, With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them, For stories, but I don't believe the half of them.

ХСІХ.

Whate'er his youth had suffer'd, his old age
With wealth and talking made him some amends;
Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage,

I've heard the Count and he were always frienas. My pen is at the bottom of a page,

Which being finish'd, here the story ends; 'Tis to be wish'd it had been sooner done, But stories somehow lengthen when begun.

ENGLISH BARDS

AND

SCOTCH REVIEWERS.

A SATIRE.

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.

Shakspeare.

Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true There are as mad, abandon'd critics too.

Pope.

PREFACE

TO THE THIRD, EDITION.

ALL my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be "turned from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain," I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally who did not commence on the offensive. An author's works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases: and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them; I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending their own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better.

As the Poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations to render it more worthy of public perusal.

In the first edition of this Satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles's Pope, were written and inserted at the request of an ingenious friend of mine, who has now in the press a volume of poetry. In the present edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being that, which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same manner, a determination not to publish with my name any production which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition.

With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned, or alluded to, in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little