MARTIN CHARLES BURNEY, ESQ.
FORGIVE ME, BURNEY, if to thee these late
And hasty products of a critic pen,
Thyself no common judge of books and men,
In feeling of thy worth I dedicate.
My verse was offered to an older friend;
The humbler prose has fallen to thy share :
Nor could I miss the occasion to declare,
What spoken in thy presence must offend
That, set aside some few caprices wild,
Those humourous clouds that flit o'er brightest days,
In all my threadings of this worldly maze,
(And I have watched thee almost from a child),
Free from self-seeking, envy, low design,
I have not found a whiter soul than thine.