Such is that heart;-but while the Muse
Thy theme, O Richardson, pursues,
Her feebler spirits faint;

She cannot reach, and would not wrong,
That subject for an angel's song,
The hero, and the saint!

AN EPISTLE TO ROBERT LLOYD, ESQ. 1754.

[LLOYD was at this period an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, where, in the following year, he took his Bachelor's degree. Cowper's praise has more of the schoolfellow than the critic. Lloyd's inheritance of Prior was limited to the "jingle;" he said very well of himself—

Like Tristram Shandy, I could write

From morn to noon, from noon to night;
Sometimes obscure, and sometimes leaning
A little sideways to a meaning.

He felt the Poet's Hill to be too steep for his powers, and wove a small nosegay from the flowers that grew at its foot; but the bloom and the colour soon faded together.]

'Tis not that I design to rob

Thee of thy birth-right, gentle Bob.
For thou art born sole heir, and single,
Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;
Not that I mean, while thus I knit
My threadbare sentiments together,

To show my genius or my wit,

When God and you know, I have neither;

Or such, as might be better shown

By letting poetry alone.

'Tis not with either of these views,

That I presumed t' address the Muse:

But to divert a fierce banditti,

(Sworn foes to every thing that's witty!)
That, with a black, infernal train,
Make cruel inroads in my brain,
And daily threaten to drive thence
My little garrison of sense:
The fierce banditti, which I mean,
Are gloomy thoughts, led on by Spleen.

Then there's another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly quit
The debt which justly became due
The moment when I heard from you;
And you might grumble, crony mine,
If paid in any other coin;

Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows,
(I would say twenty sheets of prose,)
Can ne'er be deem'd worth half so much
As one of gold, and
yours was such.
Thus, the preliminaries settled,
I fairly find myself pitch-kettled;1
And cannot see, tho' few see better,
How I shall hammer out a letter.
First, for a thought-since all agree-
A thought-I have it-let me see
'Tis gone again-plague on't! I thought
I had it but I have it not.

Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,
That useful thing, her needle, gone!
Rake well the cinders:-sweep the floor,
And sift the dust behind the door;
While eager Hodge beholds the prize
In old grimalkin's glaring eyes;
And Gammer finds it on her knees
In every shining straw she sees.
This simile were apt enough;
But I've another, critic-proof!
The virtuoso thus, at noon,
Broiling beneath a July sun,
The gilded butterfly pursues,

O'er hedge and ditch, through gaps and mews?
And after many a vain essay,

To captivate the tempting prey,
Gives him at length the lucky pat,
And has him safe beneath his hat:
Then lifts it gently from the ground;
But ah! 'tis lost as soon as found;
Culprit his liberty regains;

Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains.
The sense was dark; 'twas therefore fit
With simile t' illustrate it;

1 Pitch-kettled, a favourite phrase at the time when this epistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what, in the Spectator's time, would have been called bamboozled.-HAYLEY.

But as too much obscures the sight,
As often as too little light,

We have our similes cut short,
For matters of more grave import.
That Matthew's numbers run with ease
Each man of common sense agrees!
All men of common sense allow,
That Robert's lines are easy too:
Where then the pref'rence shall we place,
Or how do justice in this case?

Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains,
Smooth'd and refined the meanest strains;
Nor suffer'd one ill-chosen rhyme
T'escape him at the idlest time;
And thus o'er all a lustre cast,

That, while the language lives, shall last.
An't please your ladyship (quoth I),
For 'tis my business to reply;

Sure so much labour, so much toil,

Bespeak at least a stubborn soil:

Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,

Who both write well, and write full speed!

Who throw their Helicon about

As freely as a conduit spout!

Friend Robert thus, like chien scavant,

Lets fall a poem en passant,

Nor needs his genuine ore refine!

'Tis ready polish'd from the mine.

THE FIFTH SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

(Printed in Duncombe's Horace, 1759.)

A HUMOROUS DESCRIPTION OF THE AUTHOR'S JOURNEY

FROM ROME TO BRUNDUSIUM.

'Twas a long journey lay before us,
When I, and honest Heliodorus,
Who far, in point of rhetoric,
Surpasses ev'ry living Greek,

Each leaving our respective home,
Together sallied forth from Rome.

First at Aricia we alight,

And there refresh, and pass the night,

Our entertainment rather coarse,
Than sumptuous, but I've met with worse.
Thence o'er the causeway soft and fair
To Appiiforum we repair.

But as this road is well supplied
(Temptation strong!) on either side
With inns commodious, snug, and warm,
We split the journey, and perform
In two days' time what's often done
By brisker travellers in one.
Here, rather choosing not to sup
Than with bad water mix my cup,
After a warm debate in spite
Of a provoking appetite,
I sturdily resolved at last

To balk it, and pronounce a fast,
And in a moody humour wait,
While my less dainty comrades bait.

Now o'er the spangled hemisphere
Diffused the starry train appear,
When there arose a desp'rate brawl;
The slaves and bargemen, one and all,
Rending their throats (have mercy on us)
As if they were resolved to stun us.
"Steer the barge this way to the shore;
I tell you we'll admit no more;
Plague! will you never be content ?"
Thus a whole hour at least is spent,
While they receive the sev'ral fares,
And kick the mule into his gears.
Happy, these difficulties past,
Could we have fall'n asleep at last!
But, what with humming, croaking, biting,
Gnats, frogs, and all their plagues uniting,
These tuneful natives of the lake

Conspired to keep us broad awake.
Besides, to make the concert full,
Two maudlin wights, exceeding dull,
The bargeman and a passenger,
Each in his turn, essay'd an air
In honour of his absent fair.
At length the passenger, opprest
With wine, left off, and snored the rest.
The weary bargeman too gave o'er,
And hearing his companion snore,

Seized the occasion, fix'd the barge,
Turn'd out his mule to graze
at large,
And slept forgetful of his charge.
And now the sun o'er eastern hill,
Discover'd that our barge stood still;
When one, whose anger vex'd him sore,
With malice fraught leaps quick on shore;
Plucks up a stake, with many a thwack
Assails the mule and driver's back.

Then slowly moving on with pain,
At ten Feronia's stream we gain,
And in her pure and glassy wave
Our hands and faces gladly lave.
Climbing three miles, fair Anxur's height
We reach, with stony quarries white.
While here, as was agreed, we wait,
Till, charged with business of the state,
Mæcenas and Cocceius come,

The messengers of peace from Rome.
My eyes, by wat'ry humours blear
And sore, I with black balsam smear.
At length they join us, and with them
Our worthy friend Fonteius came;
A man of such complete desert,
Antony loved him at his heart.
At Fundi we refused to bait,
And laugh'd at vain Aufidius' state,
A prætor now, a scribe before,
The purple-border'd robe he wore,
His slave the smoking censer bore.
Tired, at Muræna's we repose,
At Formia sup at Capito's.

With smiles the rising morn we greet,

At Sinuessa pleased to meet

With Plotius, Varius, and the bard,
Whom Mantua first with wonder heard.
The world no purer spirits knows;
For none my heart more warmly glows.
O! what embraces we bestow'd,

And with what joy our breasts o'erflow'd!
Sure, while my sense is sound and clear,
Long as I live, I shall prefer

A gay, good-natured, easy friend,
To every blessing Heaven can send.