Let B*rr*t*n arrest him in mock fury, 130 And M**d hang the knave without a jury. And all the Maids of Honour cry Te! He! 135 Be these the rural pastimes that attend Great B*nswk's leisure: these shall best unbend His royal mind, whene'er, from state withdrawn, He treads the velvet of his Richmond lawn; These shall prolong his Asiatic dream, Tho' Europe's balance trembles on its beam. 140 Verse 128. And M**d, &c.] He is conveyed before the judge, and sometimes severely bastinadoed." Ibid. Verse 129. But hark, &c.] "Quarrels happen-battles ensue." Ibid. Verse 132. Circumcise Cs F*.] Every liberty is permitted; there is no distinction of persons." Ibid. Verse 134. And all the Maids of Honour, &c.] "This is done to divert his Imperial Majesty, and the ladies of And thou, Sir William! while thy plastic hand AN HEROIC POSTSCRIPT ΤΟ THE PUBLIC, Occasioned by their favourable reception of a late Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knt. &c. BY THE AUTHOR OF THAT EPISTLE. Sicelides Musa, paulo majora canamus. VIRG. I THAT of late, Sir William's Bard, and Squire, March'd with his helm and buckler on my lyre, (What time the Knight prick'd forth in ill-starr'd haste, Comptroller General of the works of taste), Now to the public tune my grateful lays, 5 Warm'd with the sun-shine of the public praise: Verse 1. I that of late.] Ille ego qui quondam, &c. VIRGIL, or somebody for him. Verse 4. Works of taste.] Put synonimously for his Warm'd too with mem❜ry of that golden time, Lightly they came, and full as lightly went. Some keen Scotch banker's unrelenting steel; Thou art weighed Verse 16. Cadogan's part.] Master of the Mint. Verse 19. And find him wanting.] in the balances, and art found wanting. verse 27.. Daniel, chap. viii. While I again the Muse's sickle bring 25 To cut down dunces, wheresoe'er they spring, Bind in poetic sheaves the plenteous crop, I know thy strains can pierce the ear of Kings. And was, like western Kings, a King of Prose, And make him wish to see and to be seen; 35 Verse 34. A King of Prose.] Kien-Long, the present Emperor of China, is a poet. M. de Voltaire did him the honour to treat him as a brother above two years ago; and my late patron, Sir William Chambers, has given a fine and most intelligible prose version of an ode of his Majesty upon tea, in his postscript to his Dissertation. I am, however, vain enough to think, that the Emperor's composition would have appeared still better in my heroic verse: but Sir William forestalled it; on which account I have entirely broke with him. |