sense and expression; that they have little rhyme and less reason; and that they are, from beginning to end, nothing more than nonsensical rhapsodies to a new tune. This charge I do not mean to deny ; though I cannot but lament the deplorable want of taste that mentions it as a fault. For it is this very circumstance, which I, who am professedly a Connoisseur, particularly admire. It is a received maxim with all composers of music, that nothing is so melodious as nonsense. Manly sense is too harsh and stubborn to go through the numberless divisions and sub-divisions of modern music, and to be trilled forth in crotchets and demiquavers. For this reason, thought is so cautiously sprinkled over a modern song; which it is the business of the singer to warble into sentiment. Our ballad-makers, for the most part, slide into the familiar style, and affect that easy manner of writing, which, according to Wycherley, is easily written. Seeing the dangerous consequence of meaning, in words adapted to music, they are very frugal of sentiment; and indeed, they husband it so well, that the same thoughts are adapted to every song. The only variation requisite in twenty ballads is, that the last line of the stanza be different. In this ingenious line the wit of the whole song consists; and the author, whether he shall die if he has not the lass of the mill, or deserves to be reckoned an ass, turns over his dictionary of rhymes for words of a similar sound, and every verse jingles to the same word, with all the agreeable variety of a set of bells eternally ringing the same peal. The authors of love-songs formerly wasted a great deal of poetry in illustrating their own passion and the beauty of their mistress; but our modern poets content themselves with falling in love with her name. There cannot be a greater misfortune to one of these rhymers, than a mistress with a hard name: such a misfortune sends them all over the world, and makes them run through all arts, sciences, and languages, for correspondent terms; and after all, perhaps the name is so harsh and untractable, that our poet has as much difficulty to bring it into verse, as the celebrators of Marlborough were puzzled to reduce to rhyme the uncouth names of the Dutch towns taken in Queen Anne's wars. Valentine, in Love for Love, when he talks of turning poet, orders Jeremy to get the maids together of an evening to Crambo: no contempti. ble hint to our ballad-makers, and which, if properly made use of, would be of as much service to them as Byshe's Art of Poetry. Fearing lest this method of song-writing should one day grow obsolete, in order to preserve to posterity some idea of it, I have put together the following dialogue, as a specimen of the modern man ner. I must, however, be ingenuous enough to confess, that I can claim no further merit in this elegant piece than that of compiler. It is a cento from our most celebrated new songs; from which I have carefully culled all the sweetest flowers of poetry, and bound them up together. As all the lines are taken from different songs, set to different tunes, I would humbly propose, that this curious performance should be sung jointly by all the best voices, in the manner of a Dutch concert, where every man sings his own tune. I had once some thoughts of affixing marginal references to each line, to inform the reader by note, at what place the song, whence it is taken, was first sung. But I shall spare myself that trouble, by desiring the reader to look on the whole piece, as arising from a coalition of our most eminent song-writers at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Mary bone, and Sadler's : Wells assuring him, that this short dialogue contains the pith and marrow, or rather, to borrow an expression from the Fine Lady in Lethe, the quinsetence and emptity of all our modern songs. A PASTORAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN CORYDON Sus. АH! whither so fast would my Corydon go? Cor. Sus. Cor. Sus. Cor. Sus. Cor. Sus. They say I'm in love, but I answer no, no; Once my heart play'd a tune that went pitty pattie, Now let what will happen, by Jove I'll be free. Though you bid me begone back again, The women love kissing as well as the men. You told me a tale of a cock and a bull; I swear I meant nothing but playing the fool. Come, come, my dear Sukey, to church let us go; The deuce sure is in him to plague a maid so: CHORUS BY BOTH. No courtiers can be so happy as we, I love Sue, and Sue loves me, Sure this is mutual love. T No. 73. THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1755. ·Secernere sacra profanis. HOR. ARS POET. 397. Wherever God erects a house of prayer, DEFOE. WALKING the other day in Westminster-Abbey, among the many ostentatious monuments erected to kings and warriors, I could not help observing a little stone, on which was this pompous inscription-Eternæ memoriæ sacrum-Sacred to the eternal memory of. The name of the person to whom immortality was thus secured, is almost obliterated; and perhaps when alive he was little known, and soon forgot by the small circle of his friends and acquaintance. I have been used to look upon epitaphs as a kind of flattering dedications to the dead; in which is set down a long catalogue of virtues, that nobody knew they were possessed of while living, and not a word of their vices or follies. The veracity of these posthumous encomiums may, indeed, be fairly suspected, as we are generally told, that the disconsolate widow, or weeping son, erected the monument in testimony of their affliction for the loss of the kindest husband, or most affectionate father. But what dowager, who enjoys a comfortable jointure by her good man's decease, would refuse to set her hand to it on his tomb-stone, that he was the best of husbands, though perhaps they had parted beds? or what heir would be so base and ungrateful, as not to give a few good words to a crabbed parent after his death, in return for his estate. By the extravagant praises, which are indiscriminately lavished on the ashes of every person alike, we entirely pervert the original intent of epitaphs, which were contrived to do honour and justice to the virtuous and the good. But by the present practice the reputations of men are equally confounded with their dust in the grave, where there is no distinction between the good and the bad. The law has appointed searchers to inquire, when any one dies, into the cause of his death: in the same manner I could wish, that searchers were appointed to examine into his way of living, before a character be given of him upon the tombstone. The flatteries that are paid to the deceased, are undoubtedly owing to the pride of their survivors, which is the same among the lowest as the highest set of people. When an obscure grocer or tallowchandler dies at his lodgings at Islington, the newspapers are stuffed with the same parade of his virtues and good qualities, as when a duke goes out of the world and the petty overseer of a little hamlet has a painted board stuck up at the end of his wickered turf, with a distich setting forth the godliness of his life, in humble imitation of the nobleman, who reposes under a grand mausoleum erected to his memory, with a long list of his titles and heroic deeds. : The great, indeed, have found means to separate themselves even in their graves from the vulgar, by having their ashes deposited in churches and cathedrals, and covered by the most superb monuments: but the false pomp of the monument, as well as the gross flattery of the inscription, often tends only to make the deceased ridiculous. In my late visit to Westminster-Abbey, I could not but remark the difference of taste which has prevailed in setting up these edifices for the dead. In VOL. 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