son, &c. but we admire each for his particular beauties, separate and distinguished from the rest. "These loose thoughts were thrown together merely to introduce the following little poem, which I think deserves the attention of the public. It was written by a very ingenious gentleman, as a letter to a friend, who was about to publish a volume of miscellanies; and contains all that original spirit, which it so elegantly recommends.

* ΤΟ

SINCE now, all scruples cast away,
Your works are rising into day,
Forgive, though I presume to send
This honest counsel of a friend.
Let not your verse, as verse now goes,
Be a strange kind of measured prose;
Nor let your prose, which sure is worse,
Want nought but measure to be verse.
Write from your own imagination,
Nor curb your muse by imitation;
For copies show, howe'er exprest,
A barren genius at the best.

But imitation's all the mode

Yet where one hits ten miss the road.

The mimic bard with pleasure sees

Mat. Prior's unaffected ease:
Assumes his style, affects a story,
Sets every circumstance before ye,

The day, the hour, the name, the dwelling,
And mars a curious tale in telling:

Observes how easy Prior flows,

Then runs his numbers down to prose.

Others have sought the filthy stews

To find a dirty slip-shod Muse.
Their groping genius, while it rakes
The bogs, the common sew'rs and jakes,
Ordure and filth in rhyme exposes,
Disgustful to our eyes and noses;

* Hiatus non deflendus,

O Swift! how wouldst thou blush to see,
Such are the bards who copy thee?

This Milton for his plan will choose;
Wherein resembling Milton's muse!
Milton like thunder rolls along
In all the majesty of song;

While his low mimics meanly creep,
Not quite awake nor quite asleep:
Or if their thunder chance to roll,
'Tis thunder of the mustard bowl.
The stiff expression, phrases strange,
The epithets preposterous change,
Forced numbers, rough and unpolite,
Such as the judging ear affright,
Stop in mid verse. Ye mimics vile!
Is't thus ye copy Milton's style?
His faults religiously ye trace,
But borrow not a single grace.

How few, say whence can it proceed?
Who copy Milton e'er succeed!
But all their labours are in vain ;
And wherefore so? The reason's plain.
Take it for granted 'tis by those
Milton's the model mostly chose,

Who can't write verse, and won't write

Others who aim at fancy, choose

To woo the gentle Spenser's Muse.
This poet fixes for his theme

On allegory or a dream :

Fiction and truth together joins

Through a long waste of flimsy lines;

Fondly believes his fancy glows,

And image upon image grows;

prose.

Thinks his strong muse takes wond'rous flights,

Whene'er she sings of peerless wights,

Of dens, of palfreys, spells, and knights:
Till allegory, Spenser's veil

T'instruct and please in moral tale,

With him's no veil the truth to shroud,
But one impenetrable cloud.
Others, more daring, fix their hope
On rivalling the fame of Pope.
Satire's the word, against the times;

These catch the cadence of his rhymes,

And borne from earth by Pope's strong wings,
Their muse aspires, and boldly flings
Her dirt up in the face of kings.

In these the spleen of Pope we find;
But where the greatness of his mind?
His numbers are their whole pretence,
Mere strangers to his manly sense.

Some few, the fav'rites of the Muse,
Whom with her kindest eye she views;
Round whom Apollo's brightest rays
Shine forth with undiminish'd blaze;
Some few, my friend, have sweetly trod
In imitation's dangerous road.

Long as tobacco's mild perfume
Shall scent each happy curate's room,
Oft as in elbow-chair he smokes,

And quaffs his ale, and cracks his jokes ;
So long, O Brown*, shall last thy praise,
Crown'd with tobacco-leaf for bays;
And whosoe'er thy verse shall see,
Shall fill another pipe to thee.

* Isaac Hawkins Brown, Esq. author of a piece called the 'Pipe of Tobacco,' a most excellent imitation of six different authors.

No. 68. THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1755.

Nunc et campus, et areæ,
Lenesque sub noctem susurri
Compositâ repetantur horâ.

HOR. CAR. i. 9. 18.

Now Venus in Vauxhall her altar rears,
While fiddles drown the music of the spheres;
Now girls hum out their loves to every tree,
Young Jockey is the lad, the lad for me."

66

THE various seasons of the year produce not a greater alteration in the face of nature, than in the polite manner of passing our time. The diversions of winter and summer are as different as the dogdays and those at Christmas; nor do I know any genteel amusement except gaming, that prevails during the whole year. As the long days are now coming on, the theatrical gentry, who contribute to dissipate the gloom of our winter evenings, begin to divide themselves into strolling companies; and are packing up their tragedy wardrobes, together with a sufficient quantity of thunder and lightning, for the delight and amazement of the country. In the mean time, the several public gardens near this metropolis are trimming their trees, levelling their walks, and burnishing their lamps, for our reception. At Vauxhall the artificial ruins are repaired; the cascade is made to spout with several additional streams of block-tin; and they have touched up all the pictures, which were damaged last season by the fingering of these curious connoisseurs, who

could not be satisfied without feeling whether the figures were alive. The magazine at Cuper's, I am told, is furnished with an extraordinary supply of gunpowder to be shot off in squibs and sky-rockets, or whirled away in blazing suns and catherine wheels; and it is not to be doubted, in case of a war, but that Neptune and all his Tritons will assist the British navy; and, as we before took PortoBello and Cape-Breton, we shall gain new victories over the French fleet every night, upon that canal.

Happy are they, who can muster up sufficient, at least to hire tickets at the door, once or twice in a season! Not that these pleasures are confined to the rich and the great only; for the lower sort of people have their Ranelaghs and their Vauxhalls as well as the quality. Perrot's inimitable grotto may be seen for only calling for a pot of beer; and the royal diversion of duck-hunting may be had into the bargain, together with a decanter of Dorchester, for your sixpence at Jenny's Whim. Every skittle-alley half a mile out of town is embellished with green arbours and shady retreats, where the company is generally entertained with the melodious scraping of a blind fiddler. And who can resist the luscious temptation of a fine juicy ham, or a delicious buttock of beef stuffed with parsley, accompanied with a foaming decanter of sparkling home-brewed, which is so invitingly painted at the entrance of almost every village ale-house?

Our northern climate will not, indeed, allow us to indulge ourselves in all those pleasures of a garden, which are so feelingly described by our poets. We dare not lay ourselves on the damp ground in shady groves, or by the purling stream; but are obliged to fortify our insides against the cold by good substantial eating and drinking. For this reason, the extreme costliness of the provisions at our pub