Warm'd too with mem'ry of that golden time, 10 -glittering orbs, and, what endear'd them more, Lightly they came, and full as lightly went. Some keen Scotch banker's unrelenting steel; Verse 16. Cadogan's part.] Master of the Mint. in the balances, and art found wanting. Thou art weighed Daniel, chap. viii. While I again the Muse's sickle bring To cut down dunces, wheresoe'er they spring, 25 And stack my full-ear'd load in Almon's shop. For now, my Muse, thy fame is fix'd as fate; Tremble, ye Fools I scorn, ye Knaves I hate : 30 I know the vigour of thy eagle wings, I know thy strains can pierce the ear of Kings. Did China's monarch here in Britain doze, 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. 40 Would make him soon against his greatness sin, Such is thy pow'r, O Goddess of the song! Come then, and guide my careless pen along; 50 Yet keep it in the bounds of sense and verse, Nor, like Mac-Homer, make me gabble Erse. Verse 37. That solemn vein of irony.] "A fine vein of solemn irony runs through this piece." See Monthly Review, under the article of the Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers. Verse 43. There should he see.] A certain naval event happened just about two calendar months after the publication of the Heroic Epistle. It was impossible, considering the necessary preparations, it could have been sooner. Facts are stubborn things. No, let the flow of these spontaneous rhymes Verse 52. Nor like Mac-Homer.] See, if the reader thinks it worth while, a late translation of the Iliad. Verse 62. Like old young Fannius.] The noble personage here alluded to, being asked to read the Heroic Epistle, said, "No, it was as bad as blasphemy." Ibid, Fannius.] Before I sent the manuscript to the press, I discovered that an accidental blot had made all but the first syllable of this name illegible. I was doubtful, therefore, whether to print it Fannius or Fannia. After much deliberation, I thought it best to use the masculine termination. If I have done wrong, I ask pardon, not only of the Author, but the Lady. THE EDITOR. Proud of a single word, nor hope for more, .65 That lay shall live, tho'Court and Grub-street sigh, The Muse shall nurse him up to man's estate, 75 Admit him then your candidate for fame, Verse 76. And break the black asperity of fate.] Tu Marcellus eris." VIRG. |