How sad the groves and plains appear,
And sympathetic sheep!

Even pitying hills would drop a tear,

If hills could learn to weep.

His bounty, in exalted strain,

Each bard might well display;
Since none implor'd relief in vain
That went reliev'd away.

And hark! I hear the tuneful throng

His obsequies forbid:

He still shall live, shall live as long-
As ever dead man did.

These verses seem to have been the first rough sketch, afterwards altered and improved into the Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize.

(V. Citizen of the World, L. 113.) The weapon chiefly used in the present contest is epigram, and certainly never was a keener made use of. They have discovered surprising sharpness on both sides. The first that came out upon this occasion was a kind of new composition in this way, and might more properly be called an epigrammatic thesis than an epigram. It consists, first, of an argument in prose; next follows a motto from Roscommon; then comes the epigram; and, lastly, notes serving to explain the epigram. But you shall have it with all its decorations:

AN EPIGRAM,

ADDRESSED TO THE GENTLEMEN REFLECTED ON IN THE ROSCIAD, A POEM, BY THE AUTHOR.

Worried with debts, and past all hopes of bail,
His pen he prostitutes t' avoid a gaol.

ROSCOM.

LET not the hungry Bavius' angry stroke
Awake resentment, or your rage provoke;
But, pitying his distress, let virtue1 shine,
And giving each your bounty,2 let him dine.
For thus retain'd, as learned counsel can,
Each case, however bad, he'll new japan;
And, by a quick transition, plainly show
'Twas no defect of yours, but pocket low,
That caus'd his putrid kennel to o'erflow.

The last lines are certainly executed in a very masterly manner: it is of that species of argumentation called the perplexing. It effectually flings the antagonist into a mist; there's no answering it: the laugh is raised against him, while he is endeavouring to find out the jest. At once he shows that the author has a kennel, and that this kennel is putrid, and that this putrid kennel overflows. But why does it overflow? It overflows because the author happens to have low pockets.

1 Charity.

2 Settled at one shilling, the price of the poem.

There was also another new attempt in this way, a prosaic epigram, which came out upon this occasion. This is so full of matter, that a critic might split it into fifteen epigrams, each properly fitted with its sting. You shall see it:

TO G. C. AND R. L.

"Twas you, or I, or he, or all together,

'Twas one, both, three of them, they know not

whether;

This, I believe, between us great or small,

You, I, he, wrote it not

-'twas Churchill's all.

There, there is a perplex! I could have wished to have made it quite perfect; the author, as in the case before, had added notes. Almost every word admits a scholium, and a long one too. I, YOU, HE. Suppose a stranger should ask, And who are you? Here are three obscure persons spoken of, that may in a short time be utterly forgotten. Their names should consequently have been written in notes at the bottom; but when the reader comes to the words great and small, the maze is inextricable. Here the stranger may dive for a mystery, without ever reaching the bottom. Let him know, then, that small is a word poorly introduced to make good rhyme, and great was a very proper word to keep small company.

This was denoted against the triumvirate of friends, Churchill, Colman, and Lloyd.

(V. Cit. of the World, L. 116.) Even in the sultry wilds of Southern America, the lover is not satisfied with possessing his mistress's person, without having her mind.

In all my Enna's beauties blest,
Amidst profusion still I pine;

For though she gives me up her breast,
Its panting tenant is not mine.

"You should have given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent you; you remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry ale-house. You may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flatter myself is quite original. The room in which he lies may be described somewhat in this way:

THE window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay.
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread,
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;
The game of goose was there exposed to view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew ;
The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And Prussia's monarch show'd his lampblack face.
The morn was cold; he views with keen desire
A rusty grate, unconscious of a fire:

An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scor'd,
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board.

And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make his appearance, in order to dun him for the reckoning:

Not with that face, so servile and so gay,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay;
With sulky eye he smok'd the patient man,
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began: 1

1 Letter to the Rev. Henry Goldsmith.