Then ask ye, from what cause on earth

Virtues like these derive their birth,

Deriv'd from Heaven alone,

Full on that favour'd breast they shine,
Where faith and resignation join
To call the blessing down.

Such is that heart:-but while the Muse

Thy theme, O RICHARDSON, pursues,

Her feeble spirits faint:

She cannot reach, and would not wrong,

That subject for an angel's song,

The hero, and the saint!

AN EPISTLE

TO ROBERT LLOYD, ESQ.

1754.

'Tis not that I design to rob

Thee of thy birth-right, gentle Bob,
For thou art born sole heir, and single,
Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;

Not that I mean, while thus I knit
My threadbare sentiments together,

To shew my genius or my wit,

When God and you know, I have neither; Or such, as might be better shown

By letting poetry alone.

"Tis not with either of these views,

That I presum❜d t' address the Muse:

But to divert a fierce banditti,

(Sworn foes to every thing that's witty!) That, with a black, infernal train,

Make cruel inroads in my brain,

And daily threaten to drive thence

My little garrison of sense:

The fierce banditti, which I mean,

Are gloomy thoughts, led on by Spleen.
Then there's another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly quit
The debt, which justly became due
The moment when I heard from you:
And you might grumble, crony mine,
If paid in any other coin;

Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows,
(I would say twenty sheets of prose),
Can ne'er be deem'd worth half so much
As one of gold, and your's was such.
Thus, the preliminaries settled,

I fairly find myself pitch-kettled;*
And cannot see, tho' few see better,
How I shall hammer out a letter.

* Pitch-kettled, a favourite phrase at the time when this Epistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what in the Spectator's time would have been called bamboozled,

First, for a thought-since all agree-
A thought-I have it-let me see—
'Tis gone again-plague on't! I thought
I had it--but I have it not.

Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,
That useful thing, her needle, gone!
Rake well the cinders:-sweep the floor,
And sift the dust behind the door;
While eager Hodge beholds the prize
In old grimalkin's glaring eyes;
And gammer finds it on her knees
In every shining straw she sees.
This simile were apt enough;
But I've another, critic-proof!
The virtuoso thus, at noon,
Broiling beneath a July sun,
The gilded butterfly pursues,
O'er hedge and ditch, thro' gaps
And after many a vain essay,
To captivate the tempting prey,

and mews;

Gives him at length the lucky pat,
And has him safe beneath his hat:
Then lifts it gently from the ground;
But ah! tis lost as soon as found;

Culprit his liberty regains;

Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains.
The sense was dark; 'twas therefore fit
With simile t' illustrate it ;

But as too much obscures the sight,

As often as too little light,

We have our similes cut short,

For matters of more grave import.

That Matthew's numbers run with ease

Each man of common sense agrees!

All men of common sense allow,

That Robert's lines are easy too:
Where then the pref'rence shall we place,
Or how do justice in this case?

Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains,

Smooth'd and refin'd the meanest strains;