Now, Doctor, you're an honest sticker,
So take your glass, and chuse your liquor:
Wilt have it steep'd in Alpine snows,
Or damask'd at Silenus' nose?
With Wakefield's vicar sip your tea,
Or to Thalia drink with me?

And, Doctor, I would have you know it,
An honest, I, though humble poet;
I scorn the sneaker like a toad,
Who drives his cart the Dover road,
There, traitor to his country's trade,
Smuggles vile scraps of French brocade :
Hence with all such! for you and I
By English wares will live and die.
Come, draw your chair, and stir the fire:
Here, boy!-a pot of Thrale's entire !

THE

HERMI T.

A BALLAD.

FIRST PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1765.

THE FOLLOWING

LETTER,

ADDRESSED TO THE PRINTER OF THE ST. JAMES'S CHRONICLE,

APPEARED IN THAT PAPER IN JUNE, 1767.

SIR,

As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as concise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours, that I recommended Blainville's Travels, because I thought the book was a good one; and I think so still. I said, I was told by the bookseller that it was then first published; but in that, it seems, I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough to set me right.

Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a ballad, I published some time ago, from one' by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I

I "The Friar of Orders Gray." Reliq. of Anc. Poetry, vol. i. p. 243.

do not think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there be any, his ballad is taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy, some years ago; and he (as we both considered these things as trifles at best) told me with his usual good humour, the next time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of Shakspeare into a ballad of his own. He then read me his little cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these are scarce worth printing; and were it not for the busy disposition of some of your correspondents, the public should never have known that he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friendship and learning for communications of a much more important nature.

I am, SIR,

Yours, &c.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.