the writer of "Female Conduct," we were only raising the indignation of the author who took the two Gregories.

Yet shall it be left to his own breast, whether he deals candidly with us, or the public. He first writes bad verses, and next he tells the world he does not desire a reputation for poetry. This is modest either way. very Would not any one be induced from such a performance, and with such an invitation, to speak his sentiments without shrinking? In an evil hour we took the author at his word, pitied his performance, and gave him a discharge from Parnassus at his own request; and yet, oh ingratitude! here we have him in a violent passion for our pains. This author is surely a sly one. He invites us to a feast; tells us we are heartily welcome to fall to, and yet is violently angry with us for eating. Does this become the patron of virtue, this become the avowed champion of the fair sex? Dose this become the man who has fought, and consequently vanquished, gamesters, methodists, and Bolingbroke? Oh, vartue, vartue! to what will this degenerate age at length arrive, when the very man who gives a morsel of bread with one hand, picks it from our teeth with the other!

By this time the reader, perhaps, desires to see how our poet treats us in rhyme; and though, by quoting him, we propagate our own disgrace, yet will we be just to him and the public. The Epistle in view is from the author to his own book. Let us suppose him sitting like the man in the primer in his arm chair, thus addressing the manuscript which he holds between his finger and thumb: My little book," says he, "you have an eye or a mind to- -" but take it in his own words:

My book, you have an eye to Temple Bar,
That you may trim in Owen's shop appear;
That you with gilded ornaments may shine,
Polish'd without, and delicate within.

You hate the close restraint of lock and key,
Which to a modest book would grateful be.
But go from me forewarn'd, this lesson learn,
When gone from me you never can return ;*
When this shall happen, I (who in your ear
Instill'd good counsel which you would not hear)
In your distress will scornful laugh at you,
Like him, who down a rock in anger threw
The ass, that would not his commands pursue.
Who'll strive against his will to save a fool

Whom friendly admonitions can't control!"

The reader at length smokes the champion we have to deal with he will observe what strength of thought and diction, and what a flow of poetry are here! A piddling reader, it is certain, might object to almost all the rhymes of the above quotation; but the less rhyme the more like blank verse, and all know that Milton wrote without such a restraint: but if any reader is for having the above quotation to be rhyme, he has nothing more to do than to read it poetically. Let key, for instance, be called kee, and then it rhymes with be; and let fool be called fole, and then it answers control in the next line. By this means the poetry, which our author, no doubt, meant for blank verse, may serve for either. We have here given but a taste of our bard's peformance those who are pleased with it may indulge themselves to satiety, in a publication, which he promises shortly, of several other modernized works of this kind. We shall beg leave, in all friendship only, to offer this unconquered champion the following motto to his future production,

Κην με φαγης επι ρίζαν, όμως ετι καρποφορήσω.

* "We are assured there is a mistake here, being informed a large bale of this work was sent to Hillingdon for waste paper.”--(————n Gregory, jan.

XXII-DUNKIN'S EPISTLE TO LORD CHESTER FIED.

[From the Critical Review, 1760. "An Epistle to the Right Honorable Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, to which is added An Eclogue. By William Dunkin, D.D." 8vo.]

In this publication Dr. Dunkin appears at once excessively merry, and extremely sorrowful. His epistle to the Earl of Chesterfield is most familiarly good-humored; his eclogue, or Lawson's obesquies,† is mournful to the last degree. The epistle may be considered a smart prologue to a deep tragedy, or a jig before an adagio, or (to run into his own manner) a plate of pickles before a shoulder of mutton The death of his friend seems no way to have abated his festivity; and though he weeps for Lawson in poetry, he laughs with his lordship in prose: in short, were we to judge of the writer by this production, we should give him the same appellation which Chapelain gave to Ménage, "the poet with the double face."

His epistle to the Earl of Chesterfield begins thus: "My lord, your fast friend, trusty correspondent, and faithful ally, the prince of printers, archbibliopolist, intelligencer-general, and general advertiser of the kingdom of Ireland, having lately discov ered, that I had not for many months addressed your lordship by letter, or otherwise, with a very grave face and composed countenance, but a fervor and tartness of style, unwont to flow from the dispassionate tongue of his most serene highness, called

66

In early life Dunkin attracted the attention of Dean Swift, who, in one of his letters, describes him as a gentleman of much wit, and the best English, as well as Latin poet in Ireland." The Earl of Chesterfield, when he held the government of Ireland, gave him the rectory of Enniskilling; where he died in 1765. His Poetical Works, in two volumes quarto, were published

in 1774]

+ [Dr. John Lawson, author of "Lectures concerning Oratory, delivered at Trinity College, Dublin" He died in 1759.]

me roundly to task, and expressed his august indignation and royal resentment. What,' said he, was it for this, that we brought thy labors from the darkness of thy closet, into the light of our shop, and clothed thy naked and neglected name with legible respect, and titular dignity? What apartment from the base to the summit of our Palladian palace hath not been open for thy reception, and furnished for thy residence? When was our oval table unspread for thy repast; and when was our big-bellied bottle withheld from thy lips? Hast thou not sat down in our presence, even on our right hand, while poets have stood in waiting? And have we not in familiar-wise conversed with thee, while we have only nodded unto critics?"

This serene highness, this we, is Mr. Faulkner, the printer,* who, if he speaks in this manner, must be no doubt an excessively facetious humorous companion, and well worthy not only the acquaintance of the poet and his lordship, but also of the public. A great part of the epistle is taken up with this speech; which, whenever the writer takes up the conversation himself, is every whit as humorous as the other. IIear him:

"But, alas! how will the sanguine hopes and expectations of the parties premised be rendered totally null and void, when the bellowing tribe of meagre bards and lank erities, like Pharaoh's ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine, eat up my best-featured and fairest offspring! What can be wrought and finished with nicer art and ingenuity, than Arachine's lawn, suspended to the sublime

* [George Faulkner, designated by Swift," the prince of Dublin printers." He rose to eminence chiefly under the Dean's patronage, and was the first who gave to the world a collected edition of his works. He died, at an advanced age, in 1775. He had been journeyman to Mr. Bowyer. In a letter to Mr. Nichols, written a few months before his death, he says, "my apothecary's bill doth not amount to five shillings a year for all my family, two-pence of which is not my share. Claret is the universal medicine here, and the mundungus port the bane and stupefaction of all society.-See Lit. Anec, vol. iii. p. 208]

ceiling of a spacious hall, as it were beyond the reach of inferior accidents? When, lo! some vile, unthrifty chamber-maid cometh with her anti-Christian Pope's head-brush, and sweepeth down the weaver and his web together.

"Such, I fear, will become the downfall and undoing of these my lofty lucubrations, disconcerted, and broken by the callous and clumsy hands of witlings and word-catchers, who from damned poetry have turned their heads to foul criticism, as folks convert their cast coach-horses to dung-carts.

"Little will it avail me, that, independent of external aid, I have spun the materials out of my own brains, and labored whole days and nights in bringing the work to perfection, when the delicate and tender texture, instead of standing the test, will not even abide the touch.

"The dung-carts and their criticisms may pass well enough together; and, lest they should object against this comparison of myself to an insect, as mean and creeping, let them hear what Pliny saith of such industrious and neat spinsters: Arancarum genus erudità operatione conspicuum.' The family of spiders are very notable for their curious housewifery. But in case they should spare the spider, they will arraign the retailer of this homely similitude for an arrant plagiary: to quash which indictment I can offer no fairer plea than an honest confession, that I borrowed the thought, with very little variation, from a voluminous Latin and English poem, written purely for the benefit of their fraternity many years ago, although not yet published. It is dedicated to your lordship, and must, I believe, pass for mine, till they can lay it before the door of a better father.

Here would I willingly halt, and spread a veil over the poet and spider. but murder and truth will at some odd time or other cbulliate. Much it irketh me to conceive any thing that might cast the least unsavory note of aspersion on any member of our