e; to whom he accounts as follows, for the alterations he had
made since the first publication of two Books.

Erring, where thousands err'd, in youth's hot smart,
Propulsive prejudice had warp'd his heart:
Bold, and too loud he sigh'd, for high distress,
Fond of the fall'n, nor form'd to serve success;
Partial to woes, had weigh'd their cause too light,
Wept o'er misfortune,--and mis-nam'd it right:
Anguish, attracting, turn'd attachment wrong,
And pity's note mis-tun'd his devious song.

'Tis much lamented by many who are admirers of that species of poetry,
that the author did not finish it.

The same year (after a length of different applications, for several
seasons, at both Theatres without success) his Tragedy, called Merope,
was brought upon the stage in Drury-Lane by Mr. Garrick; to whom, as
well as to another gentleman he likewise highly both admired and
esteemed, he was greatly obliged; and his own words (here borrowed) will
shew how just a sense he had of these obligations.--They begin the
preface to the play.

'If there can be a pride that ranks with virtues, it is that we feel
from friendships with the worthy. Mr. Mallet, therefore, must forgive
me, that I boast the honour he has done my Merope--I have so long been a
retreater from the world, that one of the best spirits in it told me
lately, I had made myself an alien there. I must confess, I owe so many
obligations to its ornaments of most distinguished genius, that I must
have looked upon it as a great unhappiness to have made choice of
solitude, could I have judged society in general, by a respect so due to
these adorners of it.'

And in relation to this Tragedy he says, after very justly censuring
Monsieur de Voltaire, for representing in the preface to his Merope the
English as incapable of Tragedy,

'To such provoking stimulations I have owed inducement to retouch, for
Mr. Voltaire's use, the characters in his high boasted Merope; and I
have done it on a plan as near his own as I could bring it with a safe
conscience; that is to say, without distaste to English audiences.

This he likewise dedicated to lord Bolingbroke; and was the last he ever
wrote.--There is a melancholy thread of fatal prophecy in the beginning
of it; of his own approaching dissolution.

Cover'd in fortune's shade, I rest reclin'd;
My griefs all silent; and my joys resign'd.
With patient eye life's evening gloom survey:
Nor shake th'out-hast'nin