ning our author.

In Numb. 29. Vol. I. speaking of the advantages of laughing, he thus
mentions D'Urfey. 'A judicious author, some years since published a
collection of Sonnets, which he very successfully called Laugh and be
Fat; or Pills to purge Melancholy: I cannot sufficiently admire the
facetious title of these volumes, and must censure the world of
ingratitude, while they are so negligent in rewarding the jocose labours
of my friend Mr. D'Urfey, who was so large a contributor to this
Treatise, and to whose humorous productions, so many rural squires in
the remotest parts of this island are obliged, for the dignity and state
which corpulency gives them. It is my opinion, that the above pills
would be extremely proper to be taken with Asses milk, and might
contribute towards the renewing and restoring decayed lungs.'

Numb. 67. He thus speaks of his old friend.--'It has been remarked, by
curious observers, that poets are generally long lived, and run beyond
the usual age of man, if not cut off by some accident, or excess, as
Anacreon, in the midst of a very merry old age, was choaked with a grape
stone. The same redundancy of spirits that produces the poetical flame,
keeps up the vital warmth, and administers uncommon fuel to life. I
question not but several instances will occur to my reader's memory,
from Homer down to Mr. Dryden; I shall only take notice of two who have
excelled in Lyrics, the one an antient, the other a modern. The first
gained an immortal reputation by celebrating several jockeys in the
Olympic Games; the last has signalized himself on the same occasion,
by the Ode that begins with----To horse brave boys, to New-market, to
horse. The reader will by this time know, that the two poets I have
mentioned are Pindar, and Mr. D'Urfey. The former of these is long since
laid in his urn, after having many years together endeared himself to
all Greece, by his tuneful compositions. Our countryman is still living,
and in a blooming old age, that still promises many musical productions;
for if I am not mistaken our British Swan will sing to the last. The
best judges, who have perused his last Song on the moderate Man, do not
discover any decay in his parts; but think it deserves a place among the
finest of those works, with which he obliged the world in his more early
years.

'I am led into this subject, by a visit which I lately received from my
good old friend and cotemporary. As we both flourished togeth