ebus_ touch'd the Poet's trembling Ear
With one supreme Commandment _Be thou Clear_;
When Thought meant less to reason than compile,
And the _Muse_ labour'd ... chiefly with the File.
Beneath full Wigs no Lyric drew its Breath
As in the Days of great ELIZABETH;
And to the Bards of ANNA was denied
The Note that _Wordsworth_ heard on _Duddon_-side.
But POPE took up his Parable, and knit
The Woof of Wisdom with the Warp of Wit;
He trimm'd the Measure on its equal Feet,
And smooth'd and fitted till the Line was neat;
He taught the Pause with due Effect to fall;
He taught the Epigram to come at Call;
He wrote----

FR. His _Iliad_!

P. Well, suppose you own
You like your _Iliad_ in the Prose of _Bohn_,--
Tho' if you'd learn in Prose how _Homer_ sang,
'Twere best to learn of _Butcher_ and of _Lang_,--
Suppose you say your Worst of POPE, declare
His Jewels Paste, his Nature a Parterre,
His Art but Artifice--I ask once more
Where have you seen such Artifice before?
Where have you seen a Parterre better grac'd,
Or gems that glitter like his Gems of Paste?
Where can you show, among your Names of Note,
So much to copy and so much to quote?
And where, in Fine, in all our English Verse,
A Style more trenchant and a Sense more terse?

So I, that love the old _Augustan_ Days
Of formal Courtesies and formal Phrase;
That like along the finish'd Line to feel
The Ruffle's Flutter and the Flash of Steel;
That like my Couplet as compact as clear;
That like my Satire sparkling tho' severe,
Unmix'd with Bathos and unmarr'd by Trope,
I fling my Cap for Polish--and for POPE!

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE

_To * * Esq. of * * with a Life of the late Ingenious M^r. W^m.
Hogarth._

Dear Cosmopolitan,--I know
I should address you a _Rondeau_,
Or else announce what I've to say
At least _en Ballade fratrisee_;
But No: for once I leave Gymnasticks,
And take to simple _Hudibrasticks_;
Why should I choose another Way,
When this was good enough for GAY?

You love, my FRIEND, with me, I think,
That Age of Lustre and of Link;
Of _Chelsea_ China and long "s"es,
Of Bag-wigs and of flowered Dresses;
That Age of Folly and of Cards,
Of Hackney Chairs and Hackney Bards;
--No H--LTS, no K--G--N P--LS