And these once paid (to obligations
Repeated thanks grow ftale vexations,
And hurt the liberal donor more
Than all his lavish gifts before)
I skip about, as whim prevails,
Like your own frisky goats in WALES,
And follow where the Muse shall lead,
O'er hedge and ditch, o'er hill or mead.
Well might the Lordly writer praise
The first inventor of Essays,
Where wanton fancy gaily rambles,
Walks, paces, gallops, trots, and ambles;
And all things may be sung or said,
While drowsy METHOD's gone to bed.
And bleft the poet, or the rhymist,
(For furely none of the sublimest)
Who prancing in his easy mode,
Down this epiftolary road;
First taught the Muse to play the fool,
A truant from the pedant's school,
And skipping, like a taftelefs dunce,
O'er all the UNITIES at once;
But critics (who ftill judge by rules,
Tranfmitted down as guides to fools,
And howfoe'er they prate about 'em,
Drawn from wife folks who writ without
Will blame this frolic, wild excurfion,
Which fancy takes for her diversion,
As inconfiftent with the law,
Which keeps the fober Mufe in awe,
Who dares not for her life difpenfe,
With fuch mechanic chains for sense.
Yet men are often apt to blame Those errors they'd be proud to claim, And if their skill, of pigmy fize, To glorious darings cannot rife, From critic fpleen and pedant phlegm, Would make all genius creep with them.
Nay, e'en profefsors of the art, To prove their wit betray their heart, And speak against themselves, to show, What they would hate the world shou’d k
As when the measur'd couplets curse,
The manacles of Gothic verse,
While the trim bard in eafy ftrains,
Talks much of fetters, clogs, and chains;
He only aims that you should think,
How charmingly he makes them clink.
So have I feen in tragic ftride,
The hero of the Mourning Bride,
Sullen and fulky tread the stage,
Till, fixt attention to engage,
He flings his fetter'd arms about,
That all may
find ALPHONSO Out.
Oft have I heard it faid by thofe,
Who most shou'd blush to be her foes,
That rhyme's impertinent vexation,
Shackles the brave imagination,
Which longs with eager zeal to try
Her trackless path above the sky,
But that the clog upon her feet,
Restrains her flight, and damps her heat.
From BOILEAU down to his tranflators,
Dull paraphrafts, and imitators,
All rail at metre at the time
They write and owe their sense to rhyme.
Or had his strokes been half so fine,
Without that clofing name COTIN?
Yet dares He on this very theme,
His own APOLLO to blafpheme,
And talk of wars 'twixt rhyme and sense,
And murders which enfu'd from thence,
As if they both refolv❜d to meet,
Like Theban fons, in mutual heat,
Forgetful of the ties of brother,
To maim and maffacre each other.
'Tis true, fometimes to coftive brains, A couplet cofts exceeding pains; But where the fancy waits the skill Of fluent easy dress at will,
The thoughts are oft, like colts which ftra From fertile meads, and lofe their way, Clapt up and faften'd in the pound.
Of meafur'd rhyme, and barren found.
-What are these jarring notes I hear, Grating harsh difcord on my ear!
How fhrill, how coarfe, th' unfettl'd tone, Alternate 'twixt a fqueak and drone,
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