shed by J.Ro ach, Woburn Street New Drury Theatre Royal 1795.

COTTERS SATURDAY NIGHT, by Robert Burne.

THE BOWER OF BLISS,

by Spencer.

PROLOGUE & EPILOGUE
to the Satires,
by Alex" Pope.

An Essay

on Translated Verse,

by Roscommon.

&c. &c.

Cruikshank deli

Hurray

Stop, Stop, John Gilpin: here's the House They all at once did cry;

The Dinner waits, and we are tired :

Said Gilpin

LONDON Printed by & for I Roach, at the Britannia Printing Office. Woburn Sheet New Drury Theatre Proyal April 1.1795.

AN ESSAY ON TRANSLATED VERSE,

By the EARL of ROSCOMMON.

HAPPY that author whofe correct effay*
Repairs fo well our old Horatian way :

And happy you, who (by propitious fate)
On

On great Apollo's facred ftandard wait.

And with strict difcipline inftructed right,

Have learn'd to use your arms before you fight.
But fince the prefs, the pulpit, and the stage,
Confpire to cenfure and expose our age;
Provok'd too far, we refolutely must,

To the few virtues that we have, be just.
For who have long'd or who have labour'd more
To fearch the treasures of the Roman store,
Or dig in Grecian mines for purer ore?
The nobleft fruits, tranfplanted in our ifle,
With early hope and fragrant bloffoms fmile.
Familiar Ovid tender thoughts infpires,
And nature feconds all his foft defires:
Theocritus does now to us belong;

And Albion's rocks repeat his rural fong.

Vol. VI. 21.

A

John Sheffield Duke of Buckingham.

Who

Who has not heard how Italy was bleft
Above the Medes, above the wealthy Eaft?
Or Gallus' fong, fo tender and fo true,

As even Lycoris might with pity view!

When mourning nymphs attend their Daphnis' hear fe,
Who does not weep that reads the moving verfe?
But hear, oh hear, in what exalted flrains.
Secilian Mufes through thefe happy plains
Proclaim Saturnian times-our own Apollo reigns!
When France had breath'd after inteftine broils,
And peace and conqueft crown'd her foreign toils,
There (cultivated by a royal hand)

Learning grew faft, and spread, and blefs'd the land ;
The choicefl books that Rome or Greece have known,
Her excellent tranflators made her own;

And Europe flill confiderably gains

Both by their good example and their pains.
From hence our generous emulation came;
We undertook, and we perform'd the fame.
But now we flew the world a nobler way,
And in tranflated verse do more than they;
Serene and clear harmonious Horace flows
With sweetness not to be express'd in prose:
Degrading profe explains his meaning ill,
And fhews the ftuff, but not the workman's fkill:
I who have ferv'd him more than twenty years)
Scarce know my mafter as he there appears.
Vain are our neighbours hopes, and vain their cares ;
Their fault is more their language's than theirs :

'Tis