MISCELLANIES.

TO MY INGENIOUS AND WORTHY FRIEND

WILLIAM LOWNDS, ESQ

AUTHOR OF THAT CELEBRATED TREATISE IN FOLIO, CALLED THE

LAND-TAX BILL.

HEN Poets print their works, the fcribbling

WHEN

crew.

Stick the Bard o'er with Bays, like Christmas pew:
Can meagre Poetry fuch fame deserve ?
Can Poetry, that only writes to starve?
And shall no laurel deck that famous head,
In which the Senate's annual law is bred?
That hoary head, which greater glory fires,
By nobler ways and means true fame acquires.
O had I Virgil's force to fing the man,
Whose learned lines can millions raise per ann.
Great Lownds his praise should swell the trump of
fame,

And Rapes and Wapentakes refound his name.

If the blind Poet gain'd a long renown

By finging ev'ry Grecian chief and town;

Sure Lownds his profe much greater fame requires, Which sweetly counts five thousand Knights and

Squires,

Their feats, their cities, parishes and shires.

Thy

Thy copious Preamble fo fmoothly runs,
Taxes no more appear like legal duns,

Lords, Knights, and Squires th' Affeffor's power obey,
We read with pleasure, though with pain we pay.
Ah why did C thy works defame!
That author's long harangue betrays his name ;
After his fpeeches can his pen fucceed?

Though forc'd to hear, we're not oblig'd to read.
Under what science shall thy works be read?
All know thou wert not Poet born and bred;
Or doft thou boaft th' Hiftorian's lafting pen,
Whofe annals are the Acts of worthy men?
No. Satire is thy talent; and each lash
Makes the rich Miser tremble o'er his cash ;
What on the Drunkard can be more fevere,
Than direful taxes on his ale and beer?

Ev'n Button's Wits are nought compar'd to thee,
Who ne'er were known or prais'd but o'er his Tea,
While Thou through Britain's diftant isle shall spread,
In ev'ry Hundred and Divifion read.
Criticks in Clafficks oft' interpolate,

But ev'ry word of thine is fix'd as Fate.

Some works come forth at morn, but die at night
In blazing fringers round a tallow light;
Some may perhaps to a whole week extend,
Like S-

— (when unaflifted by a friend)

But thou shalt live a year in spite of fate:
And where's your author boasts a longer date?
Poets of old had fuch a wondrous power,
That with their verfes they could raise a tower;
But in thy Profe a greater force is found;
What Poet ever rais'd ten thousand pound?
Cadmus, by fowing dragon's teeth, we read,
Rais'd a vaft
army from the pois'nous feed.

Thy