Lo! I on the gold ball aloft take my stand,

To view all the scribbling tribe of our land;
And as I my comments thus chaunt from above,

I scorn Folly's anger, revere Wisdom's love;
With Swift I must cry, may it e'er be my fate,
By fools to be hated as Folly I hate.

Good Lord, from this summit what tribes meet my

view!

Of asses, how many! of wise men, how few!
The friend of Religion by dulness inspir'd;

The Methodist Ranter with blasphemy fir'd;
The Moralist tame on the virtues he handles;
The Politic Wight penning trash to light candles;
Historian with mind just obscur'd in a mist,

As dense as his brother dull Topographist.

Next Surgeons and Doctors prescribe horrid lotion; The Satyrist puts gaping feeling in motion; Biographer comes to assume leaden station,

And wretched pretenders to new Education;

With whom Commentators may well assume place,
And grave Antiquarians, a maniac race.

Next follow the Poets; my stars, what a number!
Romancers and Novelists, Folly's true lumber;

The stay at-home writers of Travels and Tours,
Of snug chimney corners renown'd connoisseurs;
While Drama.ists vapid alike join the band,

And Musical Doctors that dance hand in hand.

To these let us add the poor drudge, Pamphleteer,

Periodical Writers that sot over beer,

The Scribes Miscellaneous, but mere hodge-podge

rakers,

Great Lexicographers and Catalogue-makers:

In fine, the amalgama serves as a mark,

To point out the tenants of Noah's great ark;
Since by all that is holy, with beast and with bird
You'll find as good company I'll pledge my word. (d)
The Greeks and the Romans had Poets we know,
Who felt of Apollo the exquisite glow;

(d) Difficile est satiram non scribere.

Juvenal.

Such is the situation of things, that it is difficult to avoid writing

satire.

An Homer, with Hesiod and Pindar, combine
The soul-thrilling flights of a Fancy divine ;
While Horace and Virgil, with Ovid, proclaim
The genius that blazon'd the old Roman name:
But of Data more recent, our England has shown
That talent adorn'd once Britannia's bright zone.
For imag'ry Spenser (e) ranks first 'midst the band;
A Shakespeare and Milton illumin'd the land;

(e) With all due deference to Sir Noodle's perspicuity, I conceive that he has not done justice to the republic of letters in Great Britain, by placing Spenser as the leading star in our literary hemisphere. Though the phraseology be uncouth, nevertheless every thing is due to the lucubrations of venerable Chaucer. The sweetness of Lord Surry, who infused the tenderness of Petrarch throughout his sonnets, must always confer honour upon the age when his effusions met publicity. Nor be the name of Sir Thomas More forgotten, who, for energy and perspicuousness of style, is not inferior to any subsequent writer whatsoever; and whose great abilities are summed up in the following words by Burnet, in his Specimens of English Prose Writers, vol. i. p. 394.

"Sir Thomas More is justly regarded as one of the chief "revivers of classical literature in England. He both wrote

As satirist, Butler unique is enroll'd;

In Dryden, the Poet sublime we behold:

To these join a Thomson, and high-finish'd Pope;
In science, give Bacon, Locke, Newton full scope;
For style chaste and easy, note Addison, Steele,
With Goldsmith, whose pathos makes ev'ry breast

feel;

While to these might be added an host worthy praise, Deserving the loudest applause from my lays.

" and spoke Latin with almost the correctness and fluency of an ancient Roman; and with all his theological errors, he "taught that erudition which civilized his country. He is "scarcely less conspicuous as an improver of his native tongue. "His language is more studied, more appropriate and correct, " is more the phraseology of a man of learning and sense, than "any specimen which preceded him. From his proficiency in "the Greek and Latin, he was enabled to transfuse into his " vernacular dialect many of the excellencies which characterise "those admirable languages; and his style abounds with inver“sions and other peculiarities of classical diction. His English "works were considered as standards of style, as low down as "the reign of James the first."

Such once were the Suns that shone forth in our

sphere;

Reverse now the scene, and let moderns appear.

Too

pompous to study, thro' thick and thro' thin They dash on, the bright wreathe of verdure to win; Disdaining, at all times, to think or reflect; Too proud to re-read, to re-write, or correct: As if, when composing, perfection was in 'em, And Phoebus himself was determin'd to win 'em. In fine, the press teems with such trash in each quarter,

One would think all the world quaff'd Parnassus's water; (f)

(f) But if you'd have me now expose
Th' ingredients which a work compose,
And all the hodge-podge designate
Which modern scribes amalgamate,
For grand induction they must boast,
Sheer impudence to rule the roast;
They should have flippant readings—tantum;
Of anecdotes and tales a quantum;