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APOLOGY FOR WRITING.

Ει μεν περι καινε τινος πραγματος πρετιθετο λεγεινή επισχων αν έως οι πλειςοι των ειωθοτων γνώμην απεφήναντο ει μεν ηρεσκε τι μοι των ύπο τέτων ρηθέντων ήσυχίαν αν ηγον ει δε μη, τοτ' αν και αυτός επειρωμων & γινωσκω λεγειν επειδαν δε περι ὧν πολλάκις ειρηκασιν έτοι πρότερον, συμά βαίνει και γινι σκοπείν, ηγέμαι και πρώτος ανασας, εικοτως αν συγγνωμης τυγχάνειν. DEMOSTH. PHIL. I.

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APOLOGY FOR WRITING.

F. WHAT! can you think the world will read your lays,

Or, if it reads them, e'er accord its praise?
Are there not myriads, fools that haunt the town,
And strive to cram their vapid nothings down,
That you must join the irritable throng,
Squeeze out your weekly sonnet, ode, or song;
Or scribble an epistle that will lie

Unread at best, p'rhaps line a trunk with Pye,
Or mingle with Scotch Letters by a Lord,
Wrapt round red herrings on a huxter's board?

A. Nay, spare your censures. If the town can bear Pratt's dogs, that mourn with lank dishevelled hair,a

a If any one wishes to know how a dog may dip his morsel in vinegar! let him consult Mr. Pratt, who, if any thing can do it, will make him exclaim,

"By day and night, but this is wonderous strange!"

Cats, and canary-birds, and tales of woe,
That outwhine all the pupils of Rousseau;
If all the maudlin sonnetteers that weep
Cock-chaffers, lap-dogs, jackasses and sheep,
A frog, crushed caterpillar, or a fly,
If these can find admirers, may not I?

F. Why, 'faith, 'tis doubtful.

A. I may trust, I think,

The known omnipotence of jetty ink;

And now since honest folks, when books they buy,
Choose them or by the finger or the eye;
Now, since a work with creamy paper graced,
With sure success lays claim to wit and taste,
Since hot-pressed pages give the best pretence
To force, to genius, judgment, and sound sense,
Bulmer shall be my printer, every line

On wire-wove foolscap, or bright crown, shall shine;
High-wrought vignettes my title-page shall grace,
And Pybus, quite outdone, shall hide his face;

a

a See (if you have five guineas to throw away) " The Sovereign," a poem, by Charles Small Pybus, Esquire, M. P. and one of the lords commissioners of the treasury, in which our gracious sovereign is compared to his late imperial and ever-memorable majesty Paul.

Pybus, whom jealous indignation fired,

When first he marked how every art conspired To deck our honoured Shakspeare's matchless page:

But soon to emulation turned his rage,

And "Yes," he cried, "the Alderman shall see a "That I can be magnificent as he:

"Superb my book shall blaze before the town, "And Shakspeare's self shall yield to me the crown."

F. Nay, if you're willing to quit all pretence To judgment, reason, and to common sense; If you are pleased your verses should be seen Mixt with ænigmas on a medley skreen; If this suffices, and you think this fame, Write on, and welcome, write, in Folly's name.

A. "Tis true I am not one whose fertile brain, With bare six weeks' gestation, without pain, Drops a mis-shapen mass, half verse, half prose,b To blot his country's name, to laud her foes;

a The Alderman"....Boydell.

b Bienheureux Scuderi! dont la fertile plume

Peut tous les mois sans piene enfanter un volume!

BOILEAU, SAT. 11.

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