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You hate the close restraint of lock and key,
Which to a modest book would grateful be.
But go from me forewarn'd, this lesson learn,
When gone from me you never can return ;*
When this shall happen, I (who in your ear
Instill'd good counsel which you would not hear)
In your distress will scornful laugh at you,
Like him, who down a rock in anger threw
The ass, that would not his commands pursue.
Who'll strive against his will to save a fool

Whom friendly admonitions can't control ?"

The reader at length smokes the champion we have to deal with he will observe what strength of thought and diction, and what a flow of poetry are here! A piddling reader, it is certain, might object to almost all the rhymes of the above quotation; but the less rhyme the more like blank verse, and all know that Milton wrote without such a restraint: but if any reader is for having the above quotation to be rhyme, he has nothing more to do than to read it poetically. Let key, for instance, be called kee, and then it rhymes with be; and let fool be called fole, and then it answers control in the next line. By this means the poetry, which our author, no doubt, meant for blank verse, may serve for either. We have here given but a taste of our bard's peformance those who are pleased with it may indulge themselves to satiety, in a publication, which he promises shortly, of several other modernized works of this kind. We shall beg leave, in all friendship only, to offer this unconquered champion the following motto to his future production,

Κην με φαγης επι ριζαν, όμως ετι καρποφορήσω.

"We are assured there is a mistake here, being informed a large bale of this work was sent to Hillingdon for waste paper."-On Gregory, jun.

XXII.-DUNKIN'S EPISTLE TO LORD CHESTER FIED.

[From the Critical Review, 1760. "An Epistle to the Right Honorable Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, to which is added An Eclogue. By William Dunkin, D.D."* 8vo.]

In this publication Dr. Dunkin appears at once excessively merry, and extremely sorrowful. His epistle to the Earl of Chesterfield is most familiarly good-humored; his eclogue, or Lawson's obesquies,t is mournful to the last degree. The epistle may be considered a smart prologue to a deep tragedy, or a jig before an adagio, or (to run into his own manner) a plate of pickles before a shoulder of mutton The death of his friend seems no way to have abated his festivity; and though he weeps for Lawson in poetry, he laughs with his lordship in prose: in short, were we to judge of the writer by this production, we should give him the same appellation which Chapelain gave to Ménage, "the poet with the double face."

His epistle to the Earl of Chesterfield begins thus: "My lord, your fast friend, trusty correspondent, and faithful ally, the prince of printers, archbibliopolist, intelligencer-general, and general advertiser of the kingdom of Ireland, having lately discovered, that I had not for many months addressed your lordship by letter, or otherwise, with a very grave face and composed countenance, but a fervor and tartness of style, unwont to flow from the dispassionate tongue of his most serene highness, called

[In early life Dunkin attracted the attention of Dean Swift, who, in one of his letters, describes him as a “gentleman of much wit, and the best English, as well as Latin poet in Ireland." The Earl of Chesterfield, when he held the government of Ireland, gave him the rectory of Enniskilling; where he died in 1765. His Poetical Works, in two volumes quarto, were published in 1774.]

+ [Dr. John Lawson, author of "Lectures concerning Oratory, delivered at Trinity College, Dublin." He died in 1759.]

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me roundly to task, and expressed his august indignation and royal resentment. 'What,' said he, was it for this, that we brought thy labors from the darkness of thy closet, into the light of our shop, and clothed thy naked and neglected name with legible respect, and titular dignity? What apartment from the base to the summit of our Palladian palace hath not been open for thy reception, and furnished for thy residence? When was our oval table unspread for thy repast; and when was our big-bellied bottle withheld from thy lips? Hast thou not sat down in our presence, even on our right hand, while poets have stood in waiting? And have we not in familiar-wise conversed with thee, while we have only nodded unto critics?"

This serene highness, this we, is Mr. Faulkner, the printer,* who, if he speaks in this manner, must be no doubt an excessively facetious humorous companion, and well worthy not only the acquaintance of the poet and his lordship, but also of the public. A great part of the epistle is taken up with this speech; which, whenever the writer takes up the conversation himself, is every whit as humorous as the other. Hear him:

"But, alas! how will the sanguine hopes and expectations of the parties premised be rendered totally null and void, when the bellowing tribe of meagre bards and lank critics, like Pharaoh's ill-favored and lean-fleshed kine, eat up my best-featured and fairest offspring! What can be wrought and finished with nicer art and ingenuity, than Arachne's lawn, suspended to the sublime

* [George Faulkner, designated by Swift," the prince of Dublin printers." He rose to eminence chiefly under the Dean's patronage, and was the first who gave to the world a collected edition of his works. He died, at an advanced age, in 1775. He had been journeyman to Mr. Bowyer. In a letter to Mr. Nichols, written a few months before his death, he says, "my apothecary's bill doth not amount to five shillings a year for all my family, two-pence of which is not my share. Claret is the universal medicine here, and the mundungus port the bane and stupefaction of all society.-See Lit. Anec., vol. iii. p. 208.]

ceiling of a spacious hall, as it were beyond the reach of inferior accidents? When, lo! some vile, unthrifty chamber-maid cometh with her anti-Christian Pope's head-brush, and sweepeth down the weaver and his web together.

“Such, I fear, will become the downfall and undoing of these my lofty lucubrations, disconcerted, and broken by the callous and clumsy hands of witlings and word-catchers, who from damned poetry have turned their heads to foul criticism, as folks convert their cast coach-horses to dung-carts.

"Little will it avail me, that, independent of external aid, I have spun the materials out of my own brains, and labored whole days and nights in bringing the work to perfection, when the delicate and tender texture, instead of standing the test, will not even abide the touch.

"The dung-carts and their criticisms may pass well enough together; and, lest they should object against this comparison of myself to an insect, as mean and creeping, let them hear what Pliny saith of such industrious and neat spinsters: Arancarum genus eruditâ operatione conspicuum.' The family of spiders are very notable for their curious housewifery. But in case they should spare the spider, they will arraign the retailer of this homely similitude for an arrant plagiary: to quash which indictment I can offer no fairer plea than an honest confession, that I borrowed the thought, with very little variation, from a voluminous Latin and English poem, written purely for the benefit of their fraternity many years ago, although not yet published. It is dedicated to your lordship, and must, I believe, pass for mine, till they can lay it before the door of a better father.

“Here would I willingly halt, and spread a veil over the poet and spider, but murder and truth will at some odd time or other ebulliate. Much it irketh me to conceive any thing that might cast the least unsavory note of aspersion on any member of our

society. But what I am going to mention is rather a matter of compassion and pity, than reproach or shame; a distemper which frequently seizes the body poetical with sudden fits and starts, and, what is most extraordinary, the violence of the paroxysm, instead of heating, chills the whole mass of blood, ties the tongue, and sinks the spirits. Some naturalists have ascribed it to the malign influence of a planet, and look upon it as the consequent and concomitant effect of a versifying itch: but I should rather attribute it to mere sublunary causes; and such accidents will happen, while there are such unclassical things upon earth, as paltry debts, insolent writs, and rude bailiffs; for, although poets may take great licenses, yet, alas! Grub-street is no place of privilege."

Who could have thought, to speak sincerely, that such indifferent prose should come from the man who is author of many pretty poetical pieces, among which, this of Lawson's Obsequies is not the worst. The following lines, for instance, are not despi

cable:

"But should he fall? And shall the mighty muse

The tuneful tribute of her grief refuse?

Refuse to him her memorable tears

With whom she sported in his tender years?
While, yet unconcious of himself he stray'd,
Unsought, unnoticed, through the pensive shade;

With wealth unfavor'd, to no lordly line
Ally'd, but Pallas, and the sacred Nine,
I cull'd him out from all the sable crowd
Of Alma's tribes, indignant of the proud,
The pert, the vain, preferr'd his humble name,
And woo'd his friendship with a pious flame.

"We laugh'd at fops, fantastically gay,
The pomp of pride, and impotence of sway;
At scribblers vile, who blurr'd the blacken'd page

With fustian phrensy, for poetic rage;

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