There as Apollo moves with graceful pace A thousand glories play around his face

In fplendor drest he joins the feftive band,
And sweeps the golden lyre with magic hand.
Mean while, Latona and imperial Jove
Eye the bright Godhead with parental love;
And, as the Deities around him play,

Well pleas'd his goodly mien and awful port furvey*.

* The translator, when he begun this piece, had fome thoughts of giving a complete English verfion of all Homer's Hymns, being the only parts of his works never yet tranflated; but (to say nothing of his opinion of this fpecimen of his tranflation) fearing that this fpecies of poetry, though it has its beauties, and does not want admirers among the learned, would appear far lefs agreeable to the mere English reader, he defifted. They, who would form the jufteft idea of this fort of compofition among the ancients, may be better informed, by perufing Dr. Akenfide's moft claffical Hymn to the Naiads, than from any tranflation of Homer or Callimachus.

то

то

About to publish a volume of Miscellanies.

Written in the year 1755.

INCE now, all scruples caft away,

SINCE

Your works are rifing into day, Forgive, though I prefume to send This honeft counsel of a friend.

Let not your verse, as verfe now goes,
Be a strange kind of meafur'd profe;
Nor let your profe, which fure is worse,
Want nought but measure to be verse.
Write from your own imagination,
Nor curb your Muse by Imitation :
For copies fhew, howe'er expreft,
A barren genius at the best.

-But Imitation's all the mode

Yet where one hits, ten mifs the road.

The mimic bard with pleasure fees

Mat. Prior's unaffected ease:

Affumes

The day, the hour, the name, the dwelling,
And mars a curious tale in telling :
Obferves how eafy Prior flows,

Then runs his numbers down to profe.

Others have fought the filthy stews
To find a dirty flip-shod Muse.
Their groping genius, while it rakes

The bogs, the common-few'rs, and jakes,
Ordure and filth in rhyme exposes,

Difguftful to our eyes and nofes;

With many a dash

And much

that must offend us,

**

Hiatus non deflendus.

O Swift how wouldft thou blush to fee,
Such are the bards who copy Thee?

This Milton for his plan will chuse : Wherein resembling Milton's Muse ?

Milton, like thunder, rolls along
In all the majesty of song;
While his low mimics meanly creep,
Not quite awake, nor quite afleep :
Or, if their thunder chance to roll,
'Tis thunder of the muftard bowl.
The stiff expreffion, phrases strange,
The epithet's prepofterous change,
Forc'd numbers, rough and unpolite,
Such as the judging ear affright,
Stop in mid verse. Ye mimics vile !
Is't thus ye copy Milton's style?

His faults religiously you trace,

But borrow not a single grace.

How few, (fay, whence can it proceed?)

Who copy Milton, e'er fucceed!

But all their labours are in vain :

And wherefore fo?

The reason's plain.

Take it for granted, 'tis by those

Milton's the model mostly chose,

Who can't write verfe, and won't write profe.

Others, who aim at fancy, chuse To wooe the gentle Spenser's Muse. This poet fixes for his theme

An allegory, or a dream;

Fiction and truth together joins

Through a long waste of flimfy lines;
Fondly believes his fancy glows,

And image upon image grows;

Thinks his ftrong Mufe takes wond'rous flights,

Whene'er the fings of peerless wights,

Of dens, of palfreys, fpells and knights:
'Till allegory, Spenfer's veil

T' inftruct and please in moral tale,
With him's no veil the truth to fhroud,
But one impenetrable cloud.

Others, more daring, fix their hope

On rivaling the fame of Pope.

Satyr's the word, against the times

These catch the cadence of his rhymes,

And borne from earth by Pope's ftrong wings,

Their Muse aspires, and boldly flings

Her dirt up in the face of kings.