There whines Morality, a canting monk;

There roars Reform, heroically drunk;

Stern Patriotism tries new schemes to find

To serve his country, and to cheat mankind;

There the vile quack* invents his pois'nous pill,

By royal patent privileg❜d to kill;

And there the atheist's nightly thunders roll,

That to destroy the body, this the soul.

* I beg leave to offer the following epitaph as a very appropriate

one for either Doctor B**d*m, or Doctor S*1*m*n.

Then ask no more—yet if a doubt remain,

Why thus to satire I devote my strain;

With this reply be satisfied at once,

While BOWLES* exists, can satire want a dunce?

* The Rev. William Lisle Bowles, "a Parson much bemus'd in beer."-It would be a work of no small labor to wade through the various productions of this reverend bard. Odes, Epics, and Sonnets innumerable, " pass in long review." Let the following extracts suffice.-A Poem, called " Time's Holiday," affords a beautiful specimen of rural simplicity:

"Golden lads and lasses gay,

Now is life's sweet holiday;

Time shall lay by his scythe for you,

And Joy the valley with fresh violets strew."

Next comes a description of Loutherbourg's scene in France,

where Mr. Bowles endeavours to be witty:

"And sure none ever saw a landscape shine,

Basking in beams of such a sun as thine,

But felt a fervid dew upon his phiz,

And panting cry'd, “ Oh, Lord, how hot it is!"

BOWLES who hath cherish'd as a costly pearl,

The horse-play, dull obscenity of Curl;

Th' accumulated trash of SMEDLEY's page,

For why?-to vent on POPE his puny rage.

We have then "skiey blue," "bluey fading hills," and a large mass of verse, 'yclept, "The Sylph of Summer, or Air," being part of a projected Poem on the Elements. All this might be passed over; but why take up his pen against Pope? Could he suppose that he was rendering a service to literature, by defaming one of its brightest ornaments? But enough of Mr. Bowles and his works: we may forgive a blockhead "that little dares and little means;" but not one that dares much, and means nothing.

"More last words of Mr Baxter !"-Mr. Bowles has lately published a poem, called " The Missionary," corpus sine pectore! full of his usual affected prettiness of style. I have heard of one John

Taylor, the water Poet; Mr. B. may be christened the milk and water Poet.

Is it not hard, (my friend) nay doubly hard,

A sorry Critic and more sorry Bard,

Whose jaded Pegasus 'yclept divine,

Cries out for quarter at the fourteenth line;

Should for base lucre*, (oh, how vilely won!)

Complete what RALPH and DENNIS left undone?
Thus urg'd, thus prompted by the warm desire
To vindicate the genius I admire;

To add at least my humble meed of praise,

To names rever'd in BRITAIN's brighter days;

To strip the poet of his false sublime,

(Then BOWLES, the Lord have mercy on thy rhyme!)

And shew that Critics may at times appear

In praise too cold, in censure too severe;

* Mr. Bowles, I understand, got three hundred pounds for his edition of Pope.

I take the pen-when folly met his eye,

DEMOCRITUS Would laugh-and so must I *.

Now to begin-nor distant need we roam,

Kind fate hath sent us fools enough at home;
Our modern poets, bounteous in th' extreme,
Rhyme on, and make waste paper by the ream.
Five thousand lines compos'd—a modest stint!
Next WESTALL must design, and BULMER print;
Then bound with care, and hot-press'd ev'ry sheet,

The wonder-working quarto shines complete.

Forth comes the promis'd work in all its pride,

The author simpers, and the wits decide;

* IMITATION.

The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I.

POPE.