And daily threaten to drive thence My little garrison of sense: The fierce banditti, which I mean, Are gloomy thoughts, led on by Spleen. Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows, As one of gold, and your's was such. I fairly find myself pitch-kettled;* * Pitch-kettled, a favourite phrase at the time when this Epistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what in the Spectator's time would have been called bamboozled. First, for a thought-since all agree- Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son, gaps And after many a vain essay, To captivate the tempting prey, and mews; Gives him at length the lucky pat, Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains. The sense was dark; 'twas therefore fit With simile t' illustrate it; But as too much obscures the sight, As often as too little light, We have our similes cut short, For matters of more grave import. That Matthew's numbers run with ease Each man of common sense agrees! All men of common sense allow, That Robert's lines are easy too: Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains, Smooth'd and refin'd the meanest strains; Nor suffer'd one ill-chosen rhyme T'escape him at the idlest time; And thus o'er all a lustre cast, That, while the language lives, shall last. Sure so much labour, so much toil, Bespeak at least a stubborn soil: Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed, Who both write well, and write full speed! Who throw their Helicon about As freely as a conduit spout! Friend Robert, thus like chien scavant, Lets fall a poem en passant, Nor needs his genuine ore refine! "Tis ready polish'd from the mine. THE FIFTH SATIRE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE. [Printed in Duncombe's Horace.] 1759. A humourous Description of the Author's Journey from Rome to Brundusium. "TWAS a long journey lay before us, When I, and honest Heliodorus, Who far in point of rhetoric First at Aricia we alight, And there refresh, and pass the night, Our entertainment rather coarse Than sumptuous, but I've met with worse. |