d dying, bows his laurel'd head,
And almost deigns to ask superfluous bread."[25]
A sceptick once, he taught the letter'd throng
To doubt the existence of fam'd Ossian's song;
Yet by the eye of faith, in reason's spite,
Saw ghosts and witches, preach'd up _second sight_:
For o'er his soul sad Superstition threw
Her gloom, and ting'd his genius with her hue.
On popish ground he takes his high church station,
To sound mysterious tenets through the nation;[26]
On Scotland's kirk he vents a bigot's gall,[27]
Though her young chieftains prophecy like SAUL![28]
On Tetty's state his frighted fancy runs,[29]
And Heaven's appeas'd by cross unbutter'd buns:[30]
He sleeps and fasts[31], pens on himself a libel,[32]
And still believes, but never reads the Bible.[33]
Fame says, at school, of scripture science vain,
Bel and the Dragon smote him on the brain;[34]
Scar'd with the blow, he shun'd the Jewish law,
And eyed the Ark with reverential awe:[35]
Let priestly S--h--n in a godly fit
The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ;
Though candid Adams, by whom DAVID fell,[36]
Who ancient miracles sustain'd so well,
To recent wonders may deny his aid,[37]
Nor own a buzy zealot of the trade.
A coward wish, long stigmatiz'd by fame,
Devotes Maecenas to eternal shame;[38]
Religious Johnson, future life to gain,
Would ev'n submit to everlasting pain:
How clear, how strong, such kindred colours paint
The Roman epicure and Christian saint!
O, had he liv'd in more enlighten'd times,
When signs from heaven proclaim'd vile mortals' crimes,
How had he groan'd, with sacred horrors pale,
When Noah's comet shook her angry tail[39];
That wicked comet, which Will Whiston swore
Would burn the earth that she had drown'd before![40]
Or when Moll Tosts, by throes parturient vext,
Saw her young rabbets peep from Esdras' text![41]
To him such signs, prepar'd by mystick grace,
Had shewn the impending doom of Adam's race.
But who to blaze his frailties feels delight,
When the great author rises to our sight?
When the pure tenour of his life we view,
Himself the bright exemplar that he drew?
Whose works console the good, instruct the wise,
And teach the soul to claim her kindred skies.
By grateful bards his name be ever sung,
Whose sterling touch has fix'd the English tongue!
Fortune's dire weight, the patron's cold disdain,
"Shook off, as dew-