quite the best of the argument; and indeed I was
determined not to give it up, till you acknowledged yourself vanquished;
so to verse I go again, tooth and nail.

How well you talk of glory and the guards,
Of fighting heroes, and their great rewards!
Our eyes behold you glow with martial flame,
Our ears attend the never-ceasing theme.
Fast from your tongue the rousing accents flow,
And horror darkens on your sable brow!
We hear the thunder of the rolling war,
And see red vict'ry shouting from her car!

You kindly took me up, an awkward cub,
And introduced me to the Soaping-Club;[8]
Where ev'ry Tuesday eve our ears are blest
With genuine humour, and with genuine jest:
The voice of mirth ascends the list'ning sky,
While, "soap his own beard, every man," you cry.
Say, who could e'er indulge a yawn or nap,
When Barclay roars forth snip, and Bainbridge snap?[9]
Tell me how I your favours may return;
With thankfulness and gratitude I burn.
I've one advice, oh! take it I implore!
Search out America's untrodden shore;
There seek some vast Savannah rude and wild,
Where Europe's sons of slaughter never smil'd,
With fiend-like arts, insidious to betray
The sooty natives as a lawful prey.
At you th' astonish'd savages shall stare,
And hail you as a God, and call you fair:
Your blooming beauty shall unrivall'd shine,
And Captain Andrew's whiteness yield to thine.[10]

[Footnote 8: The Soaping-Club--a Club in Edinburgh, the motto of which
was, "Every Man soap his own Beard;" or, "Every Man indulge his own
Humour." Their game was that facetious one, Snip, Snap, Snorum.]

[Footnote 9: Barclay and Bainbridge, two members of this Club.]

[Footnote 10: "And Captain Andrew's whiteness, &c." The writers of these
Letters, instead of being rivals in wit, were rivals in complexion.]

In reality, I'm under vast obligations to you. It was you who first made
me thoroughly sensible (indeed I very readily believed it) of the
excellencies of my own Poetry; and about that time, I made two wonderful
discoveries, to wit, that you was a sensible man, and that I was a good
poet; discoveries which I dare say are yet doubted by some incredulous
people. Boswell, I shall not praise your letter, because I know you have
an aversion at being thought a genius, or a wit. The reluctance with
which you always