ur ceases to be shame:
This weans from blushes lewd Tyrawley's face,
Gives Hawley[6] praise, and Ingoldsby disgrace,
From Mead to Thomson shifts the palm at once,
A meddling, prating, blundering, busy dunce!
And may, should taste a little more decline,
Transform the nation to a herd of swine. 190

FRIEND.

The fatal period hastens on apace.
Nor will thy verse the obscene event disgrace;
Thy flowers of poetry, that smell so strong,
The keenest appetites have loathed the song,
Condemn'd by Clark, Banks, Barrowby, and Chitty,
And all the crop-ear'd critics of the city:
While sagely neutral sits thy silent friend,
Alike averse to censure or commend.

POET.

Peace to the gentle soul that could deny
His invocated voice to fill the cry! 200
And let me still the sentiment disdain
Of him who never speaks but to arraign,
The sneering son of Calumny and Scorn,
Whom neither arts, nor sense, nor soul adorn;
Or his, who, to maintain a critic's rank,
Though conscious of his own internal blank,
His want of taste unwilling to betray,
'Twixt sense and nonsense hesitates all day,
With brow contracted hears each passage read,
And often hums, and shakes his empty head, 210
Until some oracle adored pronounce
The passive bard a poet or a dunce;
Then in loud clamour echoes back the word,
'Tis bold, insipid--soaring, or absurd.
These, and the unnumber'd shoals of smaller fry,
That nibble round, I pity and defy.

[Footnote 1: 'Williamson:' governor of the Tower.]

[Footnote 2: 'Vanquished knight:' Sir John Cope.]

[Footnote 3: 'Stanhope:' the Earl of Chesterfield.]

[Footnote 4; 'Scot, Gideon,' &c.: forgotten contractors,
money-lenders, &c.]

[Footnote 5: 'Peter's obsequies:' Peter Waters, Esq.]

[Footnote 6: 'Hawley:' discomfited at Falkirk in 1746.]

* * * * *

THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746.

1 Mourn, hapless Caledonia! mourn
Thy banish'd peace, thy laurels torn!
Thy sons, for valour long renown'd,
Lie slaughter'd on their native ground;
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.

2 The wretched owner sees afar
His all become the prey of war;
Bethinks him of his babes and wife,
Then smites his breast, and curses li