IMPROMPTU

то

MR.

MEYER,

On his fending the Author, from the Continent, two Prints, representing The Coronation of VOLTAIRE, and ROUSSEAU'S Arrival in Elyfium.

T

1784

Ι.

HE Song that shakes the festive roof,

When mirth and mufic's livelieft notes afcend,

Is not more pleafing than the proof

Of kind remembrance from an abfent friend.

II.

Then guess the pleasure that we share,

And thus, dear MEYER, accept the thanks we owe ;

While we behold the crown'd VOLTAIRE,

And fee Elyfium hail our lov'd RouSSEAU!

III.

May all the honor, all the joy,

Known by each genius in thy gift portray'd,

Be thine, without the dull alloy

That ting'd their golden days with dusky shade {

IV.

As lively as the gay VOLTAIRE,

With his keen pen may thy fine pencil strive!

May'st thou as long delight the fair,

And triumph like the Bard, at eighty-five!

V.

As render as the warm ROUSSEAU,

Like him thy happier thoughts on nature fix!

But 'midft thy prospering children know
A true Elyfium-on this fide the Styx!

A. RECEIPT

TA

A RECEIPT

To make a TRAGEDY.

AKE a virgin from Afia, from Afric, or
Greece,

At least a king's daughter, or emperor's niece:
Take an elderly mifs for her kind confidant,

Still ready with pity or terror to pant,

While fhe faints and revives like the fenfitive

plant:

Take a Hero thought buried fome ten years or more,
But with life enough left him to rattle and roar :
Take a horrid old brute who deferves to be rack'd,
And call him a tyrant ten times in each act :
Take a priest of cold blood, and a warrior of hot,
And let them alternately blufter and plot :

Then throw in of foldiers and flaves quantum fuff.

Let them march, and stand still, fight, and halloo enough.

Now ftir all together these separate parts,

And feafon them well with Ohs! faintings, and starts:

Squeeze

Squeeze in, while they're stirring, a potent infufion
Of rage, and of horror, of love and illufion ;
With madnefs and murder complete the con-

clufion.

Let your princess, tho' dead by the murderous dagger, In a wanton bold.epilogue ogle and swagger :

Prove her past scenes of virtue are vapor and smoke,
And the stage's morality merely a joke:

Let her tell with what follies our country is curft,
And wifely conclude that play-writing's the worst,
Now serve to the public this olio complete,
And puff in the papers your delicate treat.

то

Who faw his fhady summer haunts defac'd;

Saw o'er his shatter'd grove black whirlwinds ride, And loud lamented this untimely waste.

II.

He spoke, and Æolus uprear'd his head :

Half his huge form, round which dark clouds were

driv❜n,

Rifing from ocean's broad and billowy bed,

Fill'd up the vast expanse from earth to heav'n.

III.

As his fierce eye furvey'd the rough profound,
From the ftern god the voice of anger broke ;

Air, earth, and fea, reverberate the found,

And shrinking nature shudder'd as he spoke :

IV. "Know