Give light to passages too much in shade, Nor let a doubt obscure one verse you've made; Your friend's " a Johnson," not to leave one word, However trifling, which may seem absurd; Such erring trifles lead to serious ills, And furnish food for critics, (1) or their quills. As the Scotch fiddle, with its touching tune, As yawning waiters fly (2) Fitzscribble's (3) lungs; As prelate's homily, or placeman's speech; Long as the last years of a lingering lease, When riot pauses until rents increase. While such a minstrel, muttering fustian, strays O'er hedge and ditch, through unfrequented ways, If by some chance he walks into a well, And shouts for succour with stentorian yell, Arguet ambigue dictum; mutanda notabit; Ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urguet, Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps In puteum, foveamve; licet, Succurrite, longum (1) "A crust for the critics."-Bayes, in the " Rehearsal." "fly (2) And the "waiters" are the only fortunate people who can from them; all the rest, viz. the sad subscribers to the "Literary Fund," being compelled, by courtesy, to sit out the recitation without a hope of exclaiming, "Sic" (that is, by choking Fitz. with bad wine, or worse poetry) me servavit Apollo!" 66 (3) ["Fitzscribble," originally "Fitzgerald." See Vol. VII. p. 225. — E.] "A rope! help, Christians, as ye hope for grace!" Budgell, a rogue and rhymester, for no good, (Unless his case be much misunderstood) When teased with creditors' continual claims, “To die like Cato," (1) leapt into the Thames! And therefore be it lawful through the town For any bard to poison, hang, or drown. (2) Clamet, Io cives! non sit qui tollere curet. Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Ætnam (1) On his table were found these words: " What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." But Addison did not " approve; " and if he had, it would not have mended the matter. He had invited his daughter on the same water-party; but Miss Budgell, by some accident, escaped this last paternal attention. Thus fell the sycophant of "Atticus," and the enemy of Pope!-[Eustace Budgell, a friend and relative of Addison's, "leapt into the Thames " to escape a prosecution, on account of forging the will of Dr. Tindal; in which Eustace had provided himself with a legacy of two thousand pounds. To this Pope alludes— "Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on my quill, And write whate'er he please-except my will." (2) ["We talked (says Boswell) of a man's drowning himself. — JOHNSON. 'I should never think it time to make away with myself.' I put the case of Eustace Budgell, who was accused of forging a will, and sunk himself in the Thames, before the trial of its authenticity came on. 'Suppose, Sir,' said I, 'that a man is absolutely sure that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace, and expulsion from society.' JOHNSON. 'Then, Sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not Who saves the intended suicide receives Small thanks from him who loathes the life he leaves; And hence is haunted with a rhyming rage- But him, unhappy! whom he seizes,-him He flays with recitation limb by limb; Probes to the quick where'er he makes his breach, known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known."" ker's Boswell, vol. ii. pp. 229. 290.-E.] See Cro (1) If "dosed with," &c. be censured as low, I beg leave to refer to the original for something still lower; and if any reader will translate "Minxerit in patrios cineres," &c. into a decent couplet, I will insert said couplet in lieu of the present. |