AN EPISTLE TO DR. SHEBBEARE: TO WHICH IS ADDED AN ODE TO SIR FLETCHER NORTON, 1 N VIII. BOOK IV. IMITATION OF HORACE, ODE BY MALCOLM MACGREGGOR, OF KNIGHTS-BRIDGE, ESQ AUTHOR OF THE HEROIC SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS, &c. * EPISTLE TO For a thousand tongues and every tongue Like Johnson's, arm'd with words of fix feet long, ADVERTISEMENT. Though I look upon this Poem, in point of elevation of dic tion and fublimity of fentiment, to be as highly heroical, as my Epistle to Sir William Chambers, yet I have not thought proper to add that epithet to it on the title-page. I am willing to with that first production of my muse may preserve the distinction which it now possesses, of being called, The Heroic Epißtle, par excellence. Befides this confideration, the different ranks of the two perfons, to whom these two works are addreffed, require a difference to be made in this matter; and it would be unpardonable in me not to difcriminate between a Comptroller of his Majesty's Works, and the Hackney Scribbler of a Newspaper; between a Placeman and a Perfioner, a Knight of the Polar Star, and a broken Apothecary. Ver, 2. Words of fix feet long.] Sefquipedalia verba. HOR, In multitudinous vociferation 5 To panegyricize this glorious nation, Then all that once was virtuous, wife, or brave, Ver. 11. Tickle the tatter'd fragment.] Churchill, alluding to this capital anecdote in our Doctor's life, fays, in his poem called The Author, The whole intent Of that parade, was fame, not punishment. Intimating that his ears received no detriment in the pillory. My line intimates, that they did. However, if my ntimation be falfe, it is eafily refuted: the Door has only to expofe his ears again to the public, and the real fact will be grint. C 2 Bot But I, like Anfty, feel myself unfit 20 Το So I, when first 1 tun'd th' heroic lay Gain'd Pownall's praife, as well as Almon's pay. 25 Ver 23. Blaudud's Ciceronè.] Anglice, Bath Guide. Ver. 25. Lashes unknown priefts. Without a note pofterity will never understand this line. Two or three years ago this gentleman found himself libelled in a newspaper; and, on fufpecting a certain clergyman to be the author, he wrote first a canto of a poem, called the Prieft Diffected, in which he prepared all chirurgical matters previous to the operation. In the mean time the parfon proved an alibi, and faved his bacon. To this first and unique canto, the author prefixed a something in which he exculpated himself from being the author of the Hercic Epifle, which it feems had been laid to his charge during the time the clan of Macgreggors continued without a Jame, and which, as the world well knows, was the only rea fon which prevented me from claiming the merit of that production. It is to this fomething, that the latter part of the line alludes. For in it he had told the public, that his Majefty had ten children, which it knew very well before. Hence the epithet well-known, Proudly ૩૦ Proudly I prick'd along, Sir William's fquire, "clever." But popularity, alas! has wings damn'd And flits as foon from poets as from kings. 35 40 49 50 Enough Ver. 33. Sir Thomas.] The Petronius of the prefent age needs not the addition of a firname to make the world certain who is meant by this appellative. Ver. 51. The cure of Sh-lb-ne's Soul.] It is not here infinuated, that the foul in question wants curing. The word Enough of fouls, unless we waste a line, And bronzes it, fecure from fhame, or fenfe, 55 Wretch that from Slander's filth art ever gleaning, 60 Old as thou art, methinks, 'twere fage advice, That N--th fhould call thee off from hunting Price. Some-younger blood-hound of his bawling pack Might forer gall his prefbyterian back. 65 Thy toothless jaws fhould free thee from the fight: Thou canft but mumble, when thou mean'ft to bite. Say, then, to give a requiem to thy toils, What if my mufe array'd her in thy spoils? ture; 70 Courts prais'd by thee, are curs'd beyond her fatire. cure is here put for care, in the fenfe in which ecclefiaftical lawyers ufe cura animarum. Ver. 63. From hunting Price.] See a feries of wretched letters, written by Shebbeare, in the Public Advertiser, and other papers. Yet |