DEDICATION, TO SOAME JENYNS, Esq. SIR, WHEN I lately read your Difquifition on Government and Civil Liberty, it gave me much concern to find, that you had not written it in verfe. Such images and fuch fentiments, fuch wit and fuch arguments, were furely too good to be wafted on profe. And you who have written verfe fo long, and with fo much facility, are highly inexcufeable for not having employed that talent on fo important an occafion as the prefent, when you had taken upon you to confute "fo many abfurd "principles concerning government and liberty, which have of late been diffeminated with un. ," usual industry;" principles, let me add, which were still more induftriously diffeminated at the Revolution by Locke, at the Acceffion by Hoadley, and a hundred years before either, by Hook"principles, which you fay, are as falfe as "mischievous, as inconfiftent with common fense 66 as with all human fociety, and which reVOL. II. 66' quire er; D "quire nothing more than to be fairly stated, to "be refuted." The pious poet, Herbert, I think tells us, that "A verfe may catch him, who a fermon flies." Why then should you discard verfe, when you intend to catch fuch careless readers as would be apt to fly a fermon? Why, by dividing your dif course into five methodical heads, thould you make it appear as formal as the graveft pulpit-lecture ever delivered by old bishop Beveridge, or young bishop Bagot? I proteft, Mr. Jenyns, I cannot account for this ftrange proceeding. However, that fuch fort of readers may read you, I have attempted to do that for your benefit and theirs which you would not do for them, or for yourself and unequal as I am to the task, have dreft up your two first, and as I think, principal topics, in as easy and fashionable metre as I was capable of writing. I know you would have done this much better. But, as my work is but a fragment, I am not without my hopes, that what I have done may be a fpur to your indolence, and that you may be tempted not only to correct, but complete it. But But when I say that I have verfified you, I take a pride in boasting, that I am not your mere verfifier. I take a pleasure too in owning, that you yourself led me to attempt a nobler fpecies of compofition. I had read, fome years ago, your very delectable Eclogue of The 'Squire and the Parfon, written on occafion of that glorious peace, the honour of making which, is to be infcribed one day (may it be a late one!) on the mausoleum of the Earl of Bute. This, Sir, led me to think of giving my prefent performance a dramatic caft, fo far as an Eclogue can poffefs that title. On this idea, having refolved to make you my TITYRUS, I had not far to feek for a MELIB EUS. A brother writer, who has of late endeavoured to diffeminate prin ciples, fimilar to fome of yours, with unnufual, though abortive induftry, immediately occured to my imagination. And as immediately I refolved to read his more elaborate treatise, in order to enable me to execute my plan with greater exactitude, and better preservation of sentiment and character. Although I must own, that this exercitation of my patience coft me many a yawn, yet I found, to my great fatisfaction, that this writer allowed for true, what you hold to be falfe, those two first principles of Mr. Locke, that men are equal, and Laudes, quam Calabræ 1 Pierides: neque Si chartæ fileant quod benè feceris Mercedem tuleris. Quid foret Iliæ Mavortifque m puer, fi taciturnitas Obftaret meritis invida Romuli ? Ereptum n ftygius fluctibus Æacum Virtus, & favor, & lingua potentium Vatum divitibus confecrat infulis. What tho' Earl Temple got a name, By making John the Painter peach Will all the Jackals of Jack Ketch A man, I know, may get a penfion Say, Johnson where had been m Fingal, The chieftan had been nought at all, A non-existing non-existence. Mac, like a n poet stout and good, 40 45 59 First plung'd, then pluck'd him from Oblivion's flood, And bade him blufter at his ease, Among the fruitful Hebrides. 55 cafioned the noble bard's exaltation; as it was thought expedient to have another poetical placeman in readiness to celebrate the final overthrow of the American rebels. Nay, it is assured, that a reverfionary grant of the office of laureat has in this inftance been fuperadded to the treasurership, yet with the defalcation of the annual but of fack, which the Lord Steward calculates will be a confiderable faving to the nation. A |