Shall I, who spar'd no rhimes or jokes *
King + to address, and Martin Folkes,
Shall I nor Epic trumpet blow,
Nor doggrel bagpipe squeeze for you;
For you, that laugh at party fashions,
And give sage answers to my passions,
Who keep the mind so round, and sleek
That nothing thrown by fate can stick§ ;
For you, that with such ease command
In various arts your head, and hand;
Whether with chisel, saw, and square,
Shelves you erect, and desks repair;
Or Popes, and Kings to fame consign
With paper horn, or tooth canine || ;
Or, with expressive chalk, and coal,
Can sketch the air, and paint the soul;
The Richmond poets to improve,
Can etch Miss Fanny, and her love.
Madam besides perhaps will frown,
And hold me a mere College ¶ clown,
If no return I make in numbers
For codlins cream'd, or stew'd cucumbers,
And smiling welcome which transmutes
To ortolans brown bread, and roots."

After these playful, and lively openings, he offers the portrait of himself; but first paints the land

* Here he alludes himself to his comic vein.

†The host, Lord King.

President of the Royal Society.

"Responsare Cupidinibus, contemnere honores
"Fortis, et in seipso totus teres atque rotundus,

" Externi ne quid valeat per læve morari.”

Mr. Wollaston and his friend Mr. Graham took impressions of medals in horn, into which they rubbed stiff paper (white) or card made of a dog's tooth put into a handle; and by this contrivance they made ornamental imitations.

It should seem that he had not then left College finally.

scape

scape in a more elevated measure of the verse, and proving, that, if he had followed his blow, he would have written descriptive poetry with spirit, with grace, and with a poetical ear. The description is incorporated with allusions to London, which prove that he had begun to reside occasionally in town.

He then makes his Friend ask him, in language full of humour, and comic satire, why he is not gravely ambitious—a Politician, a popular Divine -a Justice of Peace-or an Attorney. He makes this answer:

"My dearest Friend, for reasons more than one
Those crowded roads to wealth, and fame, I shun.
Retir'd from honest toil, by fortune bless'd,
On me his care, his hope, my father plac'd*,
Child of his age; nor thought it wise to spare
What many a Plumb would grudge his booby heir.
By Walker† taught Pelides' ‡ wrath to read,
And Philip's arms by Attic thunder staid,
With nobler truths my opening mind to store
Me Cam receiv'd upon his learned shore.
The Freshman there no greasy gown did wrap§;
Gold were my tufts, and velvet was my cap§;

* Causa fuit pater his

Sed puerum est ausus Romam portare docendum
Artes, quas doceat quivis eques, atque senator
Semet prognatos: vestem, servosque sequentes
In magno ut populo si quis vidisset, avita
Ex re præberi sumptus mihi crederet illos.

Hor. lib. i. sat. 6.

+ Thomas Walker, LL. D. of whom there is a mezzotinto Portrait, was Head-master of the Charter-house School, while Mr. WRAY was a scholar there. He died in 1728, having been in that situation above 48 years.

‡ Romæ nutriri mihi contigit atque doceri,
Iratus Graiis quantum nocuisset Achilles.
Adjecere bonæ paulò plus artis Athena.

Hor. lib. ii. ep. 2.

Those badges of the Fellow Commoner form in this passage

a line worthy of Pope in cadence, and poetical effect.

In state my dinner I cum Sociis eat,

And loll'd on Sundays in the rev'rend pit;

Thus plac'd, who saw me well might judge my Sire Some Bank Director, or wide-acred Squire.

"But, not content with ease, and science, there, For classic earth I long'd, and Baian air: My mother from my fond embraces torn, Whom I must ever honour, ever moura, Though loth to part, yet studious to prevent My faintest wishes, wept, and gave consent."

The widow was therefore living, at the period here stated, and probably died soon after he commenced the tour. Her weeping consent is a picture; and we have here some insight into the amiable character of his affections.

He then describes the scene from which he writes in lines full of spirit, but closing them with his favourite nymph Euphrosyne.

Here too my jokes I crack with high-born Peers,
And club testons* with future Knights of shires.
King, Darcy, Douglast, my free sallies bear,
Nor Marlborough's Heir disdains my chaise to share.
Return'd, my sum of crotchets to complete,
Amongst the sages of Crane Court § I sit.

*

The passion too, which did the boy engage,
Assum'd new vigour with my ripening age:

* A foreign coin.

+ Lord King, Lord Holdernesse, and Lord Moreton.

This, I apprehend, was Charles Earl of Sunderland, who became Duke of Marlborough in 1733, and was the father of the present Duke.

§ The Royal Society, into which he was received in 1729. To this early connexion with philosophical habits and companions Dr. Berdmore alludes in his Oration before mentioned: "Philosophy received him into her bosom, then a young man, " by admitting him into her fellowship of Royal institution."

The

The passion for the Muse-Still as ye roll,

My years respect it! nor untune my soul *;
While whims thus various fill'd my labouring brain,
Say, could I court the Chiefs in Warwick-lane?
For barbarous Norman lose my Tuscan change,
And through the Law's wide lab'rinth puzzling range †?
Could I bow low, a rustling Scarf to get,
To a fool's head beneath a coronet :
And, long to coxcombs used to give no quarter,
Praise vice and folly circled in a garter?
With a pad nag and books at my command,
To buy a Borough, should I sell my land§ ;
With panting lungs || ambitious to debate,
And fast at Westminster, to dine at eight¶?

* *

**Just where the fancy leads, I stroll about,
And ramble with associates, or without;

At Ripley's fabrics laugh, or feed my eye
With Rysbrach's bust, or Hogarth's Charity;

* Here it should seem that he was fond of the Muse; yet strange it is that, except those vers de société, an inscription at Wimpole, and a few lines to be given in the sequel, we have not a verse of his hand; and I had not as yet recovered one syllable of his prose, till I received his Letters from Lord Hardwicke. He had a modesty and reserve peculiar to himself: nor is it improbable that he burnt volumes, thinking them trifles. † Admirably expressed.

Pope would not have disowned these lines; and they are very like him.-I recollect a verse by him :

"Bare the base heart that lurks beneath a star."

§ He had, therefore, inherited an estate in land. This alludes to his constitutional malady.

"Alius eloquentiæ fiducid prolabitur, alius patrimonio suo plus imperavit quàm ferre possit, alius infirmum corpus laborioso oppressit officio: quidam urbanitatem nesciunt continere, nec periculosis abstinent salibus: omnibus his utilior negotiis quies." SENECA de Tranquillitate.

**

quacunque libido

Incedo solus.

Hor. lib. i. sat, 6.

From

From the Comptroller's boat survey the piers,
Or gape at rattle-snakes, and Greenland bears*.
With rambling tired, with gazing satisfied,
Now Rawthmell's† awful curtain opens wide ‡,
To seat me in that friendly-jarring train
Who bow the knee to Pellat's gentle reign,
Where Birch displays his candid vehemence,
Keen to collect, and eager to dispense,

And where a Ca'ndish, tho' no Chatsworth lord,
Would charm with taste and sense the listening board.
My day with Peers and Claret now I close,
And factions in our little Rome compose;
On Bourchier's friendly summons I attend,
And to a nipperkin of Port descend:

The charms of science now with Folkes I taste,
Enlarg'd by freedom, and by friendship grac'd.

When Summer calls, the empty town I quit,
And Tony § with his cloak-bag all my suite:
Ride whether North or South, to Queen's or Yartie,
Or at Knoll Hills || complete the stubborn party.
Forgive, dear Friends, if it exceeds my power,
To push your interest, or increase your store.

* This points at his passion for Natural History. †This man kept a Coffee-house on the North side of Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, much frequented by Dr. Mead, and other Literati at that time. There is a very scarce satirical Portrait of him, in the character of Pun, by Vertue, engraved at the expence of some of the Members of the Royal Society who frequented the Coffee-house.

The several boxes in a Coffee-room were at that period separated from each other by a curtain; a custom now obsolete.

§ A servant who remained with him to his death.

|| A romantic little scene in Derbyshire, the favourite summer's retreat of Mr. Nicholas Hardinge, my father, and sold by me after his death to Sir Robert Burdett, grandfather to Sir Francis, whose property it now is.

Happy,