English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 18th century
I have writ 'Charity,' not for popularity, but as well as I could,
in hopes to do good; and if the Reviewer should say 'to be sure the
gentleman's Muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace and
talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the taste
and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the modern
day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a
tittering air,'tis only her plan to catch, if she can, the giddy and
gay, as they go that way, by a production on a new construction: she
has baited her trap, and hopes to snap all that may come with a sugar
plum.'--His opinion in this will not be amiss;'tis what I intend, my
principal end, and, if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are
brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have
said and all I have done, though I have run many a time, after a rhyme,
as far as from hence to the end of my sense, and by hook or crook, write
another book, if I live and am here, another year.
I have heard before of a room with a floor laid upon springs, and such
like things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in you
was forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming
about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight,
without pipe, or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a
rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and, as you advance, will keep
you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till
you come to an end of what I have penn'd, which that you may do, ere
Madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave,
and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from your
humble me.--W. C.
XVII. THE QUAKER OF ART.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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