The two next were afterwards inserted in the public prints, and said to be the productions of some of Mr. Garrick's friends:-- "Thou essence of dock, of valerian, and sage, At once the disgrace and the pest of this age, The worst that we wish thee for all thy d---d crimes, Is to take thy own physic, and read thy own rhymes. --"_The Junto._" _Answer to the Junto._ "Their wish in form must be revers'd To suit the doctor's crimes; For he who takes his physic first, Will never read his rhymes. --"_Another Junto._" This was too bad, and the Doctor sent the following answer to one of the papers:-- "Ye desperate Junto, ye great, or ye small, Who combat dukes, doctors, the devil and all, Whether gentlemen scribblers, or poets in jail, Your impertinent curses shall never prevail: I'll take neither sage, dock, nor balsam of honey: Do you take the physic, and I'll take the money. --"_Anti-Junto._" Like his brethren of the sock and buskin, our English Roscius was honoured with much attention from the public prints. They gave us critical examinations of his powers, and critical disquisitions upon his defects; from an enumeration of which it was proved, clearly proved, that he would never be a good actor. The remarks of these ingenious gentlemen were soon forgotten: the testimony of an applauding public answered and refuted them. By way of antidote to these poisons, it must be acknowledged that Mr. Garrick's friends nearly surfeited the town with injudicious praise. Their flattery was gross enough to have disgusted any other man; but he had been so accustomed to strong doses of panegyric, that he could at last swallow them double distilled. I have said that he was an actor by choice; I might have added, that he was always an actor. Goldsmith's lines in retaliation are a true portrait: "Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff of a dunce--he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous almost to disease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind: Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, ye Woodfalls so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave! How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you rais'd, While he was be-Roscius'd, and you were be-prais'd! But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, To act as an angel, and mix with the skies," etc. The ode to the memory of Shakspeare, which he wrote and spoke at Stratford, with many weak lines, has some that show strong marks of a fervid imagination and vigorous mind. To instance the following: